August 31, 2006 at 11:02 pm · Filed under Competition, Design Industry, Pricing, Redhu
This was recently announced on the openBC website:
openBC will be re-launching its website with a fresh, new design later this year. Beginning this week, you can have your say in the process that will lead to our new look & feel. Check out the Designer’s Journal and see how the new design evolves. The openDESIGN Challenge calls on designers to come up with better designs than ours for openBC’s most important page – the personal profile page – with €10,000 to be won for the winning entry!
Please see the About pages for more details.
The above was followed by this:
31/07/2006 | Full speed ahead for the openDESIGN project
The search for the new-look openBC has begun in earnest! A lively debate has been instigated where anyone who wants to have their say can join in. After all, it is about the future design of openBC no less. We are sharing our current “work in progress” in the Designer’s Journal, where you also have the chance to post comments on our various ideas. Your feedback will then be taken into account as our design evolves. Web designers and agencies are also invited to take part in an additional competition: They can submit their own design entries in the Challenge Galleries, presenting their ideas for a new profile page design, which the online community can then discuss and vote on.
We are delighted by members’ active involvement so far and are looking forward to the finished result we will come up with together!
The webpage where they are conducting the above is here – if you want to read more to determine for yourself whether this involves spec.
This is spec. Because:
I had help on the above article from the people over at NO!SPEC – in terms of composing the text – I was not sure whether the “comeptition” was spec work so I wrote to them and they were kind enough to write to me in detail.
Popularity: unranked [?]
August 26, 2006 at 7:54 pm · Filed under Article, Design Industry, Pricing, Redhu
I know it depends on a “lot” of factors and each case is quite different, but there are some common factors that decide our decisions to work with a particular client. And yes, as a designer, you do have a choice to say “No”.
The Project
This involves sub-factors like what industry is the client from [ whether you want to work for that particular sector or not - for example an arms manufacturer ], what does the company do, how long has the company been in business [ whether you want to work with established companies or start-ups ], what are the deliverables of the project [ whether the deliverables fall within your scope of work, if they do fall outside your scope of skills are you willing to learn more without charging the client for learning time - this would depend on the client's timelines too.
Also, whether you are now specializing in your portfolio focussing on a particular deliverable like ONLY Corporate Identity design and whether the client is offering that same kind of project or something else ].
Another area where I NEVER take projects is speculative work. If the client tells me that I have to submit mock-ups before the client decides which designer to work with, I just say “No Thank You”. Sometimes if a client seems agreeable, I do send them a link to the NO SPEC website – but most clients will not appreciate that and you can be assured that they are never coming back to you.
What the client thinks of designers and creative people
If the client tells you, “I like your work – it is more business oriented than creativity oriented – most creative people have this tunnel vision and don’t know what they’re doing – they’re so focussed on the creative part of the job!”, then you need to weigh other options and take a call – what if during the course of the engagement the client turns around and tells you, “You’re acting like a creative person now.” It’s a danger signal – and there can be many others – you need to keep your eyes and ears open and then decide which signals are the strongest.
Money
This is a very important factor that will affect your decision. While some clients will readily pay your the money that you ask for [ without negotiating even once ], there will be some clients who will want to negotiate till cows come home. And there is no way of knowing which category a client falls into till you reach the stage where the client gets back to you on your quote. This is a gamble and only with experience one starts to see the signs that tell you before the quote whether the client will negotiate till cows come home.
For example, a client who has been forthright with you from the start – she tell you she likes your work, she tells you she isn’t speaking to any other designers, she tells you who referred her, she acknowledges the receipt of your e-mail, she returns your call – she is most probably not going to negotiate hard. If there’s a client who tells you in the beginning that they have a start-up when you can see on their company website that they have been in business for at least seven years, then you know you have someone who doesn’t want to pay for your time and effort. Most real-life clients aren’t as simple to decipher – we’re all human beings after all.
