Continuing on my review of The Graphic Design Business Book on information on proposals, clients, and pricing. I will start with proposals, Ted writes, “The most important factor in the success of a design project is the bid process.” Most clients will request for a proposal (RFP), a good proposal is made up of four parts. 1. Capabilities statement - Why your company is best suited, history and past experience. 2. Project overview - What you perceive to be the scope of the work (show some thinking on your part.) 3. Technical. 4. Cost - It’s a good idea of specify exactly how many concepts the client will get to cover your butt. On writing proposals, I thought this was an insightful and very true quote, “Write in a way that comes naturally. Omit needless words. Do not overstate. Do not explain too much. Do not inject opinion. Be clear.”

Talk in ways that the clients can understand, talk the talk. Read the business press, you should be comfortable discussing return on investments. Read the Wall Street Journal at least weekly, it is written very well and you’re be learning the lingo quicker than you think. Clients sometimes need hand-holding, pamper your clients, make them think they’re always number one. Keeping clients is important for returning business, three ways to lose a client are: printing messes up, typo (hire a proofreader for large projects), the client is not satisfied with the work.

Down to the costs. Every designer knows there will always be changes! If changes were not included in the original quote and the client requests changes, do them and yourself a favor, send the client a memo before they get the bill - explain that the work is additional and was not anticipated in the contract. You can also make it clear that the changes were not included in the original quote, but as a courtesy, they won’t be charged for the costs. However, any additional changes thereafter will need to be billed.

How do you configure your hourly rate can feel like a guessing game. Here is an easy comprehendable formula: First figure out your billable hours - 52 weeks x 40 hours = 2,080. You’ll need a vacation eventually, subtract 80. Allow for five days of sick time, subtract 40. Don’t forget our seven legal holidays, subtract 60, you’re now at 1,900 billable hours. Now no designer is in anyway billable for an actual forty hours a week. Time-consuming tasks such as running errands, backing up your system, cleaning up for a client visit can quickly add up to about an hour a day, subtract a painful 230 for downtime. Now we’re at 1670 of possible billable hours. An average salary for a graphic designer runs around $45,000 a year, divide by 1670, and get an hourly rate of $27. But remember, this rate does not cover expenses, most design firms have expenses averaging at 31% of the total. Multiply it to cover the overhead, and you’ll get $8 more an hour, equaling it to $35 an hour. We haven’t made allowances here for slow periods, a common percentage of profit is 15-25 percent. Let’s pick 20 percent, adding $7, making it $42 an hour. You must also incorporate experience into the equation, so starting at $42 an hour might be beneneath some designers’ expertise.

Hope you learned something from The Graphic Design Business Book. I would encourage you to purchase this book and read it cover to cover to learn more. There are also full contracts and forms on copyrights, taxes and lawsuits in the book.

After creating a new logo for Abundance flooring, first order of business was to create business cards to hand out to customers. Simple and modern, with a faint graident. Vinyls for the car are currently being created and the website is in the works (abundanceflooring.com).

I used a cheap printer and very happy with the results: trade.grprint.com

Teaming up with eleven of the design industry’s leading experts, Ted Crawford shows beginning and seasoned professionals everything they need to know to start and run a successful business in the book, The Graphic Design Business Book. Never judge a book by it’s cover will definitely apply here, don’t let the poorly designed cover fool you!

I always enjoy purchasing new books to get further educated on my career in graphic design. But with being laid-off my budget doesn’t really allow for that. So I thought I’d give the library a try and see what they had. Most of them were a tad outdated, but I was lucky to find this insightful book to learn more about the business side of graphic design. I wanted so share some of the things that I learned from this book.

In Chapter 8, Bringing in clients, Ted talks about how you have to think about what the client wants to hear,

You call clients to see if you can help. So think “How can I help you?” instead of “Do you want to buy?”

Your purpose is to help them with their communication problem, solving problems is a valuable service and a worthwhile endeavor.

