How to be a good client

A friend of mine pointed me to this great post on the Swiss Miss blog. Quite apt, really.

How to be a good client (PDF). By the good folks at Number17.

Where are your clients?

I just happened upon this post by Jeff Fisher, one of my creative buddies over at the HOW Forum, who speaks about the geographic boundaries often imposed by creatives upon themselves. In the post, he expresses surprise that so many creatives think they have to restrict themselves to their specific location:

Huh? I don't think I got the memo about the Federal government building walls around local communities to keep designers, writers, photographers and others trapped in their hometown environments.

Admittedly, when my initial Internet presence went live in 1998, my website was intended to primarily serve as a portfolio for a predominantly local clientele. I wasn't expecting email requests for information about my services from potential clients across the United States - and then from around the globe. Suddenly there were no restrictions to the target market for my business. In the decade since, 80-85% of my business has been for clients outside of the State of Oregon.

He makes a great point. I, too, have had great success with clients from around the country as a result of maintaining an active Web presence and being active on forums, e-mail lists and the like. But one thing I'll add is that, in my mind, there's a lot of good to be said for working with local clients. For one thing, it's often easier to make solid connections, since you get instant face-to-face contact. For another, I for one find that collaboration is much easier when you can get face time with a client - as wonderful as the Internet and cell phones are, it's just no match for being in a room with someone hashing out what needs to be done. And for yet another, I just happen to enjoy supporting my local economy.

All this said, I don't think that focusing on either is really the best choice. Currently, I'd guess my clients are about 50% local/50% non-local. The key, in my opinion, is not to rule either out, but to figure out who you want to attract, and then set up your communications to speak to those specific people - and then set out looking for those people.

Triple Bottom Line: Marketing and personal responsibility

There's a great post on Seth Godin's Blog about marketing and personal responsibility. Yes, it's old (June 14th, to be exact), but it's a good one, and one that hit a personal note with me.

When I made the decision to become a designer back in 1996(ish), one of the things that became very important to me right out of the gate was this question of getting the paycheck vs. doing what I felt was right. As a result - not that I had the opportunity - I refused to ever work for a cigarette company, no matter how much they would offer me. When I accepted a short-term freelance gig at a marketing studio that counted both an environmental agency and a major oil company (not kidding!) as their clients, I made it clear that I would NOT do work for the oil company. I made what were, for me, tough choices - and choices that went firmly against what well-meaning folks told me I "should" be doing.

I stand by those choices - and I still make them today. And you know what? I'm doing just fine.

"Disarming" difficult client requests

I just got turned on to this great entry from Ideas on Ideas about dealing with, ahem, challenging client requests.

Among the requests:

• Can we make the text bigger?


• I'll know what I like when I see it.


• My neighbors/wife/cat don't like it.


• Someone in accounting mocked-up a really neat idea for this.

If you're a designer, you've probably heard these (Lord knows I have); if you've worked with a designer, you've probably SAID these. And I have to say that the author shares some good ideas, especially in responding in a way that looks outside the knee-jerk reaction (really - your accountant? hmm.) and gets to the root of what most of these requests are - an attempt by the client to communicate what you want to your designer when you don't necessarily speak the language.

This is the thing that some designers tend to miss in their haste to be annoyed at the client's comments; oftentimes if you look past the specifics, what they're really saying is that something isn't quite right, and they need your help figuring out what that is and fixing it. Sometimes the only thing you can think of is "I think this should be blue" when what you really mean is "this color doesn't feel right to me; I want something more friendly/steadfast/elegant, etc."

It's a pretty good read, for designers and non-designers alike: check it out here.

Green Design Dialogues at Green Options

Green Design Dialogues on Green Options

Recently, myself and a bunch of other designers got together for Green Design Dialogues, an article series that my fellow HOWie Megan Prusynski is putting together for the green blog Green Options.

Along with myself, Bryn Mooth from HOW magazine, Eric Benson from renourish. Eric Karjaluoto from smashLAB and Design Can Change, Jess Sand from Roughstock Studios, and Megan talked about our experiences with green design, as well as our thoughts on where design needs to go in order to really head in the right direction.

A quick excerpt from the article:

Each designer's journey to sustainability is unique, and we've all had our stumbling blocks along the way. We discussed that each person approaches green living and green design differently, making different tradeoffs and decisions. It was certainly apparent to all of us that our industry was changing, and the green design movement was certainly getting traction. Eric K suggested that the surge of interest in green design stems from An Inconvenient Truth. What began as a grassroots movement has become a mainstream dialogue that is leading to action and change.