As a designer, what you need to decide is what you bottom line is – once you’ve assessed the project’s requirements, you need to decide what your ideal charge would be and give that to the client. [ Here ideal charge means, what you think you're worth - in a perfect world with a perfect client. ]
If the client agrees to that amount, you know you’ve got a fantastic project coming up and you know it will be one of your best works till date [ it's difficult to acknowledge, but the money is important and one of those forces that make a designer happy ]. If the client lets you know that the quote is “way beyond” what they were expecting, the ideal thing to do would be to ask them what their range was, if they tell you, you will know whether this project is something you’ll consider doing or whether it’s a no-go.
Always appreciate those clients who tell you that their range was 1/10th what you quoted – al teast they had the guts to ask for something they wanted! If it’s a non-profit organization, do the work for free – you’ll probably end up with some of your best work.
Whether you will be able to show this work in your portfolio
Sometimes, you will get clients who are offering you terrible work – you know from the start that they want you to copy someone else’s website or brochure and to top it off, they’re paying you extremely well – you need to decide first of all whether you want to do this project. If you do decide to do this project, [ which could be because of various reasons - you're an independent designer and have had a work slump for three months now - your bank reserves are running out or whatever else ] you will most probably decide not show this project in your portfolio and maybe never mention it on your blog or any place related to your work. Again, this is a call every individual designer has to take.
Then there are client who don’t want you to show the particular project in your portfolio EVER. Some projects require that you do not disclose the details for a period of time [ could be anything from six months to three years if the client is reasonable ]. In this case, again, you need to decide whether you can stay off talking/showing this project in your portfolio or not.
More than anything else – it’s all about a “gut-feel” – if the project / client doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. But in all cases, it will be a combination of various factors that will affect your decision. The biggest enabler is to know that you have a choice. To say “Yes” or “No”.
Popularity: 1% [?]
August 12, 2006 at 11:35 am · Filed under AMERICAS, Case Study, Icons & Web Design, Projects, Redhu
I recently complete my first e-Commerce website template for AHHA and Store builders.
This is how the project progressed:
The brief was short and sweet – something fun and bright and cheerful for consumer electronics client – something quick and easy. Since I had not designed an e-Commerce template earlier, I basically had a clean slate to start with.
The client sent me the following to give better layout guidance :
With the above in mind, I exchanged some notes via Yahoo IM text chat and got down to dirty sketching and the following is the first draft that I came up with to confirm the direction. This was the first time I was doing this and needed to ensure that the iterations could be controlled.
The feedback I got on the above was that the colors were just not right – needed to be more “fresh” and “bright”. And some layout instructions about the menu. The second iteration provided the following draft.
The above was sent to the final client for approval and was approved within a couple of days. I then had to work specifically on the buttons on the navigation and the “Buy” and “Add to Card” buttons and some containers. The following is what was sent next to the client.
The feedback on the above was that the “Aqua” button effect had been done to death and I needed to try something else – with some additional designs on the containers at the bottom. I was also asked to create a more “finished” design layout as this one wasn’t polished enough to be final. [ I had actually submitted this to be the final one 
].
The fourth iteration led to the following design draft for the e-commerce template.
The one above was pretty much finalized – needed to add a place fo “related products” and to finalize the navigation links look and names. The following one was the final file that got approved at the client’s end. I received the balance 50% payment with this submission.
And the image below is the final Photoshop file that I sent to the client. Click on it to open a larger image in the same window.
Following is some detail from the template:
Some other details regarding this project:
- From the date of receiving the first 50% advance, this project took a total of 8 working days to complete.
- The remaining money was paid BEFORE I transferred the final Photoshop file.
- I received money using Western Union Money Transfer.
- The client had worked earlier with other designers on similar projects.
- This is the first time I have actively asked a client for a testimonial after project completion.
- I had a GREAT client to work with!
Popularity: 1% [?]
August 8, 2006 at 11:45 am · Filed under Article, Design Industry, Document, Icons & Web Design
Very good image / diagram that explains the process of web design engagements. The same can apply to the logo design process as well. From Mark Rushworth’s blog. Very nice of him to share.
Here’s the image – broken down into two. [ I was initally planning to tweak it a bit according to how I work - but thought better of it - this image is comprehensive enough ].
The second part:
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