Archive for December, 2005
December 28, 2005 at 8:24 am · Filed under Personal, Pricing, Projects, Redhu, Theory
Originally posted on 12 December 2005
I get an e-mail “Naina, would you help me out with graphic design/logo design for the business, which earns me money?”
I give them the benefit of doubt that maybe they are indeed talking about a paid engagement. So I write to them “Tell me more about your business, your requirements.”
The next e-mail I get details their requirements, what they want their website to do and look like, what they want their logo to look like. They go to great lengths to explain what exactly they want. My reply e-mail to them then details what exactly I will deliver to them and I also let them know how much I’ll charge and how I would prefer them to pay me – since most engagements involve long-distance clients.
I never hear from them again.
I wish they’d atleast be professional enough to send me an e-mail and let me know that they can’t afford me and will not be able to work with me.
UPDATE: 29 December 2005
I have recently been involved in an e-mail exchange with someone who needed some free work done and they kept referring to this particular blog post telling me what a sad person I was. They wanted a small logo done for a non-profit and since I have been busy with other [ paid and free ] projects, I declined and told them that if they needed me to do some work for them, they would have to pay me – opportunity cost. And they kept pointing out how I write a blog only because I have an agenda and not a good heart – I don’t think they read the first line of this blog post and have succeeded in completely misunderstanding what I mean. [ It's easy on the internet - misunderstanding. ]
I never said in the post above that I “will not” work for free. I just said that I hate it when people assume that I will work for them for free and create something for their business “which makes them money”. I am open to working for non-profits and have time and again replied in the positive when I have been approached in the same regard.
Why should I feel apologetic because I am busy and cannot take up another non-profit free project? [ Which basically means that I did feel apologetic in this particular case and thus did not like the feeling ] I could probably have been a bit more polite – but some people just don’t get it.
And oh! When I say that I expect them to be professional and tell me they can’t afford me – of course I don’t expect anyone to say those exact words! Since I’ve written this blog post, I have exchanged e-mails and discussed potential projects with clients and have told them upfront to tell me if they don’t want to work with me – for whatever reason and thankfully “ALL” of those wonderful people have been very upfront about their current situation. Who said a designer couldn’t get a percentage of the money that their client makes from selling their product? [ for the product for which I designed the logo! Of course subject to terms and conditions. ]
Popularity: 1% [?]
December 27, 2005 at 2:30 pm · Filed under ASIA, Icons & Web Design, Personal, Projects, Redhu
The aside website re-design is now LIVE! Go check it out! Yay!
Please point out any typos or if something does not look right on your browser/screen – I’ll be very grateful!
A very new 2006 to you!
Popularity: 1% [?]
December 26, 2005 at 6:54 am · Filed under ASIA, Icons & Web Design, Personal, Projects, Redhu
Okay people! Within the next seven days spend as much time as you want on the current aside website because soon it will no longer be the same! The re-design is almost done, the feedback has been acted upon and it’s ready to launch.
And there will be no version saved. Usually designers keep their old website designs too but in the case of the aside website, there will only be a PDF file [ which will be uploaded in due course ], which will serve as a peek into the soon-to-be old design.
The blog post that talks about the re-design in detail is this. That particular post needs to be edited too because soem slight changes in the last-claimed re-design!
Popularity: unranked [?]
December 12, 2005 at 10:08 pm · Filed under EUROPE, Personal, Photography, Redhu
This is a first [ that I know of anyway ] – at the bottom of my website front page – I do say that “you are free to copy images at your own risk” – I thought that sent a clear message to people with common sense that they would be copying the images illegally.
Some web company called choices.li copied one of my images for their news piece.
The sad part is that now only were they using the image without my permission, they also did not bother to copy the image to their server! They just put a link to my image – and obviously they did not edit the image for their use either. [ They must be slow and/or new on the internet. ]
The image that was copied:
Here’s a screenshot of the first page with my image in use:
and here’s the other page
The link to the page that uses the image is this – although I did not want to give them a link on my blog, since I did not write to them to let them know about this violation, I thought they might be using some kind of tracking software and might see some links coming from my blog. The image is not visible on the linked page now because I removed it from my server.
Had they attributed the image to my website with a link back, I might have let this go without a mention – hell! I might even have titled this post “My photograph on use on the choice.li website!” Leeches.
UPDATE: 15 December, 2005
Why don’t people get it?
I had initially changed the name of the file on my server so that a “Red x” showed on their pages and they promptly went and re-named their file too! [ After a gap of one day ]. How absolutely callous is that?
I’ve now re-renamed the file to “do-not-copy-this-image” – if they still don’t get the message they really must have marbles in their head.
UPDATE: 12 January, 2006
Well, at least they wrote and apologized. Good on them. The e-mail that I received from them informed me that the person who copied the image was a writer on their website [ I assume they have collaborative content ]. They also said that they’d take care such a thing did not happen again.
Popularity: 1% [?]
