I’m accepting new projects for May; get a quote

Charitable, speculative and free design work is regularly sought after in the design industry. While the terms are often interchanged, there are important distinctions between them which define whether designers should accept or refuse the work.

Free work:

There’s no shortage of people who want free graphic design work. The most common excuses are “we’re only a small business” or “we’re a start-up company”. If we’re being honest though, this is rubbish.

No retail store tells their wholesaler they can’t afford to pay for products because they’re small. No office says they can’t pay the rest because they’re only a start-up.

Graphic design is a service like any other. And like everyone else in this work, designers get paid. The expectation of free graphic design work from any business is simply unacceptable.

While it may be tempting for students or designers just starting out to undertake free work in the hope of things to come, your time is better spent elsewhere. Design some promotional work, write guest articles for exposure or contact a real charity (we’ll get to that in a minute) who really can’t afford it. Anything but working for free.

Speculative work:

Requests for free work are often dressed up as speculative, even though people have no intention to pay. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s pretend the client is legitimate in their promises to pay if they’re happy with the work. Even if this is the case, it’s still flawed thinking.

Not wanting to pay for something which isn’t right is understandable, but if you don’t have some amount of confidence in a designer, why are you dealing with them? No one hires a builder and thinks “I’m really getting a bad vibe from this guy. Some of his work looks pretty sloppy. Oh well, I’ll hire him anyway and if my house isn’t right I just wont pay“. No, you contact someone else.

Spec work is most common in the form of design contests. A client promises an amount for the winning entry and depending on the terms & conditions of the provider, is often not required to pick a winner and can withdraw their offer. There is little to no risk for the client.

On the flip side of that coin, there is little to no chance for the designer to be compensated for their time. As a result they simply don’t care. Your design project is just one of many churn and burn jobs that the minimal amount of effort will go into for a chance at payment. Good graphic designers charge because they deliver a good service.

If you like a designers work but have any concerns, speak to them! Good designers care about the work they do and are just as eager for a successful project as you are.

Charity graphic design:

Contributing to a worthwhile charity is obviously a great thing, but “charitable organisations” come in many forms. You also may not support a particular organisation.

For example… I’ve done free design work in the past for local animal shelters, one in particular when I was living in Sydney. This cat shelter was run full time by one couple and a few dozen volunteers giving their time. They took in literally hundreds of cats, paying for everything themselves and with the help of modest donations. They only gave cats away to good homes and never put a single animal down. This is an organisation that deserves help.

On the other hand, I would not work for PETA, as they spend a fortune on advertising and legal battles while killing around 90% of the animals they “rescue”. (Note: No pro/anti PETA comments please, that topic would be better discussed elsewhere.)

You don’t need to wait for the right organisation to approach you either. Go out and find someone. There are plenty of suitable organisations with dud websites or clip-art pamphlets that would appreciate the help.

Where does charity stop?

Just because an organisation is charitable, doesn’t mean they don’t have funding. There are many national and international organisations with marketing budgets who hire agencies to co-ordinate their work.

It’s unfortunate, but some advertising agencies get paid work from charitable organisations then try to get free work from designers for the project. In this situation you’re working for the advertising agency, not the charity and you should be paid accordingly.

So what to do?

If business is good and you can give some time to a charitable organisation you support, that’s obviously great. Ultimately you’ve got to look out for number one, if the bills are piling up and your flat out, you should be focusing on paid work.

How do you manage charity, speculative and free graphic design work requests? Leave a comment and let me know.

Managing charity, speculative and free graphic design requests

A little good advice never hurt anyone. If you’re looking for a few tips on how to improve your graphic design business or just a little insight into how others do things, 100 habits of successful graphic designers is worth a read. On to a few quotes from the book…

Every business has competitors and you want clients to think of you first. Though repeat projects from some clients may be few and far between, keeping in touch occasionally will help secure you in their mind for future work.

Small projects are often treated as churn and burn jobs, but every business starts small. The better the job you do on the small job, the better your chances of landing the big job down the road.

It’s understandable that clients are excited and designers are eager to begin a new project, but you can never have too much information. However comprehensive a design brief might be, whether provided in full by a client or extracted via questions from the designer, there is always more information to be gained.

Don’t stop at just a written brief, have a few conversations. The more you understand the client and the more they understand you, the better it will be for everyone.

Although good graphic design is about what works, and not personal tastes and preferences, they sometimes can’t be avoided with some clients. If you’re constantly butting heads with a client over a their inflexible preconceived ideas or personal tastes the design can only suffer. On the other hand, working with clients on a similar creative wavelength is a recipe for success.

