I'm trying a different approach to this week's podcast. Instead of talking about a single subject related to running your home-based graphic design business, I'm going to share 12 random graphic design tips with you. Even if you already know these tips, I'm hoping that talking about them will jog your memory and get you thinking about them again.
Here is an outline of the graphic design tips I cover on this episode. For the full discussion be sure to listen to the podcast.
When a client tells you there's a deadline to submit artwork to a third party, you should contact that third party to find out how strict their deadline is. In most cases, those deadlines have been padded to accommodate potential problems with artwork submitted by non-designers. Since you are a professional designer they may allow you to submit the artwork at a later date.
In last week's podcast episode I mentioned how to find and extract logos from PDF files from specific websites using Google's Advanced Search. This tip is simply to contact a company's head office for the files you need. It's much faster for you to talk to them than getting your client to do it.
If your client doesn't have a head office you could instead contact the sign company they used to make their storefront or to put their logo on their vehicle.
If you want a client's honest opinion on a design, show it to them in black and white. Showing it to them in colour could influence their opinion one way or another. Showing the design in black and while will allow them to look at the design itself. Once they are satisfied with the design you can move on to colourizing it.
If you find yourself having to explain to clients over and over how to do things on their website's CMS you should think about recording short videos of the tasks. This way you only have to do it once and if the client forgets they can simply re-watch the video. To do this I use software on my Mac called ScreenFlow.
Keep a strict chain of command. When dealing with clients that are made up of a committee or a board, insist you deal with only one person from the group. If anyone else contacts you for any reason simply redirect them back to the contact person.
Don't allow your clients to set the times for meetings. Instead, you should give them a few time options to choose from. A client will be less likely to cancel a meeting if it was set to your schedule. Plus, by setting the schedule you are letting your client know that you are in charge of this project, not them.
If you ever meet a client at a bar or restaurant to discuss work, insist on buying their drink and food. This will subconsciously put them in your debt and could help in their decision making regarding you and their project.
Sometimes when you copy text from a word processor into another program you may end up with some strange characters or coding. To eliminate this problem, open a plain-text email, paste the copied text into the email, then select and copy it again. All the strange characters or coding will now be removed.
Find and Replace is an often overlooked powerhouse when it comes to formatting text. Learn the advanced techniques for this tool and you could save hours of mundane text formatting on future page layout projects.
Suggest to clients that they register multiple variations of their domain name as well as multiple domain extensions and redirect them all to the one main domain they plan on using. For example; The Ant & Aardvark Club may use the domain antandaardvarkclub.com as their primary domain. But they should also register variations such as theantandaardvarkclub.com, antaardvarkclub.com, antandaardvark.com, antaardvark.com, etc. Good practice would be to also register the .net, .org. .ca and any other pertinent extensions for all variations of the domain.
Similar to Tip 10: Look at competitor's domain names and register the variations yourself and point them towards your own website. If anyone types in one of the variations they end up on your site instead of your competition. Do the same for your client's sites.
If you are ordering anything for your client that you may find useful, order extra for yourself. For example, if your client ordered t-shirts printed ask the company to send you a couple of extra shirts without any printing.
You could also tag on personal orders with client orders to save yourself some money. If you design a postcard for a client, design a second one for yourself and order them together. Some printers will charge less when multiple orders are combined. Charge your client the regular price and use the discount for yourself.
Let me know your tips by leaving a comment for this episode.
Submit your question to be featured in a future episode of the podcast by visiting the feedback page.
This week’s question comes from Crystal
How do you schedule clients who are in different time zones? I have clients all over the United States and Canada, and none of them are in the same time zone as me. I find myself working late just to accommodate my clients who are 4.5 hours behind me. Is there a functional way that I can schedule my clients so I don't have to work until midnight?
To find out what I told Crystal you’ll have to listen to the podcast.
Resource of the week Awwwards.com
Awwwards.com is an inspirational site I use to see what innovations people are doing in web design. Awwwards.com states they're a meeting point, where digital design professionals from across the globe find inspiration, impart knowledge and experience, connect, and share constructive, respectful critiques. Give them a look the next time you want ideas for your next web project.
