www.good.is/post/ten-more-steps-to-becoming-the-designer-you-want-to-be
Donating Design …
I’ve got about 22 minutes before dinner, 45 minutes before the dogs need walking and an hour before a new episode of Top Gear, so I better get cracking with this post. I was thinking of a recent project I did not win and I thought of you AIGA’ers and design blog enthusiasts. Upon hearing of my work with another firm, I got a call to do design work. But it wasn’t a typical call—and when I say typical—it wasn’t a robo-telemarketer selling health insurance. It was a bona-fide call. But as it turns out, the call was from a foundation with a solicitation for donated work because they love my work.
Of course they mentioned that their budget is tight and they have no money, but they wanted an interesting design for their upcoming event. I suggested a fee and they declined. Which had me thinking: “do you really love my work if the work won’t support me? Would you love my work if I spent a half-hour (my available “free time”) designing your project?”
At an AIGA event two years ago, for instance, David Plunkert, of Spur Design, mentioned that even in donated work, he develops an estimate and an invoice that reflects the actual value. That’s an idea I like, because what I want more than anything (almost more than getting paid) is to have people value the work that I’m doing, even at the expense of the pesky conversation of value getting in the way. But, let’s be honest. Money is at the base of the discussion. Always. Or at least gratitude. Once, I did work and got a $100 Panera card. that was great stuff!
Four our profession, most important to the equation for donated work is engaging selectively in a matrix of work that involves either a cause that I support (Shepherd Fairey’s Obama Posters), something that allows for a breaking of a boundary (creativity, etc.), and/or doing work for a cause that can benefit from our personal effort (i.e. Haiti fundraising, for instance). In other words, one should manage donated work (printing, pr services) like one would with giving money. As it turns out, money is often easier to give. No one calls you back two or three times telling you the decimal in the wrong place.
As for serving on a board, I’ve often heard that people, no matter what the profession, say one should not do for a board what they do for a profession: meaning the lawyer shouldn’t become the legal counsel or the accountant shouldn’t stay up late balancing the books. Again, I believe that as long as one is aware, it’s a matter of personal preference. Those knowledgeable can clear the way for that board to secure those valuable services, by knowing what to look for. While experiences are different, I’ve been nominated to a committee because ostensibly I could design. And as a CEO once mentioned to me: “there are three things I nominate board members for: money, wisdom or work,” you still don’t want them looking at you like you’re the media department. Contribute in disciplines that are outside of your profession because you can extend your experience, and extend their value for the work.
It’s difficult to estimate that if you, as a great creative, contribute to a project that you may introduce the client to the value of great design. Sometimes this happens. Certainly, sometimes it does not. The client’s gratitude can evaporate as soon as the work commences. They box you in creatively. Other conditions arise. Or, other times, they may become more cumbersome than a paying client. It’s important to have a strategy towards these projects and don’t be afraid to be clear up front.
While creatives are often happy to contribute their talents to causes, be measured in how much of that you do, because sometimes firms become addicted to free work, spending all their time looking for free work, when some of the work they commission should be paid.
In an age when it’s more and more valuable for designers to embrace the inherent and latent value of their work, be mindful of your approaches when it comes to the donation of design work.
Certification?
Our friend Andy Epstein who writes the In-Howse Designer Blog Recently put out a call for certification. I replied, with my take on the history of the discussion as I’ve heard it. I’m interested in hearing your thoughts!!!
“Lack of respect is clearly the number one challenge facing in-house designers (or at least the number one complaint). Clearly there are ways to mitigate this problem including educating peers on the value of design, entering design competitions and forging personal relationships with non-believers. These tactics can only go so far, though, especially when dealing with accountants, lawyers, engineers etc. who have professionally bestowed official certifications.
So why not designers? Our profession has been negligent in its inability to establish a certification process that would be recognized both within and outside of our community. There are models that already exist, most notably RGD Ontario. It’s time to start exploring this option with our established industry organizations and get this big ball rolling.”
