design value
Most designers think others are working on ground-breaking projects while they’re up to their @rse doing grunt work. Truth is, a mix of clients and projects is vital.
Here’s an exercise done to identify bad clients. It delivers valuable insights, especially if you repeat it a couple times a year.
In 2020 we lost a friend, a client and a great designer, Jack Rodgers. To celebrate Jack’s resilience we’re offering a 12 month mentoring scholarship to an emerging studio.
Apart from productivity increases there are two ways to accrue money: firstly by adding a margin, secondly by adding profit. They are different beasts and we would argue you need both to build a sustainable businesses.
Taking on a design intern can be a win:win scenario. It adds diversity to a stable design team. Designers get management experience, interns get studio experience.
When expectations are managed, designers can add value managing a client’s social media presence – but it’s not to be under-estimated or under-serviced. Much reputational harm can come from inactivity or the wrong activity.
We all know it’s easier to get more work from existing clients than find new clients. Here are three great examples of creatives doing just that…
Recently I was a guest on a Streamtime Webinar talking about DIY business healthchecks.
We discussed the reports you can pull from project management software to check valuable profits aren’t leaking.
This is the stuff I wish I had have said…
So, this is our life now – working remotely and meeting virtually. So much seems to have changed but in reality most designers still have the same services to offer the same clients.
It is unprecedented times and it’s easy to feel overawed by the scale of this pandemic. But the same way you eat an elephant – bite-by-bite, is the same way that design studio owners can survive.
Everything a designer does has impact – our work has financial, social, environmental and value-based impacts on society. It’s up to individuals whether than impact is positive, or negative.
It is part of a designer’s role to give clients a framework in which to give their feedback. A framework helps moves the feedback from the subjective ‘I don’t like orange’ to a more appropriate, and useful objective responses.