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Running a graphic design or web design business all by yourself isn't easy. If there are any struggles you face running your design business please reach out to me. I'll do my best to help you by addressing your issues in a future blog post or podcast episode here at Resourceful Designer. You can reach me at feedback@resourcefuldesigner.com
If you want to get super technical, a design portfolio is a flat case, preferably made of leather, that is used for carrying, drawings, artwork, photographs and other designs.
At some point in history, the paper contents of these flat cases took on the verbiage of the container and they too became know as an artist’s portfolio.
Nowadays, with the advent of online galleries and such, a design portfolio is simply a collection or a sampling of an artist’s work, regardless of the means or medium used to present them.
Taking it down to it’s most fundamental level, a design portfolio is simply a way to say “look at me, see how great I am, you should hire me”.
A design portfolio is a way to showcase what you are capable of doing in the hopes of impressing potential clients to want to work with you.
Let’s face it. You may want to deny it, but deep down we all know, we designers are a conceded bunch. And that’s OK. If we didn’t think we were good enough we wouldn’t be in this profession. Nobody says “I don’t think I’m a good designer but I’m going to start a design business anyway” No! We’re all doing this because we believe we’re good at what we do, and we like having people confirm that assumption. Why else would we showcase our work for everyone to see? And what better confirmation than having a client hire us for a job.
We’re no different than the proud peacock displaying his plumage in the hopes of attracting a mate. We just do it to attract work.
That’s it, really, there are no other reasons to have a portfolio.
The short answer is no, you don’t. I use myself as an example. My own business website has been “Coming Soon” for several years now. During all that time I have not had a visible portfolio, and yet I’m running a very busy and successful design business mostly through word of mouth referrals.
In fact, during the past year, I can count on one hand how many times I was asked to provide samples of my work before a client hired me.
Could I attract more work with a visible portfolio? I’m sure I could. But I just want to point out that a design portfolio is not the be all and end all of your marketing efforts. It’s a great tool to have, but it’s only one of the many in your toolbox.
I hear this question a lot. Especially from newer designers just entering the field. And it’s a valid question. Even if a portfolio isn’t a requirement to be successful, it sure does help to establish yourself, especially at the start of your career. And it can help you attract clients.
Whether you have a physical or a digital portfolio, and if you want my recommendation you should have both, the contents within should represent your best work. The culmination of your skills and talents.
This answer is simple. It comes from anywhere and everywhere you can get it.
Remember when I said that a portfolio is a way of saying “look at me, see how great I am, you should hire me”? That means your design portfolio should contain things that showcase how good you are.
A portfolio shouldn’t be a showcase of “look who I’ve done work for”. Although there’s nothing wrong with name dropping well-known clients, providing the work is actually worth showcasing.
What potential clients are looking for when they look at your portfolio is whether or not you have the ability to help them. They’ll be able to judge that regardless if the samples you show are for real or fictional companies.
You see, the work within your design portfolio should display your diversity as a designer. It should demonstrate the skills you possess. It should show your knowledge of good layout, colour theory, and design technique.
It doesn’t matter if the work you’re showing was something you did for a client, something you made in school, something you did for fun for yourself, or something you designed specifically to go into your portfolio. As long as it demonstrates what you have to offer, it’s good.
And yes, you can showcase work you did while working for a previous employer as long as you don't have an agreement with them stating otherwise.
Showcase what you have, when you have it.
As your career progresses and you design newer and better things, you simply replace the older pieces in your portfolio with new ones. or in some cases age isn’t what matters, you replace your previous good designs with your newer great designs. It’s as easy as that.
The best design portfolios I see are the ones that are sparse in what they show.
When building your portfolio. Show only a handful of your best work in each category. Be confident in the few you display and keep a few more aside in case a client asks for them.
The worse thing you could do is to show too many samples. Showing a few samples invites the viewer to admire what you have to offer. Showing a large number of samples invites the viewer to criticise your work and find flaws in what you have to offer.
Keep it simple. I the client wants to see more let them ask for it and then tailor the extra samples specifically to their needs.
Simply, don’t display anything you don’t want to do! If you don’t enjoy designing logos, then don’t include logos in your portfolio. If you’re not into web design then don’t display any websites you’ve created.
