ImageCo :: little blog…big thoughts

A few years ago my career went through a rough patch and I was laid off from my job as a web designer. My prospects for a new job were slim so I made the decision to start my own business but it was slow going and I ended up selling my house to make ends meet. It was a very low point for me and at the time I thought it was the worst thing that could ever happen. After selling our house we made the decision to move to a new city where we bought a tiny affordable fixer-upper, and while my wife worked on building our home I got busy building my business.

My first priority was an office; but rather than shelling out a bunch of money to rent one I opted for sharing space with an existing business. This worked out great because I was fortunate enough to find a large web design company that had an empty office and also allowed me access to some very savvy business people that were willing to take me under their wing and provide advice when I needed it. Their generosity was instrumental in helping my business become successful.

After a few months my wife and I still missed our old friends but we were content in our new home and were starting to become part of the community. We joined a small church and my wife had volunteered at our sons pre-school. One day my wife had a chance encounter with another mother at a park and she told her the story of how she adopted her two children through the foster adopt program. We’d been discussing having more children and this chance encounter put us on a path we could never have anticipated.

Several months later my business had taken off and while we liked our new town we really missed our old friends and made the decision to move back. We ended up purchasing a larger, nicer house in our old neighbor only two blocks from our best friends. Within a short while we enrolled in classes to become foster parents. Our goal was to bring home a baby that was open for adoption and one day we got the call, they had a 6 month old baby girl for us! Then the foster care worker told us that it was actually a package deal and if we wanted the little girl we’d have to also take her 2 year old brother. We told her we’d think about it and give her a call later that day. Well we thought about it for all of 15 minutes and called her back and said yes. The end result is that our family of three quickly became a family of five.

Aidan, Lucy and Tyler

I look back at this time in my life and have come to realize that my life wasn’t always what I wanted it to be but it was what it needed to be. When you’re at the end of your rope the only option that makes sense is to start climbing, and sometimes the only way to build a better life is to lose the one you have.

For me the hardest part of running a business isn’t getting customers, it’s getting the right customers. I do all of my marketing on the web so everybody that sees my website is a potential customer. I rarely meet people face-to-face so I have to rely on certain tells a customer provides via email or over the phone. Herein lies the challenge of choosing the right customers. I’ve chosen my share of bad ones so I’ve developed a sense for which customers might not be worth pursuing. Here is a list of the type of customers I try and avoid.

The hit my hidden bulls-eye customer

You know exactly what you want. If that’s really the case then you don’t need a designer you need a lackey who knows how to use illustrator and take orders well. Usually customer’s who “know” exactly what they want actually just “think” they only know what they want and once you’ve done the work they end up realizing how bad it is and then want something else. It just ends up being a long painful process for me and the customer. I’ve been a designer a long time and in leaner times I’ve taken on a few of these projects but it’s hard to do somebody else’s design work when the other person doesn’t know what they are doing. I’ve never had one of these projects go smoothly or turn out well.

Design is a weird business in that you constantly run across people that think that recognizing talent is the same thing as having it. I recognize delicious food when I taste it but I’m not a chef, I’ve read really good books but that doesn’t mean I’m an author. If I used a scalpel instead of a pen do you still think you could walk me through your nose job? Wanting plastic surgery is a million miles away from being able to do it. Obviously being a designer isn’t the same as being a surgeon, but bad design, like bad plastic surgery, can really damage your appearance.

The spec customer

You’d like to see some sample designs to see if I’m a good fit. That’s called spec work and doing work on spec is just bad business. No designer should do it and if they give into it then they do nothing but devalue their services and hurt the design industry as a whole. It’s kind of like letting me dig in your yard to see if I strike gold for you. I understand wanting to test drive a car before you buy it but spec work is more like having someone build you the car so you can take if for a test drive.

The pipe dream customer

You don’t have the budget to pay me my full fee on this project but you’ll have a ton of work for me if I give you a deal on this one. How about you make up the difference by giving me foot rubs and washing my car.

The delusional pipe dream customer

Your business is going to be huge and I’m going to get great exposure! In other words you’d like me to do it for free or next to free and your inevitable success is as good as gold. Sounds great but I’ve got an even better idea. How about this, you pay me double my normal fee and when I become as famous as Andy Warhol and charge thousands of dollars for a doodle on a napkin you can brag to your friends about how your generosity was instrumental in my success.

The great deal customer

You’re looking for a great deal! I once had a guy send me an email stating “I’ want the best design at the cheapest price”, I emailed him back with the response “I want customers with low expectations and deep pockets” . That was the end of our correspondence. I like good deals just like everybody else but good deals aren’t the same as cheap deals. There are a ton of dirt cheap designers out there but more often than not people that go that route usually end up with irrelevant and ineffectual design. I’ve gotten some great deals on eBay but I’ve also been burned on eBay as well. The difference though is it’s all been stuff that doesn’t effect me in the long run. bad design keeps on giving long after you get it. A forgettable logo design won’t help you brand your business today or a five years from now.