Check out the full article here.

"Being Green" as a Marketing Tool: is it Enough?

The other week's discussion of Dreamhost's decision to purchase carbon offsets being marketing-driven got me thinking about a recent discussion I had with Mike Harder, one of the founders of Boloco (which, by the way, is doing some really cool things) about the whole idea of marketing oneself as a green company. The question raised: is being green enough of a reason to convince people to use your company? Oddly enough, I don't think so.

Here's the thing: the zen kitchen is a green company with a fairly strong social mission, and I want to work with companies that have similar values and missions, both as a service provider and as a customer. But beyond the values lies another key component which, in fact, actually comes BEFORE the company's mission and values - do I like what the company does? Are they providing a product or service that a) I genuinely need, and b) is good quality?

The same holds true for my clients' expectations of my business; I can be as green as I want and they love me for that, but the main reason clients work with me is because a) I'm a great designer, and b) I get really excited about their business, and they pick up on that. It's that extra level of commitment to their needs that gets me the business - the green thing is just gravy, and helps me weed out the clients that aren't in line with where I see the zen kitchen going.

Mind you, I'm still green, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Theatre as design training?

I don't really talk about this TOO often, but I didn't start off my career as a designer. In high school, I discovered a love of the theatre that I have (in a much more limited capacity, admittedly) to this day. I switched schools my junior year to join Hope High School's Theatre program, and I chose Rhode Island College for undergrad because their theatre program was considered one of the best in the country. And I was pretty darn good, too, if I must say so.

But somewhere in the middle of that, while working at Kinko's in my second year of college, I discovered that design was, well, kinda fun. And I was darn good at that too. And so, given the choice between taking on a career in theatre (where I'd likely never Make It Big), and a career in design - well, you can already tell where this is going.

But a while back now, I was chatting with a reporter for an interview that appeared in one of my regional newspapers, and we were getting into the whole history of who I am and where I've been, and he asked me what I did with my theatre training, and why I wasn't doing it anymore. I think the answer I came up with was that I still do presentations and public speaking on occasion, and I worked my theatre training into those activities - but honestly, that felt lame, and it didn't feel true to me.

The other day, while chatting with a new client about what I do and how I work, something hit me that I haven't been able to shake, and it has been making me smile all this week. I realized that what I do for my clients is actually incredibly similar to what I did as an actress, and I love design for all the reasons that I loved acting. Great design tells a story, and creating a great brand is really no different than creating a great character - it's up to you to get inside that character's (or in this case, a business's) head, figure out what their story is, and play out that story to the audience watching it. That's what I loved about acting - not just the attention (because, I mean, COME ON) or the applause, but the fact that I had an opportunity to literally experience what it was like to be someone else for a while. And now, I get to do that again, but this time, I get paid better for it and I don't have to stand in front of a room full of people and explain why my headshot doesn't look like me (which, by the way, is because I've seen exactly TWO pictures of myself that actually looked anything like me in person).

So, how can you (as a designer) bring a bit more theatre into your design work? By asking yourself, and your client, the right questions - and remembering that ultimately, you're doing this to tell a story. It's your job to find out what that story is, and who needs to hear it - and to tell that story visually in a way that means something to the people watching. The Creative Brief is an important part of that story, as is all the deliverables that come along with it - whether you're doing a full-out branding campaign, a website, or even just a simple brochure or business card. It's all about the story, and who needs to hear it.

And, every once in a while, applaud yourself when you do something really special. If others can join in too, even better.

Freelance isn't free

The other day I was hanging out on one of my many designer forums, and a regular on the forum posted a rant about a potential client who had contacted him about his services, gushed over his portfolio, and said that they'd LOVE to work with him. Sounds pretty good, right?

The problem was the next sentence in the e-mail, which read:

"Just so you know, this is a freelance position, so it will not be paid. But after this is done, we will need other materials, such as brochures and websites and flyers, and if all goes well, we will be able to pay you for those.

Now, mind, I could have some strong words to say here, but I won't go there. What I will say is that this is one of the reasons that I personally, even when the zen kitchen was just me, have strategically avoided using the word "freelance" to describe what I do.

It's that word "free," you see. It has so many connotations to it - from the idea of a freelancer being someone who lacks commitment to your business (which anyone who knows me will tell you is not the case), to the idea of a freelancer being someone who will work - well - for free. Not all clients believe this, mind you - I have several clients that I occasionally do freelance for, and they respect my work and my time, and pay me well for it - but there are enough naive clients out there that do, in fact, believe that they can get work for free from designers (and enough poor unsuspecting designers who actually WILL work for free on the vague promise of more work down the road) that being a freelancer is a ticket to being taken less seriously.