I commented:
“It’s a good question, no doubt.
There has often been discussions within designer organizations, like AIGA, around the possibility of certification. From the details that I’ve heard, there is a divide over the ability to implement something substantive versus the outlay of costs.
I feel that both sides have salient points and believe that the point can be debated, so that however one feels, there is an understanding of the underlying issues and, perhaps more importantly, understand one’s position in the changing design world.
I think certification is certainly useful in professions where processes have to be followed like accountants and doctors, but may be less so for designers for whom a variation in approach and style are of significant value.
The nature of change in the business of design has been so quick that the implementation time of a certification program, things may change beyond what a program can offer. In just ten years, the ability to have a viable, mobile workstation has become a reality, making a designer choice from Michigan to Minsk a reality in competing for work, that in the past may have otherwise been geographically specific. It’s a statement of the obvious to discuss how the business of designing communication has changed.
Compliance is porous even in some of the current positions the design organizations like AIGA takes. For instance, organizations regularly use spec-work to forward their business interests despite protestations of national or local AIGA organizations. Yet often designers enter contest for work they might otherwise be paid.
From what I hear, the development costs associated with the Canadian model and implementation are at least worth consideration vis-a-vis the results and are said to be beyond the ability to implement.
Lastly, the new technology of the “flat world” is more likely to tear down the walls of a guild rather than build them up.
Looking at what iTunes did to the ’90s oligarchy of the music and radio world, or what the e-book/internet is doing/has done to the printed world, one question that comes to mind is that the tools of the trade are relatively ubiquitous. But what may be less so is the notion of what design should do for its audience.
I believe we’re in a new economy and the best examples of how to find our way is to become assets to communication through understanding of the value of well-targeted design to help develop distinctive communications that create conversations. And while a requisite level of skill is assumed, being a pair of “hands” is less and less useful than developing a skill set that speaks to the work. I draw an analogy similar to dilm directors where there is no set formula for what works but a body of skills that assist an effort.
While the lack of certification, can be represented as troubling, I see the opportunity for designers to bridge the gap of viability as the same or similar whether or not certification exists.
As a working designer, I feel like it’s my job to respect myself and not fall for anything that devalues my work: crowd-sourcing models that refuse to recognize I do this for a living, not just for fun, spec-work models that obfuscate my ownership rights, and even standing up for myself versus clients demands.
While I think that while designers could benefit from higher visibility general market campaigns that targets the good of their positions to the general public of what successful design is all about, it is ultimately the rationale that we have to work at being knowledgeable about the role that design plays in the world.
And I think we have to help designers know that. I am particularly reminded of a lecture where I heard Khoi Vinh of the New York Times maintain that as the head of the in-house design staff it was his job to constantly remind the organization of the value of the in-house designers and often that meant his job was to meet with various segments and be a part of the solution to the business model. Taking that thinking into my own in-house experience, I would agree that the main task is for us to respect our work and communicate that role to the company regularly.”
—Chris Jones, AIGA Baltimore
Praying to the gods of PowerPoint
It’s funny I think, ruminating on a post I created some time ago, I remarked that a colleague ended up calling me a “PowerPoint God” because I was able to build inter-activity and influence his PowerPoint with design sense. The comment I made was made in a way hat off-handedly put down being a “PowerPoint God” as if it’s like being the chief french fry-cooker at that coveted fast-food job when I was a teen.
I won’t be so bold as to say no designer dreams of being the PowerPoint God, because I realize that’s not true. I just don’t think I ever wanted to be that person. It just so happened that a) many people might confuse me with a reasonably competent designer (pity them) and b) I happened to work with some corporate types who seem to think using PowerPoints—at least internally.