So where can you find clients? A good place to start is ad agencies and design studios to offer design, production, photographic enhancement for their overflow projects. Along with publishers and printers for getting artwork printer ready, typesetting and production. Look for potential business everywhere you go. You may be at the doctor’s office and having a hard time understanding a procedure, think could he use a brochure to explain it clearer? Someone writes down contact information for you, could they use a business card? Or if you’re handed a poorly designed business card could a newly designed card increase their business? Ted states, “You’re not selling a service so much as you’re solving communication problems… Businesses all want to improve their visibility and profitability.” Getting leads and networking to find new clients is a good way to start.

Promoting yourself to get new business is essential. It can take on many forms, a web site, creative directories, sending out mailers or brochures, mailing lists, and pro-bono work. With a mailer you could state, “I got you to notice this direct-mail piece and consider hiring me. I could help you be noticed by your prospective clients.” I would put in examples with descriptions, along with testimonials.

I will continue my book review onto the next post with information on proposals, clients, and pricing. I would definitely recommend purchasing The Graphic Design Business Book by Tad Crawford.

OffBeatEarth.com - Interesting, humorous, random art

trendir.com - Trendir is your source for latest Home Decor Products and Trends in High-End Luxury markets. Enjoy the sense of style. Identify with the best in contemporary decor!

MySmallHomestead.com - Canning, Carnivals, Farm Animals, Farm Life, Gardening

blogohblog.com - Inspiration for creative business cards

thecoolhunter.net - The Cool Hunter celebrates creativity in all of its modern manifestations. Since its inception in 2004 The Cool Hunter has become the world’s most-read culture and design site, a leading authority on all things creative and a truly global hub for what’s cool, thoughtful, innovative and original. We value global relevance, not trends, channeling our discoveries to our worldwide audience. The Cool Hunter is a natural fit for its readers - creative influences who stay in the know and ahead of the curve

Tricky questions are just known to come up in interviews. I was recently asked, “What do you want in a job?” I took a quick moment to think and responded, “To be able to create artwork and continue to better myself and learn along the way.” After the interview, I thought more about the question. I wanted to add, “To be able to be creative.”

Being a creative thinker is what makes me who I am and my work. Creative thinking allows me to think outside the box and put existing ideas together for a new idea. Internal motivation also fuels the fire underneath me for my need to be creative. Together with my knowledge and experience allows me to be a creative graphic designer.

I also want to work with other people, I think the best ideas come from when you can bounce ideas off each other. Be inspired by others or get constructive criticism, to really push your design that much further. Design is really about a collaboration. Whether it with a client or a co-worker.

That’s how I wanted to answer the question. So next time I’m asked, I will be ready to respond.

In February… North Carolina came in fourth with an unemployment rate of 10.7 percent. I was laid off on February 28th, due to the budget being affected by the economy. At first I was in complete and utter shock. First thing that raced into my mind was fear. Fear of not being able to make my recently new mortgage payment. After speaking with my mother, I learned about unemployment benefits. I just had to simply fill out a form online and update my status weekly. It’s a very easy paycheck and keeping me from having to pickup a crap part-time job while I search for a job. It’s not as much as I was making, but it’s definitely better than nothing.

I never thought I would be laid off, I thought it was the sort of thing that only happened to factory workers. I know searching for a job is rough, at least in my field. It can become very emotional, I will get excited about the jobs that are being advertised on Careerbuilder, Monster, SimplyHired, and Craigslist. Problem is, I know there’s so much competition out there. On a previous interview, I asked how many applicants they had apply while they were advertising Careerbuilder. I was shocked to hear the number 350+! Made me feel excited just to get to the interview! Then waiting starts to get to me and I start to question myself. Am I not good enough? Did I just waste my time in school? And then I will get confirmation that I am good enough when I get a call for an interview and they rave about how great my portfolio is.

And then I’m waiting for a phone call again. It’s such a rollercoaster. I try to distance myself and not get too excited until I get an offer, but it’s hard. I just hope I to get a good job with a good company and good people, with an acceptable salary in the not too distance future. There’s only so much yard work and house work to keep me out of boredom.