This should go without saying, but unfortunately, I see this all the time with new designers who include almost every school project in their portfolio regardless of their lack of desire to do many of them.
If you’re an artist who draws robots and science fiction scenes. Don’t include the cutesy teddy bear drawing your mother guilted you into doing for your cousin Millie’s baby announcement. Because if you do, it’s almost guaranteed that’s the kind of work you’ll be asked to do.
When was the last time you looked at your portfolio? Could it use updating? Have you designed anything really good lately that should be included? Why not take some time this week to go over it? It might just help land the next client that looks at it.
What are your thoughts on design portfolios? I’d love to hear about it. Leave me a comment for this episode.
Submit your question to be featured in a future episode of the podcast by visiting the feedback page.
This week’s question comes from Marselo
Can I Buy Adobe Photoshop outright? I want the Adobe software but honestly I am a bit lost with all the monthly payment options and extras that are offered. So what is the "common practice"? or what are most freelancers doing in general?
At the moment I am using Photoshop, Illustrator and Premier Pro but I ideally would like to buy all of them as you know we are continuously expanding and experimenting with new things as we never know what the future holds.
To find out what I told Marselo you’ll have to listen to the podcast.
Tip of the week Google Advance Search
This is a simple little trick that has helped me out fo a jam many times over the years. If you find yourself in need of a certain company's logo and don't want to jump through hoops trying to get it. Use this trick. In the Google Search Bar type "site:companywebsite.com" followed by "filetype:pdf". What this does is return search results displaying all PDF files at that particular domain. Open the PDFs one at a time until you find one with a good looking logo (you can usually tell by zooming in). Download the PDF and open it in a program such as Adobe Illustrator. If you're lucky you will have a perfect vector logo you can use.
You can also accomplish this by visiting Google's Advance Search page, but I find simply typing the paramaters into the regular search bar is much faster.
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Running a graphic design or web design business all by yourself isn't easy. If there are any struggles you face running your design business please reach out to me. I'll do my best to help you by addressing your issues in a future blog post or podcast episode here at Resourceful Designer. You can reach me at feedback@resourcefuldesigner.com
Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Using Holidays to Build Your Graphic Design Business. But bare with me. I’m not talking about drumming up business while on your family vacation. Although if you can, more power to you.
I once gained a client while on vacation. The owner of the campground where my family and I were staying mentioned how he wanted to increase his marketing. I offered my design services and I ended up doing work for him for a couple of years until he sold the campground.
But I digress,
When I say you should use holidays to build your graphic design business, what I’m talking about is promoting the actual holidays themselves.
You see, holidays are a great way to promote your business and excite your clients. And it’s not that hard to do.
Christmas is obviously an ideal holiday. Most people and businesses send out greeting cards and have special promotions around that time of year. If you can get in on the action you can make yourself a nice little income around just that one season.
Then there’s Valentine's day. Mother’s and Father’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day. Think about it. Is there an Irish Pub in your area? Why not see if they would be interested in a direct mail campaign to send out Happy St. Patrick’s Day cards to everyone in their area? Include some coupons and their business could be booming.
But there are many other holidays throughout the year that get overlooked. And if you are creative enough in your pitch, it’s not that hard to convince new or existing clients to try something a bit different.
For example. President’s Day in the USA or Victoria Day celebrating the British Queen. Businesses sometimes do special promotions around these days and they all need material designed.
What about Remembrance or Memorial Day depending on where you are in the world. It's a special day to remember fallen soldiers and to honour all who serve. Maybe you could design a poster for your clients so they can thank soldiers for shopping at their establishment.
Now maybe your thinking, Mark, that’s crazy, I’ve been designing for years and none of my clients have ever done anything for Memorial Day, or Family Day, or Labour Day, or whatever day.
That may be true. But here’s the trick. You need to remind them to do it. Most businesses are not thinking that far ahead. By the time Halloween, or Easter or Independence Day rolls around it’s too late for them to do anything. So it’s your job to remind them in advance.
Create a calendar or spreadsheet listing all the holidays and send out notices 6-8 weeks before any given one to remind your client of the upcoming day. Make sure you ask them if they need your help getting their material ready.
Don’t forget to contact other businesses as well, ones that are not already your clients.