But here’s the deal: when work is slow, me, I’m pining to be the “PowerPoint God.” So much so, that maybe I’ll create a PowerPoint have an internal meeting with corporate clients that I have discussing how much of a god I am at PowerPoint. Because, when it comes down to brass tax, being a designer is about a number of different avenues in the profession, whether it’s like a colleague whom I met last night who works at The Sun creating graphics or the colleague whom I met at the MICA Flex class who works on a designer jean label.
As it turns out these are all valid entry/destinations for a career in graphic design. Do you know how I know? They pay a paycheck. You laugh, but that, in many cases, is the arbiter of success.
Quick story: I went to Loyola and at Loyola the communications track translates into taking various courses among them: journalism. In the journalism class, my professor had each student work with a local paper, researching and writing a story for the paper’s editor. Well, my turn came up and I did an interview of program in West Baltimore. Even back then I had “journalistic ethics” supposedly. As an avid fan of “60 Minutes” and Mike Wallace, in particular, I didn’t want to be a pushover for the program. I wanted to check the facts mentioned—all that stuff. So, I did all that and wrote the article and the editor, as it turns out was happy enough with the work that he gave me assignments throughout that summer. When I went back to the professor some time later (lag time between writing and the subsequent publishing) and asked him what he thought of my article.
He said: “Did they publish it?”
I said “Of course!!”
He said “Well then, it was professional.”
I thought wow! That’s a great cover for not having read it (still don’t know if he did). But more importantly, it was a singular point that sometimes the most valuable thing to be, is the thing in the mind of your customer or boss, that says “they are great at this particular job and I am willing to pay for it.” I say this, having lived the experience of the in-house designer and being the guy who could do “that thing you do”.
Sometimes, in-house designers have to struggle at quantifying their value to the company (and the profession). Somewhat isolated, internally (always a small group in a company of people) and externally (“you work on what?”), it’s often a world of other stuff that the company’s focused on and, oh, by the way, the designer’s job is to tell them to fix the leading in the brochure and they’re like what? Who cares?
Well, we do: making good communication is what we do… that’s our deification.
Perhaps the search for value and meaning means finding more of that value outside your specific job function: (Note: managers that the innovative Google allows its engineers to spend 20% of their time working on a personal passion which keeps them energized for all that Google stuff) whether that means you are freelancing a little, painting, writing blogs or whatever keeps you focused on value.
But, keep the creative fire and the resumé fresh and keep getting paid.
New Blog!!!
A new blog/e-zine debuted yesterday that is focused on providing content to the in-house design community. Appropriately named The In-HOWse Designer Blog, it is being underwritten by HOW with AIGA national participating as a partner in the venture.
http://invangelist.wordpress.com/
The Day Before …
With all the snow and cold, I was recently treated to about 1 hour of channel surfing. On the Sundance Channel I saw a segment in a documentary series called The Day Before. Through all the self-importance and posturing, I thought about how often and similar the process of cramming is for design practitioners of the graphic kinds as well as fashion.
I saw the end of one on Fendi and (Karl Lagerfeld) and the beginning of another (Jean Paul Gaultier). The self-importance of the Fendi documentary was about as much as I could stand with my fingers ready to turn the channel, but the Gaultier documentary was interesting in its ability to capture the craziness in front of a fashion show.
What struck me is how little was actually done ahead of the day before!!! Gaultier’s whole collection was rounded together in the last 24 hours. What is it about the zen of the deadline?
This has been on my mind for about a quarter since I’ve been working with a MICA flex class on assignments that—while modified—were an assignment that I received and was given 24 hours to complete. When I got the assignment I was happy of course to be paid, but then as soon as I got off the phone with the client, the first thing that happens is I begin hearing that ’24’ tick-down, knowing that the clock is ticking…. And how for the first five hours I dinked around testing various compositions, then eating and then thinking: “I’ve got to have something definitive going into the next day”… I didn’t. But, we’ve heard this story before: a little head-clearing and voila comps which went to the client just slightly after time.