So what do you call yourself, if not a freelancer? I'm an independent designer, or I run my own design studio, or I'm a zen warrior princess. You choose.

Announcing the Center for Sustainable Design

I'm happy to announce that, according to my buddy Eric over at Re-Nourish, the AIGA has finally ventured into the sustainability discussion at http://sustainability.aiga.org/. Look for discussions on sustainable design, news and case studies pertaining to this growing field of interest to the conscience-based designer. I'm still working up some case studies for them, so look for some stuff from me, too.

Cheers!

Green Printing - Talking to Your Printer

The other day I heard from Jill Balkus of Jill Lynn Design (who really has some great work, by the way) with a question about finding green printers for one of her clients who (kudos to her) has insisted on green design and printing for their upcoming project together. The following is some advice I shared with her. I hope you find it useful!

Hey Dani!

How’s life? How’s business? Mine is crazy as always. I believe I was reading a recent post of yours on the How Forum about making time for marketing-something I can never do!

Anyway, that’s not why I’m writing. I have a client who’s a health counselor who’s interested in producing business cards/letterhead/envelopes on recycled, eco-friendly, soy-based stock. I’m sure you know some printers who specialize in this. Would you mind forwarding me a few names?

Hi Jill,

It’s great to hear from you! There’s actually no such thing as soy-based stock, but there are a number of really good options for both high-recycled content and alternative-fiber papers depending on the client’s budget. For high-recycled, I go with Strathmore Script PC100 – it comes in white and cream and it’s an exact match of the Mohawk Options PC100 (but it comes in smaller quantities). If you’re looking for somethin a bit more natural/crunchy looking, Fox River has some interesting sheets (the Confetti line is pretty good for recycled content, if I remember) and Neenah’s Environment line has a couple of nice alternative-fiber papers. Celery Design in San Francisco has a great overall list of great eco-papers: http://www.celerydesign.com/paper/matrix.html

In terms of printers, you can find a bunch of options just by doing a Google Search or looking in the phone book. Call around to a few places and ask them for more information about their shop. Some specific questions:

• Do you use vegetable-based or petroleum-based inks?
• Do you use traditional film-based plates, or are you Computer to Plate?
• Do you recycle your paper waste?

There’s a lot of good information on re-nourish as well (http://www.re-nourish.com), including information on Pantone colors that have lower levels of toxic materials.

Hope that helps!

That's a good start, but as always, that's just the tip of the green iceberg. How do you start a dialogue with your printers? What other things do you look for?

Thoughts on Designing Identities for Small Companies

This evening, during a visit to the HOW Forum, I was pointed to this terrific post at the Ideas on Ideas blog about designing identities for small companies. As a designer who has been doing a LOT of that kind of work lately, it was great to hear how another studio handles the ultimate challenge of creating identity work for the smaller company, and it gave me a ton of ideas for what I'd like to ultimately provide for the zen kitchen's clients.

A quick excerpt from the post:

Some may argue that the points above are hardly any different from what would be applied to a larger organization. While this may be true, you will find that small companies rarely have marketing and communications experts at hand to implement such efforts; thus, the designer’s role often expands to meet their needs.

Small clients have a particularly hard time remembering that their brand assets play an important role in their growth. As such, you need to reinforce brand-focused thinking. Encourage them to see their identity as more than a “one-off” project. Their brand must remain central in their operations and decision making; likewise, their identity must be implemented consistently in order to reinforce the organization’s nature.

So, so true.

I'll likely have more thoughts on this as time goes on; however, at the moment it's important that I get going.

Finding the work you love

The last couple of weeks, I gotta tell you, have been insane. I don't think I've had this many calls and e-mails from people who want to work with me since I started the zen kitchen a year ago! Mind you, this is all a very Good Thing, but it's definitely been interesting trying to manage all the new-business calls while also trying to keep my marketing machine going, work on projects for my current clients, and try desparately to get the new site up and running (which, I also gotta tell you, has been taking the back-burner a bit lately).