If you contact someone asking if they need anything designed for, let's say, Dia de los Muertos the Day of the Dead. First off, you are reminding them of the upcoming holiday. And second, you are introducing yourself and letting them know about your services.
Even if they already do work with a designer, there’s a chance they may agree to work with you because you brought the idea to them.
Sometimes, the best way to attract new clients, or get work from existing clients, is to tell them they need work from you. It can be that simple.
Now, this isn’t really a new idea. Special promotions and handouts around popular holidays have been done for years.
This is why you need to get creative. You see, there are A LOT more holidays or special days than just the main ones I’ve been talking about. In fact, there isn’t a single day that goes buy that doesn’t have some significance to it.
Don’t believe me, visit Days Of The Year and spend a few minutes looking through their calendar.
For example. Thursday, February 9th, the day I’m releasing this episode is considered, Pizza Day, Toothache Day, Read in the Bathtub Day and Safer Internet Day.
Take a second to ponder those occasions… Do you have a client that could have done something for Pizza Day? Any dentists in the area that might have sent out a special promotion on Toothache Day?
There are literally hundreds of interesting, innovative and crazy days you could promote.
If you or one of your clients works in a special niche, you can probably find a bunch of days suited specifically to that market. Take for example anyone working in the dog niche. Such a person may be interested in.
I have a client that runs a hearing aid clinic. I’ll be sure to let them know about May 31st which is Save Your Hearing Day. Maybe I can design a newspaper ad, or a window poster, or a mailer helping them promote it. Can you see the possibilities?
Don’t forget the longer stretches like Credit Education Month, Hobby Month, Get a balanced life month. Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, Native American Heritage Month or Human-Animal Relationship Awareness Week.
As you look through the Days of the Year calendar you’ll see many weird and fun days to take advantage of in order to build your graphic design business.
So look at the calendar and pick a few fun occasions. Then contact both new and existing clients and let them know about the special days coming up and offer them your design services for...
This year, why not use holidays to build your graphic design business?
Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode.
Submit your question to be featured in a future episode of the podcast by visiting the feedback page.
This week’s question comes from Andrew
Mark, you're very knowledgeable about so many aspects of being a home-based graphic designer and obviously very good at running your own business (not to mention the podcast). Tell us what you're not good at? ;)
To find out what I told Andrew you’ll have to listen to the podcast.
Resource of the week Brand Colors
Brand Colors offers the official Hex Code colours for the world’s biggest brands. Companies like Amazon, Android, British Airways, Dribbble, PayPal and so many more. So the next time you are looking for colour inspiration of are in need of matching a top brand, have a look at what Brand Colors has to offer.
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Running a graphic design or web design business all by yourself isn't easy. If there are any struggles you face running your design business please reach out to me. I'll do my best to help you by addressing your issues in a future blog post or podcast episode here at Resourceful Designer. You can reach me at feedback@resourcefuldesigner.com
Every industry has its own language, design is no different. When talking to clients we have to remember that they’re not part of our industry and if we’re not careful we may scare them away.
I remember the first time I realized this. A potential client called to discuss a possible job. We spent about 30 minutes on the phone talking about the project and figuring out the best way to go about it designing it. I gave him some ideas and he pitched in his thoughts. At the end of the conversation, the client said he wanted to move forward with me and we made an appointment to meet in person to iron out the details.
Before hanging up, the client told me how different it was talking to me compared to the other designers he had contacted. He told me the other designers made him feel dumb because he didn’t understand half of what they said. But with me, it was like having a conversation with a friend. He understood everything I said and could picture exactly what I meant. In the end, it wasn’t the price that made him choose me, in fact, I wasn’t the cheapest bid, it was the way I talked to him that was the foundation for our new relationship.
We completed that project and that client is still with me today.
There’s a valuable lessen there. If you try to make yourself sound important by using industry jargon all you’ll end up doing is alienating your client, making them feel dumb and they may not want to work with you.
Our washing machine recently went on the fritz. It would go through the wash and rinse no problem but when it came to the spin cycle it just stopped. After a while, the washer would say the load was done but the clothes were still dripping wet.