The snake oil customer

You sell something I personally wouldn’t buy or wouldn’t want somebody else to buy. The work I do helps people sell their products, their services and their ideas and by designing their logo, their label or their website I’m endorsing it by association. You’ve probably heard the acronym WWJD or What would Jesus Do?, a great question that I do occasionally ask myself but the acronym I live by is WWMMS or What Would my Mom Say?

Here’s an example of a project I couldn’t get behind, I had an author that wanted me to create a website to help him sell his new how-to book, cool I like books, I’ve even read a couple. The problem with this book was it was written to help recovering alcoholics become social drinkers again. It could be the very worst idea for book that I’ve ever heard of. That’s like saying you can teach people how to be safe drunk drivers. So if the product you need help selling is Adult Videos I’ll have to pass; Adult Diapers on the other hand, that’s something I could get behind.

As a designer these are the main types of customers I try to avoid. At least these are ones that came to mind as I was writing this. Did I miss any? Let me know…

I get an email about once a week from a student who’s been given an assignment by their instructor to interview a working designer. The email I got today reads: I am a graphic design student at RIT and as an assignment we need to “interview” a designer. I was wondering if you might take the time to answer these 10 questions inquiring about your field of work…

I generally don’t respond to these requests because it just cuts into an already busy day. But I thought if I did this one time on my blog I could just refer students to this post in the future. So Jessica in response to your request here are the answers to your questions…

1. Did you always want to be a designer?

No. I first realized I had a knack for design in the second grade when my teacher (Mrs. Papas) pointed out that I could cut flower pedals out of construction paper better than anybody else in the class. I was always good at creative things but I always got picked last when schoolmates were choosing teams for kick ball. That was pretty much the case all the way through graduation. After I graduated I got a job working in a meat packing plant and after about a week of that living hell I decided to go to college. The only thing I was ever any good at was art so I became a fine arts major. I changed my major to Graphic Design in my sophomore year when I realized I’d probably have to go back to the meat pack when I graduated because it’s nearly impossible to make a living wage as a fine artist (especially in Nebraska).

2. How long have you been working in the design field, where did you start out?

I started working as a designer for a screen printing company in Omaha in 1985.

3. What is your favorite part of working as a designer?

I like getting paid an awful lot; next to that I probably like the point in the creative process when I begin to see a design starting to come together, that eureka moment when I think I have a design that’s going to blow the customer away.

4. What is your least favorite part of being a designer?

When my customer rejects what I think is a great design (usually happens when a committee is involved).

5. In creating logos, did you have one in particular that was most challenging to create?

I can’t think of any one particular design but their are certain types of projects and certain types of customers that can present a challenge. The projects that sound really cool and fun when I take them on are the ones that typically take the longest to do. The customers that are the hardest to please are the ones that I don’t deal with directly or are made up of committees.

6. What has been your favorite logo design?

It’s always a toss up between the one I’m working on or the one I just got paid for.

7. How long does it generally take you to create a finished logo?

I like to have at least a week or two to work on a logo design. At any given time I’m juggling 8-12 logo projects which works well for me because I prefer to rotate designs because whenever I set something aside for a few days I gain a new perspective on it when I start back in on it.

8. How many people work in creating one logo for your business?

Two, myself and the customer.

9. How many logos might you be working on at one time?

Answered.

10. Do you enjoy your job?

Yes I do, very much so; beats the heck out of working in a meat pack.

Can I get an order of fries with that logo?
There seems to be a trend in the business world that has spilled over from the fast food industry, the package deal. Consumers love package deals almost as much as the marketers that come up with them. They offer the feeling that you’re getting so much more for your money when in reality what you’re getting is a meal without all the complications of actually having to think about what you want to order. In the end what you’re paying for is someone to think for you, what you’re getting won’t be nourishing and likely won’t make you very happy.

I have three kids and I can tell you that a Happy Meal is not a great deal. It’s a burger, a soda, some fries and a worthless piece of plastic they call a toy that your kid will play with for all of five minutes and then throw it on the floor so you can step on it in the dark and hurt your foot. What a bargain! I’ll take three…

The platinum logo package, the gold logo package, the silver logo package…

Fancy names, empty calories. They psychology behind this type of marketing fascinates me, nobody ever offers a bronze package because everybody knows that bronze is the medal the losers get. Supposedly if you fork out the big bucks for the platinum logo package you’ll get more of everything; more designers, more logos to choose from and more revisions. I think more often than not that what people end up buying is more cheese burgers. If you’re really lucky and you win the logo lottery one of those cheese burgers will end up being a steak.

Drive through logo design…mmmm…

I need a logo…now! Corporations have done a fantastic job of training consumers to think that they deserve instant gratification. I have a lot of people that want their logo designs delivered fast, (the other guys say they can do it in three days) and I try and explain that speed isn’t really conducive to good design. Good logo design takes time because unlike the production of a Happy Meal it’s a process that has a different outcome for every customer. A good logo design isn’t just about what looks good it needs to fit your business, it needs to reach beyond aesthetics and work on an emotional level. To achieve that kind of result in a logo design takes time. You can’t take an assembly line approach to designing a logo and expect a design that captures the essence of the image you want your customers to have of your business.