One of the key results of this current influx of come-work-with-me activity is that it's gotten me thinking a lot more about the work I really want to be doing. As any self-employed person can probably tell you, the reasons you go into business for yourself often have more to do with getting to choose the people you work with than just about any other concern (the first time I find myself confronted with a true jerk and get to tell him "no, thanks," is probably the happiest moment I've ever experienced as an entrepreneur), and doing work you truly love and enjoy is probably the other biggest need most of us have. So why do we so often find ourselves taking "whatever comes along" whether or not it truly fulfills us?

I'll be honest, it's fear. You get so used to the security of the weekly paycheck that when you don't have it, or you're having a slow patch and your savings is starting to dwindle, you get afraid that you'll never find work again, and you end up saying "yes" to that project you knew you shouldn't have taken. Within two weeks, you're stressed out, miserable, and wondering why you chose to go into business for yourself if this is what you have to deal wiith.

Not wanting to fall into this trap again, and being confronted by a string of people who just Didn't Get It when it came to my services and the true value I could bring to their business, I decided to develop an action plan for turning things around. I made a list of my 5-6 favorite clients and projects over the last 12 months and wrote down exactly why they were so cool. And I started noticing distinct patterns:

• All of them trusted in my talent and creativity, and hired me because they loved my work - not just because I was a web designer they met at a networking event;


• All of them had company values and a corporate culture that were in line with my personal values and interests;


• All of them paid me well and respected the value I brought to the table;


• All of my contacts at the organization were people I got along with personally;


• All of them were businesses that I was helping to succeed.

Armed with this information, I was able to come up with a list of questions to ask myself when I'm interviewing any potential client:

• Can I get behind what they're doing?


• Can I really help them succeed, and how?


• Do I get a good vibe from them? Do they respect me and what I do?


• What is their budget? Is it reasonable considering what they're looking for, and can they allocate more if it's needed?


• Can I get really jazzed about this project, or does it give me more of a "yeah, I guess I could do that" feeling?
  

Having this list on me while chatting with clients has already saved me a ton of time and stress, it's gotten me some really great clients, and helped me realize a few of the relationships I had that weren't quite working out for me. Plus, now that I have a good idea of the TYPE of people and projects that I want to be working with, it gives me even more info to start the search for clients that will be a good fit for the studio as I go into my second year.

Who are your favorite clients?

Going Back to the Creative Brief: When Clients Can't Vocalize What's Wrong

About six months ago, after a couple of client communication breakdowns that were much more stressful than I needed, I decided to implement a firm policy at the zen kitchen that all projects, with the exception of some minor production work that comes into the office on occasion, required the completion of a detailed Creative Brief. This brief, although not nearly as extensive as some others I've seen, tells me what I'm doing for the client, who the client is and how they want to be perceived, who their customers are, and what those customers need to hear from my client. The brief is still in development (I'm realizing that there are a few more abstract questions I have to add to it), but it's been one of the single best productivity tools I've found for working with clients - especially relatively difficult ones.

Every designer, at some point or another, runs into this problem: you have a client who wants a design (brochure/logo/whathaveyou). You talk to the client about the design, about their company, and all the other things that good designers talk to their clients about when you're beginning the process of creating their design. You do gobs of research and come up with what you feel is the perfect design for them. But the client doesn't like it. And they can't come up with a solid reason why - just "I'm not sure - it's just not working for me."

Recently, in the middle of a branding project that's still in development, my client, a soon-to-be online retailer of green computing products, had already chosen a logo design from the concepts that were presented to him, and we were getting ready to finalize the logo, when all of a sudden he decided that the logo wasn't working for him. He couldn't quite vocalize why, it just "wasn't feeling right." At first I was a bit anxious, worrying that we would end up having to go back to the drawing board and incur extra fees and time delays because he didn't like the logo. But after a bit of conversation, I decided to try a different approach. The following is a rundown of our conversation:

Me: "Let's go back to the Creative Brief for a moment. What about the message we're trying to convey doesn't seem to be communicated with this logo?"

Client: "I think it conveys the green message well - I'm just not seeing the computing aspect of the business represented. It feels like it's just another green company."

Me: "Okay, so what works for you about the logo?"

Client: "I like the icon you created. I like the font choice and the color choice."

Me: "Okay, now what's not working for you?"

Client: "It feels like these two worlds - eco-friendliness and technology - are two separate entities that have been forced together. They don't feel as integrated as they should be. The point here is that the two worlds aren't mutually exclusive; they can exist together."

Me: "Okay, so overall it seems like you really like the logo, but you'd like to see the two concepts a bit more connected to each other. Does that sound about right?"

Client: "Yes. Exactly."