Advice applicable to every business, but seemingly more common in graphic design. The dreaded client who hires you for your expertise, and then proceeds to tell you exactly who/what/how/where/when every little detail should be done.

The moral of the story is, make the most effective use of your time. If your job is to drive the business, leave design to the designers, and vice versa.

To close, a few shots from inside the book.

Can you recommend any good graphic design books? Leave a comment and let me know.

100 habits of successful graphic designers

How would you like your graphic design? You may pick two. By Colin Harman for “times when things just need to be explained using a spectacular Venn diagram”

How do you like your graphic design? Leave a comment below and let me know.

How would you like your graphic design? You may pick two

“A photographer went to a socialite party in New York.

As he entered the front door, the host said ‘I love your pictures – they’re wonderful; you must have a fantastic camera.’

He said nothing until dinner was finished, then: ‘That was a wonderful dinner; you must have a terrific stove.”

– Sam Haskins

An anecdote quoted from the now late photographer, Sam Haskins. If you’re a photographer, graphic designer or work in another creative field, you’ve probably heard similar comments to that of the host in this quote, I know I have.

Can you relate? What is your craft, and how often do your tools get the credit? Leave a comment below and let me know.

P.S. Surprisingly, after posting this I’ve had to delete quite a few comments calling the photographer various colourful insults not fit to be repeated here. It’s a story people, meant to be taken with a little humour. No need to get upset.

An anecdote for creative types everywhere

If you’ve never made an international money transfer, it can be a bit of a chore.

I’m sure the details vary slightly depending on which country you’re transferring to/from, obviously I hadn’t done them all, but it’s typically something along the lines of:

• The recipients banks name
• BIC / SWIFT code
• Branch name
• Their address
• Bank branch code
• BSB
• Account Number
• Account Name
• The transferring agent banks name
• Their ABA
• Their BIC/ SWIFT Code
• A week of patience
• A chunk of fees

What you need for a PayPal transfer:

• An email address

Much easier!

Confirmation that payment has been made is basically instant, and there’s one minimal fee to be paid. If you don’t have a PayPal account and are potentially looking to hire an international graphic designer or other professional, it makes life easier for all involved.

Do use PayPal for international or local business? Leave a comment below and let me know.

Why PayPal is great for international graphic designers and clients

While there’s no harm in mentioning the particular design software you use, or whatever your tools of the trade may be, focusing on it isn’t going to bring you any business.

If you’re running a website for potential clients to find, you obviously want your design portfolio, project enquiry or design quote pages, and other contact information to be readily available to visitors. This is the information clients are looking for, and the information that will get you a job.

As for what tools your using? They probably don’t know or really care for that matter. They’re looking for someone who can provide a service, not someone who has purchased a piece of software.

I recently visited a fellow logo designers blog and portfolio where, at a glace, the site seemed more about the Adobe Creative Suite than anything else. There was a prominent post on having “purchased” the software, a permanent visual element on the site stating Now using Adobe CS5! with a collection of program icons, each project description from their graphic design portfolio was signed off with Created using Adobe CS5 and was accompanied by the same icons.

What advantage is there in displaying your new tools for the world to see? There isn’t one really…

Any of the above logo designs can be created in Illustrator CS, CS2, 3, 4 or 5. New software may bring new tools and may make the process more efficient, but the end result will be identical. The knowledge held, information interpreted and the creativity used when wielding these tools however, will drastically affect the outcome.

Anyone can wield a hammer, not everyone can build a house.

Graphic design is no different. Clients won’t pay you thousands of dollars just because you’ve purchased a piece of software, if that was all that was needed they could buy it themselves. Sell your skills and ideas, not your software. Image credit.

Sell your graphic design skills, not your tools

Graphic design is all about ideas, but for every great idea there is just as often something waiting in wings to squash it. Enter the new marketing director…

Created for the independent film group, Show Off!, each illustration depicts an idea personified ( give or take… ) in the form of a popular or infamous figure and their mortal enemy.

Originally in Portuguese, I’ve done my best to translate the captions but I speak precisely zero of it. Feel free to jump in if I’ve gotten something wrong.

Presenting an idea to the accountants.

The clients lawyers.

Budget. Isn’t it always…

Input from your creative director.

International brand guidelines ( I’m pretty sure… ).

Focus group testing.

Changes to the design brief.

Deadline for the advertising campaign to begin.

