Archive for February, 2006
February 28, 2006 at 7:40 am · Filed under ASIA, Print, Projects, Redhu
Typical dirty, quick job.
IMAGE REMOVED
Usually, I would have not started work on the job [ however quick and / or dirty ] unless I had an ongoing relationship with the client or had fixed the price/terms.
In this case, however, I have inherited clients and client-relationships and most of them are not used to paying at all for design jobs. Not even the cost of man-hours spent.
I would be doing myself a favor if instead of cribbing about the situation, I looked for the opportunities in these relationships and leveraged them to my company’s advantage. I wish the people who applied for jobs as graphic designers to work at nascent design studios realized, even slightly, how large their canvas is! This is not even the tip of the iceberg!
This post has been edited to make it more politically correct.
Popularity: 1% [?]
February 12, 2006 at 7:45 am · Filed under ASIA, Logo & Corporate Identity, Print, Projects, Redhu
[ TEXT REMOVED ] I am creating a plan to upgrade a client’s website. The client is going through changes to upgrade the company image – marketing efforts – because till date all their clients have come to them on their own and they get 80% of their business from 20% of their clients. They intend to change that – their market reach is tremendous [ all top advertising and publishing firms use the client's company for printing and pre-press jobs ] and the client company can do a lot more business than it is doing right now.
In the same spirit, the client had setup a photogaphy department about one year ago and have now also started a Creative Services division to cater to smaller clients who are unable to afford agencies for their design needs. These clients can come to them for an end-to-end solution – they do the design, the photography, the pre-press as well as the printing.
The marketing effort too is focused in that direction. For about 70 years now, the client company has been at the forefront of pre-press in India. Now they want to change that image and include services like photography, creative services and digital asset management.
So that is one huge project going on currently: Marketing material. This includes :
- corporate brochure,
- re-working the corporate identity – business cards, letter-head and logo,
- re-designing the website,
- industry-specific brochures,
- and service-specific inserts/flyers.
Other projects are :
- A product brochure for a large Indian furniture and fixtures brand.
- Hangtags for a large clothes retailing company [ which by the way is one of the toughest projects so far - somehow I am absolutely unable to think of a suitable design approach - one of the reasons being that the client-breif was not taken properly and also because I did not research hangtag design before I started the project ]. That’s what happens when you inherit clients.
- A quote in preparation for a major construction giant in India [ signage for their latest project ]
- A corporate brochure for a Finanial services company
- A recruitment brochure for the students of the B-School NITIE or National Institute of Industrial Engineering.
Hopefully, I will be able to follow-up this post with images and sketches of what I’ve been upto.
One of the best parts about this job, from a design prespective, is that now, I can take dummy prints of my designs!
This post has been edited to make it more politically correct.
Popularity: 1% [?]
February 8, 2006 at 10:44 am · Filed under ASIA, Job, Personal, Redhu
Sorry for the unannounced absence from the blog.
I’ve been meaning to post about the Bloggers meet that took place on 31st January in Mumbai, but that was also my first day at the new job [ and I still have to get myself a dedicated terminal/computer there ] hence the literal non-accessibility to this blog and hence no posts.
Work is great!
[ I'm doing the job I thought I would've been doing maybe in another 5 years time - it's like being a paid entrepreneur! ]
Once I get my own computer, I will hopefully be back to posting as regularly as earlier.
Apart from that, I am in hiring frenzy – but am absolutely unable to find anyone good enough. Looks like they don’t make good designers in India anymore [ or maybe it's specific to Mumbai ]. I’ve interview six people in the last three days – including graduates from the J.J. School of Art and the L.S. Raheja School of Arts – and each person’s work “sucked” big-time. Not one of them was professional enough to introduce themselves properly, ask me questions about the company or express any interest in the job/company/profile.
One person who evinced some interest in the profile asked me only one question “How much salary do you pay?” – they did not want to know anything about the company, anything about the job profile or anything else relevant to the job-posting – all they wanted to know about was the “money”. [ while money is an important part - I hope not everyone believes it to be the ONLY motivator ].
Sigh.
Please, some good designers now. [ Or should I say "Some designers now. Please." ] 
Popularity: 1% [?]