By the end of this conversation, which happened on AIM Chat (man, I love being able to use that to connect with out-of-state clients - but that's for another entry), I was able to help him finalize the logo, and we hit on the perfect design in about half an hour, with no panic on either person's end, and no need for extra time or fees. Before I started using my Creative Brief, I found it near impossible to deal with situations like this, since I could never quite figure out what to say. With the Creative Brief, I have a specific set of criteria I'm looking to fulfill with my design, and I can start examining the design against the criteria one by one to figure out exactly where the problem is.

A good Creative Brief doesn't have to be complicated - for most projects, a few questions are enough:

1) who are you?
2) what do you do?
3) how do are you viewed now?
4) how do you want to be viewed?
5) who are your customers? what are they like?
6) what ONE message do you want to communicate to them? (the best designs keep it simple - say one thing and say it clearly)
7) how do you want them to feel when they get this communication?
8) what do you want them to do or think when they get this communication?
9) what's your budget? (yes, you should ask this)
10) who's providing content (text/images/etc.) for this?
11) what are the specific things you need done? Brochure, website, logo, etc.?

You can go as detailed or as broad as you want - just make sure that whatever you use works for the way you work. For example, my friend D'Lanie Blaze of Jailhouse Graphics has questions like "Coffee, Tea, or Tequila?" as part of her creative brief - a fun way of getting to know her clients that stays true to the personality of her business. The Brief available for download at Creative Latitude (which I think is the one that Neil Tortorella uses) has about 10 pages full of questions - more than I could ever think of asking. the zen kitchen's creative brief is available for download here - it's still in development, but it's worked well for me, it's an easily updateable Word document (which is GREAT for most clients - as nice as PDFs are, they're too hard to work with for most people), and the questions are pretty easy to answer for a number of clients. Feel free to grab it and use it for your own clients, or take a look at the Resources section at Creative Latitude and create your own brief.

On Research

One of the beautiful things about this stage in the zen kitchen's development is that I'm starting to see more interesting projects coming in - while there's still a good share of basic web production and ad layout, I'm starting to see more and more projects that I can really sink my teeth into - I've just completed one branding project, and am in the process of two others and a sustainability brochure. On top of that, I'm seeing more clients coming from eco/socially responsible backgrounds, which has been one of my goals since starting the zen kitchen almost a year ago now. Overall, I feel more accomplished and more creative than I have in years.

But a recent experience got me thinking really strongly about the creative process and the steps involved, and reminded me somewhat harshly of one of the biggest challenges that professional designers face: clients who visibly don't understand all the steps that are involved in coming up with great work. They think that you can just throw things together after a couple of hours (sometimes even a few minutes) of thought, and it will somehow magically be brilliant, because they think that's what it means to be good at what you do.

This is the thing: any significant creative venture, whether it's a website, logo, brochure, or new product, requires appropriate time spent doing research - learning about the company or product you're promoting, figuring out who their best customers are and brainstorming the best tactics for reaching them. Skip out on that, and you end up guessing your way through the entire project - sometimes you get lucky and you hit on something really great, but more often your designs end up falling flat, and do nothing for your client. And when that happens, the chance of that client coming back to you is significantly less than if you take the time to research the company and its customers, and use that information to come up with a design that speaks to them.

So often when speaking to clients - and sometimes even when speaking with people who work with creative professionals for a living (much to my dismay) - I find people who mistakenly believe that design is something that only happens on the computer - you talk about the project a little bit, jump right in and start designing away. In my experience, my best designs have NEVER happened that way. More often, I spend the first major chunk of time working on a project (which varies depending on the project's budget, but it's normally between 4 and 8 hours minimum) looking for everything I can find about the company and what it does; looking at competitor's sites and figuring out how the company I'm creating for can distinguish itself; talking to people who fit the target market to find out what they really need from the client's company. Then I start brainstorming - throwing words, ideas and quick doodles into my sketchbook, then filtering through those to find a few ideas that really fit the project's creative brief. Then, and ONLY then, do I head to the computer. Once I've done the appropriate research and sketches, I can turn around most concepts pretty quickly - if I haven't done research, or spent any time in my sketchbook throwing around ideas, it often seems like nothing will come out of me no matter how hard I try. It's incredibly demoralizing - like a permanent state of creative blocks.

Mind you, some jobs don't really require that much research - something where the layout, fonts, images, etc. is already predetermined, for example, really just requires you knowing where to find things and where to put them. Most production work falls into this category. But well-done research is essential to any truly creative project, no matter how small - skip it, and you're doing a disservice to your client, and to yourself.