I had created a logo for The Tech Fellows a few years ago and wanted to redesign it. I spent some time on their competition’s website (Geek Squad), and was noticing how personal and friendly the vernacular was. After all, people coming to use their site are less likely to know all the technical language. They just want their computer fixed! Once I started getting ideas on how to revamp the website, it gave me ideas on how to redesign the logo. I wanted the new logo to be about helping the customers with technology.

I hope to start redesigning The Tech Fellow’s website very soon.

Taylor Bakes was a logo I did for a friend. We bounced ideas off each other, while looking at other names of bakeries for inspiration, for what to name her future company.

She wanted it to be fun, modern, simple, and colorful, yet muted; To relate to her style of baking. I created a simple silhouette of a cake with fun textures and colors, while keeping it modern.

Taylor currently has a food blog, Baking Arts.

I happened to stumble upon this site that shows of all of January 20th’s newspapers. I thought it was rather interesting to see all the different headlines, photographs, and layouts. Arizona Daily Star is one that jumped out to me. I like how it’s so simple with the type treatment, and how they let the photograph and his name tell the story. So many of the other newspapers just look so hectic and uninviting. Take a look for yourself: benwikler.com/news21all.html

cgtextures.com- CGTextures strives to be the worlds best texture site. Making textures should be about creativity, not about spending hours looking for the right image on the internet. I hope that by supplying good quality textures in an organized manner, your everyday work will be easier and more enjoyable.

stripegenerator.com - Tired of pixel-by-pixel painting, trying to create seamless stripes textures? Here we are! Enjoy using stripe generator! Unleash your personal style, experiment and download the tile. You can use it directly in your css file or as pattern in Photoshop®!

pandora.com - When was the last time you fell in love with a new artist or song? At Pandora, we have a single mission: To play music you’ll love - and nothing else. It’s my lazy way of listening to free music when all I have is a computer.

thinkgeek.com - ThinkGeek started as an idea. A simple idea to create and sell stuff that would appeal to the thousands of people out there who were on the front line and in the trenches as the Internet was forged. From programmers, engineers, students, lovers of open source, to the masses that helped create the behind-the-scenes Internet culture. ThinkGeek started as a way to serve a market that was passionate about technology.

As part of AIGA’s “Meet Your Neighbor” event, I got the privilege of touring and learning about Boone Oakley, a full service out of the box ad agency based in Charlotte, NC. Boone Oakley currently occupies one of the few remaining historical buildings in downtown Charlotte. As soon as you enter the space, you have no choice but to be inspired. Another graphic design firm occupied the space before Boone Oakley; So, Phil Smith, president/partner, explained they could not take full credit. I really regret not taking my camera. I thought it was interesting that they chose to intermingle the different types of staff throughout the building so everyone could be apart of the creative process.

Enough about the building you can’t see to appreciate…You want the dish on the company right?! Just to name a few of Boone Oakley’s long list of clients: Bloom, MTV2, HBO, American Heart Association, NASCAR, Charlotte Bobcats, Visit Charlotte… and the list goes on. Founders, John Boone and David Oakley, also have a long list of awards. I thought it was very interesting how they opened the presentation by stating, “We hate advertising, and we tell everyone that. What we’re after is the response.”

They showed us this billboard they put up in 2000 during the Bush election. One or two days later, they put up a banner along the bottom that read, “Job wanted: Proof-reader, hire.com”. They got so much response, even got on the news. From then on, clients have been coming to Boone Oakley asking them to do they same thing for their company. They definitely have an innovative, bold approach to advertising that never fails to impress their clients.

Their philosophy: “Do great work for people we like. Work with brands that we are truly passionate about. Not take ourselves too seriously. Have fun.” They said they have had to turn down some potential clients due the fact that they were unbearable to work with, even ones they went after because they thought they would be fun to work with, like MTV. And they would have never thought how much fun it would be to work with a grocery store like Bloom.

Be sure to check out their awesome work: Boone Oakley