Insert translation here ( I have no idea what this says… ).

A creative client.

Client wants to save the idea for later. Poor Yoko Ono, she gets blamed for everything.

Great Illustrations, poor translations…

I was going to make a witty joke using the Portuguese word for terrible when explaining my translations. It turns out the Portuguese word for terrible, is “terrible”. So much for that joke.

The enemies of ideas

I know everyone in the world has seen Crocodile Dundee and that it’s the greatest movie ever, but I thought I’d take this opportunity to answer a few questions I’ve been asked more than once when speaking with people overseas.

Believe it or not…

• I have never ridden a Kangaroo.
• Nor has anyone else, and they do not have parking spots.
• I do not have a pet Koala.
• Wild Koalas, a.k.a. drop bears, do not dive from trees to attack people.
• Yes I like vegemite. No you probably won’t.

I have never used the following phrases;

• Lets throw another shrimp on the barbie.
• G’day Mate! ( without having a laugh … )
• She’ll be apples.

If american film producers could leave the above statements out of movies, I’m sure we would all appreciate it.

Good old television.

It’s disappointing I know, but TV and movies do exaggerate some times. Hooroo*.

*Hooroo means see you later. No I’ve never said it.

Facts about Australian graphic designers

Sooner or later, later preferably… we’re all destined to be pushing up daisies. Before that time comes however, there are a few things in both my business and personal life I want to see accomplished. Here is my list to date.

Complete a project in each continent of the world.

• Australia.
• Asia.
• North America.
• South America.
• The UK.
• Europe.
• Antarctica ( can probably just cross that one off now…

Goals for my work.

• Run a blog, get work through it.
• Have my blog in the top 25,00 websites ranked by Alexa.
• Have my work published in a reputable book/magazine.
• Write / publish my own book.
• Get flown somewhere exotic by a client, anyone in Hong Kong need a designer?
• Design a Google seasonal / anniversary logo.

Personal hopes.

• Restore a classic car. If you happen to have a 67 Shelby GT500 or 69 Ford Charger lying around…
• Build a house.
• Sky Dive, the surgeon who did my hip replacements seems to think this is a bad idea…
• Go to Hong-Kong again…

How about you?

What’s on your list?

A graphic designers “bucket list”

“How much does a logo design cost?” is a question many clients ask and every designer has heard. Obviously the answer varies wildly depending on the clients needs and expectations.

An individual or small business will likely spend anywhere from $500 to a few thousand dollars on their logo or brand identity, a medium to large business might break into the tens of thousands while a multinational brand easily spends hundreds of thousands developing their brands mark.

Below are a handful of logos and the development costs of each, these figures are more just for points of interest rather than a buyers guide, obviously your needs and budget will determine the cost of your particular project, be it higher or lower than these examples. But enough of that, on with the article…

Starting with my personal logo design. Obviously I didn’t pay myself to do this, but a lot of time and effort went into getting the design right.

All things considered I expect the development to be worth around $2000 of time and effort. This is, in my opinion, around the high range of what an individual such as myself or a small business might spend to develop their mark.

East Lindey District Council, $16,000. ( It’s not a great design I know, just focus on the price point. )

The University of Southampton, $590,000, no wonder an education is so expensive.

Once you reach this point you’ll inevitably find people saying “wow! half a million dollars for a logo!” All manner of “designers” also come out of the woodwork saying they could have delivered the same result for a mere $50.00.

The reality of course, is that the final mark didn’t cost half a million dollars, the months of research and development did. While this is a serious amount of money to be sure, if a company is netting tens of millions, hundreds of million or possibly billions of dollars a year, spending half a million to get your branding right suddenly doesn’t seem so much.

The London 2012 Olympic Games, $660,000, which despite being a fairly horrible logo seems about on par price wise, for an international event of this scale.

The latest in a long line of Pepsi rebrands, $1 million. Their total roll out of the new brand apparently costing $300 million.

Edinburgh, $1.65 million.

The current Starz logo mark and accompanying campaign supposedly totalled around $25 million.

Finally Posten’s recent rebranding, weighing in at a whopping $55 million dollars. This obviously includes roll out costs, but what a bill for a postal service.

Had a logo designed?

Was the quote/bill what you expected for your level of business? Do the feel the end result was appropriate value for money? I’d love to know.

How much is that logo in the window?

Gathered from around the internet, here are 40 quotes from graphic designers, a few artists, a scientist or two and some odds and ends.

A little inspirations for your creative career.

