July 18th, 2010 §
I always have a tough time saying no to designing for friends and family. It’s really hard to explain these complications to your dear grandmother who simply wants a logo for her newsletter. You could easily be misunderstood, and come across as lazy or discourteous. –Classmate
I really agree with that statement about working for friends and family. I’m sure we’ve all had experiences like that. In my last post, I made “Mom and Dad” the difficult clients that were trying to negotiate a sweet deal on a website (and many other things). Although that exact situation has never happened to me, I’ve had friends who have experienced that (my uncle offered his son $20 for $500 worth of professional photography – and got it because his son still lives at home and he fell into the “family trap”).
Working for friends and family is always a difficult situation. Many people say, “never, EVER, do it” while others say that it’s OK. And sometimes, as the earlier quote mentions, “You could easily be misunderstood, and come across as lazy or discourteous” if you don’t help out your friends and family. » Read the rest of this entry «
July 16th, 2010 §
In honor of some of the best YouTube videos about Vendor/Client relationships, I wrote up a fictional (though realistic) dialogue between a Client and Designer. I’m sure we’ve all experienced some of these things before.
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July 14th, 2010 §
One classmate wrote some great advice:
When working with some pesky clients, instead of a contract, I will simply hold on to all high res files/printed pieces until full payment is received…
I think those are excellent ideas there. I fully agree that it is always important to hold on to all high-resolution files, and completed materials until full payment is received. I’ve done this in my freelancing work as well, and have never run into a problem. Even though a client may complain about critiquing a low-resolution print design as they “can’t see the sharpness and quality of the images,” sending them lo-res images will prevent them from just printing them without paying you.
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July 12th, 2010 §
I’ve never actually worked or freelanced under a true contract. The only clients I’ve worked with have been my church – on a volunteer basis – and a few individuals. Most of the individuals didn’t request a contract, and because I was quite new to freelancing at the time, I didn’t think to create one. Also, the website I won most of my work through then (99designs.com) had their own kind of informal “contracts.”
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July 4th, 2010 §
I’ve seen a few designs lately that use all caps for their questions or body text. Although this may seem like a good design choice, it may actually be a mistake as far as readability is concerned.
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June 28th, 2010 §
Scope creep is where many of our problems with budgets and deadlines come from. Freelancer Miles Burke defines scope creep as what happens “when extra functionality or items are added into the project that weren’t part of the original specification.” (Burke, 2008, p 127). It is arguably one of the biggest project killers and tension points, and is no fun to deal with when it happens.
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May 28th, 2010 §
Sometimes I wish media design was all about just “making things look pretty.” But most of the time, I’m glad there’s more to it. Although I find great stress relief in sitting down to organize colors and images on a page and create new pieces of work that express messages, I actually find more stress waiting for me if I’ve not first put in considerable time in planning and researching my subject first. After all, Adrian Shaughnessy writes that “in its purest sense, this is what graphic design is – a thorough interrogation of a subject resulting in a graphic presentation of the findings.” (Shaughnessy, 2009, p 7).
May 24th, 2010 §
This comment on my last post prompted me to explain what I meant by “rituals.”
Hey Aaron, that is a very interesting twist on time management. I like the idea of it being ritualistic. Where you thinking because of the repetitiveness of the tasks or do you think there is some symbolic value? Maybe the value is completing the task? Below is what Wikipedia defines as a ritual:
“A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community…”
What I meant by “rituals” was basically “habits.” My waking up early every morning to work on my personal projects really has little symbolic value. The value I find in it is practical – it allows me to successfully knock out a large chunk of time on these projects early, when I have fresh energy and a clear mind. A habit of always beginning my day on time and on task helps me to accomplish far more than if I were to begin my day by planning when I would work.
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May 22nd, 2010 §
One of my classmates wrote this in a discussion of ours:
“I have always been great at setting a work plan, but it’s never easy to stick to it. I find on days when it’s hard to concentrate that packing up my bag and heading to the library is a good fix. There is no TV or video games; of course there is always Facebook wherever my computer goes, but I have the willpower to overcome the urge to update my status every 5 minutes.”
This is true. Setting up a plan or schedule is always much easier (and fun) than actually sticking to it. That’s why, as I illustrated in an earlier post, rituals – as the authors of The Power of Full Engagement put it – are incredibly important: “The sustaining power of rituals comes from the fact that they conserve energy.” (Loehr & Schwartz, 2003, p 169). If I have a task that needs to be completed and I stop to think about all the ins-and-outs of that task, I find that I waste much of my time and energy in thought and I don’t put forth my full force of effort and energy into the task at hand.
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