I called a repair guy, someone I’ve used successfully several times in the past. He came in, diagnosed that it was some actuator or something or other that was causing the problem and ran some diagnostic tests. He replaced a part that I couldn’t even pronounce and said a bunch of mumbo jumbo that left my head spinning. The part didn’t fix the issue so he put mine back in and told me I needed a new motherboard (finally a word I understood), and that it wasn’t worth replacing, I would be better off purchasing a new washing machine.
The repair guy left and I had no idea what the issue was other than it was going to cost me a lot of money. The guy made me feel dumb which I didn’t appreciate. And I didn’t know if he had spouted all of that jargon specifically to confuse me or not. Either way, I lost my confidence in him and called a second repair guy to come have a look.
The second guy came in and had a look. He pointed out the same suspected faulty part but he told me it’s a sensor that reads the rotations of the washer drum. Every time the drum spins that part registers how fast the turn took and relays that information to the computer. Once a certain number of rotations have completed it tells the computer to stop spinning to complete the cycle. He then proceeded to explain to me, in words I understood, the processes involved to complete the wash cycle. He replaced the same part the first repair guy did and explained that in order to make sure it worked properly he had to run it through several cycles first, something the first guy hadn’t done. After a calibration and a few successful cycles he told me to test out the machine for a few days and if it continued to work he would bill me for the part and his labour. If the machine failed, he would remove the part and not charge me for it.
Long story short, the machine is now working fine and I understand exactly what the second repair man did because of the way he explained it to me.
As for the first repair guy, he may have thrown a lot of big words at me which made him sound like he knew what he was doing but it also caused me to second guess him and seek out a different opinion.
Take a minute to think of all the design related words we use in our business. Words we take for granted because we use them on a regular basis.
If a client contacts you for a 64-page booklet you may want to ask him the following questions.
If you design for print, you probably understood all of that. But to a client, it’s a foreign language. You need to learn how to say all of this in a way they will understand but also without sounding condesending.
Clients will be much more appreciative if you use a language they understand. It’s the concept they need to know, not the industrie’s terminology.
If a client contacts you for a new website you may want to ask him the following questions.
Again, this could leave a client’s head spinning.
It might give them the impression that you know what you’re doing, but it won't give them the confidence to hire you.
I’m an advocate for builing relationships with your clients. It’s the best way create loyalty which in return brings recurring work and referrals. Now think about your every day life. Do you have any meaningful relationships with people who make you feel dumb because you don’t understand half the things they say? Of course you don’t.
The next time you find yourself talking to a potential new client, be conscious of the words you use, or if you do use industry jargon, make sure you follow it up with an explination, not talking down like you’re explaining something to a child, but simply explaining a concept to a collegue.
If you use the right vocabulary when talking to clients you may find a lot more bids and proposals ending in your favour.
Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode.
Submit your question to be featured in a future episode of the podcast by visiting the feedback page.
This week’s question comes from Tyler
In high school I combined graphic design and videography to discover the wonderful world of motion graphics. I then moved away to go to school to learn as much as I could about the industry. 4 years of tutoruals, playing in programs, and going to classes where I was ahead of the curve and I find myself in a unique situation. At the beginning of last year I felt ready to dive into the industry, I found a paid internship working for a government agency doing all of their media, design, photo and video work. After a year of interning they hired me on a 1 year contract. I have found that where I live, there is a market for what I've been doing for this government agency and I think it would be a viable business. My biggest concern is simple, I am afraid I don't have enough experience to start an undertaking like this. I know that I have the grit, and I would like to think I have the skill, but I am fairly young and I know that could scare business away. What do you think?
To find out what I told Tyler you’ll have to listen to the podcast.
Resource of the week: Think With Google's Test My Site
Test how mobile-friendly your site is with Test My Site by Think with Google. Find out how well it works across both mobile and desktop devices. The site provides you with three basic scores out of 100. Mobile Friendliness, Mobile Speed and Desktop Speed. You can then request a free detailed report by email or you can click the provided links to get a basic idea of what needs to be looked at in order to improve your site’s speed.
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Running a graphic design or web design business all by yourself isn't easy. If there are any struggles you face running your design business please reach out to me. I'll do my best to help you by addressing your issues in a future blog post or podcast episode here at Resourceful Designer. You can reach me at feedback@resourcefuldesigner.com