Paul Rand

Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.

Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated.

Without aesthetic, design is either the humdrum repetition of familiar clichés or a wild scramble for novelty.

Without the aesthetic, the computer is but a mindless speed machine, producing effects without substance.

Form without relevant content, or content without meaningful form.

The designer does not, as a rule, begin with a preconceived idea. His idea is the result of subjective and objective thought, and the design a product of the idea.

In order, therefore, to achieve an honest and effective solution he necessarily passes thought some sort of mental process … Consciously or not, he analyzes, interprets, translates … He improvises, invents new techniques and combinations.

He coordinates and integrates his material so that he may restate his problem in terms of ideas, pictures, forms, and shapes. He unifies, simplifies, eliminates superfluities. He symbolizes … abstract from his material by association and analogy.

He intensifies and reinforces his symbol with appropriate accessories to achieve clarity and interest. He draws upon instinct and intuition. He considers the spectator, his feelings and predilections.

Sol Sender.

The strongest logos tell simple stories.

Sol was also the head creative behind the Obama 08 logo development, check out this post for a 15 minute video interview with Sol and some great insight into the project.

Milton Glaser

To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.

The real issue is not talent as an independent element, but talent in relationship to will, desire, and persistence. Talent without these things vanishes and even modest talent with those characteristics grows.

Computers are to design as microwaves are to cooking.

Scott Adams

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Design is knowing which ones to keep.

Daniel Boorstin

An image… is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution, corporation, product or service.

Emil Ruder

Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty.

Primo Angeli

A great trademark is appropriate, dynamic, distinctive, memorable and unique.

George Santayana

Graphic design is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, abnormality, hobbies and humors.

William Bernbach

Advertising doesn¹t create a product advantage. It can only convey it.

John Ruskin

It’s unwise to pay too much, but is worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little – that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do.

The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot, it can’t be done! If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better.

Salvador Dali

Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.

Freeman Thomas

Good design begins with honesty, asks tough questions, comes from collaboration and from trusting your intuition.

Albert Einstein

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

Roy H. Williams

In marketing you must choose between boredom, shouting and seduction. Which do you want?

Vincent Van Gogh

Great things are not done by impulse, but a series of small things brought together.

General George S. Patton

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn¹t thinking.

George-Louis De Buffon

Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience.

Samuel Butler

Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. If you look at it to admire it, you are lost.

Charles Brower

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a joke or worried to death by a frown on the right person’s brow.

Bernice Fitz-Gibbon

Creativity often consists merely turning up what is already there. Did you know that right and left shoes were thought up only a little more than a century ago?

Michelangelo

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

Douglas Adams

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

John Updike

Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right or better.

Picasso

Picasso was in a park when a woman approached him and asked him to draw a portrait of her. Picasso agreed and quickly sketches her. After handing the sketch to her, she is pleased with the likeness and asks how much she owed to him.

Picasso replies: “$5,000.”

The woman screamed, “but it took you only five minutes.”

“No, madam, it took me all my life,” replied Picasso.

Unknown

The creative ‘act’ is a process, not a moment.

Got any more?

If you know any other interesting quotes I’d like to hear them. Image credit.

Creative quotes

While digging through the mountain of my archived study notes and projects from my diploma, I dug up a little reference guide I was given with some of the more detailed terms involved with professional printing.

I thought I’d share this for any up-and-coming designers who might still be a little unsure on what’s what. If you’ve taken an interest in this post I’ll assume you know the basics such as bleed, trim, process colour etc…

1P, 2P, 4P : 1 page, 2 page, 4 page.

4CP : 4 colour process.

4CP + 1 special : A 4 colour process job + an emboss or die-cut etc. The special may also be a Pantone colour, though this is typically referred to as a 5 colour job.

GMV / MMV / SMV : Gloss, matte or satin machine varnish, respectively.

Spot GMV / MMV / SMV : Spot gloss, matte or satin machine varnish, respectively.

UV varnish : Screen needed as a separate screen print process, may be UV lithography.

Celloglaze : Plastic film coating applied with heat and pressure.

Trim to guillotine : Straight edge cut made with a guillotine.

Knife cut : The same as a die cut.

The following terms are likely to only be useful if your providing your own impositions to your printer, otherwise this would all be handled by the printer.

Image area : The maximum area that can be printed, this is smaller than the sheet of paper.

Sheet size : The total size of the paper sheet to go through the press.

Finished size : The final size of the job once trimmed or knife cut, this can still need folding at this stage.

Grip : Leading edge of the sheet where the grippers pick up and handle the sheet.

Colour bars : Added for the printed to check the quality of his print. You might be tempted to add these to your job yourself but your printed knows his equipment best, I’d suggest leaving this to him.

Stripping bars : Added at the tail of the sheet where possible to ensure an even ink coverage.

Imposition : The layout of pages to printed a multi page document.

1 up complete : Front and back to view ( whole job to view ) imposed together, usually head to head for a work and turn job.

2 up complete : Similar to 1 up complete, except there are 2 whole jobs to view, 2 fronts and 2 backs. Can also be 4 and 6 to view if simple.

Work & turn : The job turns from left to right to flip the sheet.

Work & tumble : The job turns from top to bottom to flip the sheet.

Long or short grain paper : The direction of the paper grain in the sheet.

To see an example of this, take a regular sheet of paper and tear it left to right, and then top to bottom. One direction will tear awkwardly, while one should tear in a near straight line, this is the direction of the grain.

You’ve likely also heard terms such as set-off regarding excess ink being transferred from sheet to sheet, this occurs when either too much ink is used, or when sheets are trimmed while still being too wet. This falls entirely to your printer however and isn’t something you’ll need to manage yourself.

Printers do however have a coverage % limit, usually somewhere about 300%. This means between your 4 process colours you don’t exceed a total of 300% ink coverage.

For example, printing 100% magenta and 100% yellow forms red at 200% coverage. To print a rich black you might use 100% black 80% cyan, 60% magenta and 40% yellow totalling 280% ink coverage.

Did you find this helpful?

Hopefully you’ve gained some useful information from this, if you have any other terms you think should be included or any questions let me know.

Graphic print technologies & printing terms

Moving away from design for a moment, I thought I’d share some photos from a night out at arguable the best restaurant in Sydney, Tetsuya’s. If you love your food and/or live in Sydney you might have heard of the restaurant Tetsuya’s. A few years ago we celebrated my birthday there and thought we might do the same again in a little over a months time.

I expected there to be a wait before a booking was available, Tetsuya’s has won countless awards and is considered one of the best restaurants in Australia, if not anywhere. Hoping for a booking in late March I was told the first available table was in September… a mere 7 month wait. It must still be good…

Tetsuya’s serves a 13 course degustation menu, which changes from night to night. When we dined we received 3 entrees, 6 mains and 5 desserts, and I managed to take a photo of each course. If you love your food or are looking for a special night out in Sydney, read on, hopefully you’ll get to enjoy it as much as I did.

You’ll have to forgive the poor descriptions, they don’t do the courses justice, they’re all I could muster from 5 year old memories. Enjoy.

Entrees

A single oyster in a sweet marinade with chives.

I think the glass on the left was along the lines of bread-pudding with caviar, while the glass on the right was a blood orange dish.

A small selection of treats for the third entree course.

Mains

The first main served was Tetsuya’s signature dish, herb crusted ocean trout.

Lobster ravioli.

Snapper carpaccio.

I think this was a quail.

Beef fillet with spinach and mushroom.

Another beef dish served with eggplant, tomato & watercress.

Desserts

Cheese platter.

Vanilla bean ice cream with figs.

Vanilla panacotta.

A chocolate mousse.

I forget…

A finally an extra dessert for the birthday-boy. A flourless chocolate cake with gelato.

What a night.

If you’re looking for a wonderful dining experience ( in about 7 months time… ) I don’t know of anywhere better than Tetsuya’s.

Tetsuya’s restaurant, Sydney. Amazing food

Sketching is an important part of any design project, sometimes we are tempted to jump straight into our design program with the first seemingly decent idea that pops into our heads and skip this important step.

Not the best idea.

Sketching is the most productive portion of your design project. By taking your first idea into your design program, lets say a logo in illustrator for this example, you inevitably get caught up trying to turn it into the final product.

You try a few fonts, change a few stroke weights and fills, get all your alignments right and make a few varieties of the logo. Suddenly its 2 hours later and you’ve only got 1 idea, what if it doesn’t work ? At this rate you’ll do a full days work and have 5 ideas to show for it.

A computer is a tool for refining the final product, not for designing it. In the time it takes to render a few versions of 1 idea, you could have 50 different sketches down.

Presenting sketches to a client also has its benefits. Computer generated work can appear very final, while presenting some quality sketches leaves the work open to change.

What are you thoughts?

How many sketches do you do before moving onto your computer?

The benefits of sketching logo ideas