Flashback to the present. What remains of that story is some decent work and the buzz of the deadline. When communicating all this to the students, I’ve focused on their creating the internal process of milestone completions that allow one to revisit and rebuild—making the design better and better as one goes along. All that works out on paper, but the “fog of war” happens and the process gets muddled.
For instance, the snow interfered with six-hour class that was the working time that gave the students deadlines BEFORE the deadline. For some this was a help, for others it was a hindrance. More time to ponder became more time wasted. I saw a documentary where a design firm developed thirty-five prototypes of a chair design before presenting it to the client and wanted to impart this level of preparation to the students, if only to prove to them that, everything doesn’t have to be a seat-of-the-pants design process.
On the other hand sometimes those iterations become the inspiration that comes together in the end. It’s all down to varying experiences and varying processes. The key is to know your process.
An example of that is the difference between the way Apple releases products and Google releases products.
Apple’s emphasis is built on hyper-preparation and testing, perhaps fueled by their failures of the late nineties (think Newton pad). On the other hand Google often can’t release something fast enough to get it to a beta stage that can then be reworked and made better. Apple rarely does this. And anytime Apple had to revisit something, it was under the prospect of negative reaction—think back to the switch to OS X or the switch to USB and firewire and the blowback that Apple received.
Google’s not found the same level of objection, often releasing products at beta (Gmail is a prime example) which then was slowly introduced to the masses.
In an article on innovation in Fast Company, Doug Merrill, a Google executive said, “The marvel of Google is its ability to instill creative fearlessness”… A book I have on creativity called Fearless Creating says that we should “understand the difference between working and working deeply.” The bottom line is no matter what approach we use, it ultimately has to be about our ability to tap into that stored creativity reserve, preserve and cultivate some of that and make it useful for someone to digest.
Further thoughts…
I wanted to take a moment and add some thought to the re-post did yesterday on the article by Seth Godin on the 99 percent website. Talking about people’s block to creativity, he mentioned that we have an internal filter that dissuages us from risk and being creative is managing, or in some cases throwing that “filter” out. From the article he says:
“The resistance leads people to make suggestions that slow you down, suggestions that water down your idea, suggestions that lead to compromises.”
I was thinking alot about this since as of yesterday I was working with some design students and encouraging them not only be competent—of which they all were—but to throw creative abandon out the window if, at least for a little while, because soon enough, the deadline’ll come and we’ll all wonder had we thoroughly explored the concept?
I got to talking about an article on innovation I read where some Google team members were interviewed and some of that discussion I thought I’d repost:
“[Google] let[s] engineers spend 20% of their time working on whatever they want and we trust that they’ll build interesting things.” (Marissa Mayer) This sort of “play” helps to regularly defeat the personal, institutional resistance those engineers feel regularly and is just as important in other disciplines, like graphic design for instance. Just imagine 20% of billable hours out the window… The accountant will think you’re daft. But that “20%” could reflect itself in a growth in personal and company direction—less relatable to billable hours.
Take time out to learn, or better, yet master that wayward program. Structure or un-structure the time and just do it. It’s been some time I’d been looking at integrating more 3D into my own repertoire and some time later: voila…. a starting point.
Famously, Pablo Picasso said of his later (more famous) work: “It took me thirty years to unlearn what I had learned.” Some of that was about notions of playfulness and fearlessness. In the book Visual Thinking, Rudolph Arnheim quotes Cuisenaire Reporter in recognizing the “power of making abstraction is at its highest in children ages 6 – 9 years old”.
He continues, “Adults whose lives have been concerned entirely with practical situations may feel helpless when face with pure shapes, because in spite of their perceptual immediacy these things are “nothing” to them. They often have trouble with non-mimetic “modern” art. Children do not. They take ease with pure shapes, in art or elsewhere.”
So allowing your creativity to flourish is a skill as much as it is a desire. Flex your creative muscle whether you’re a designer or an accountant.
In other words, we have to WORK at making ourselves lower our creative barriers, especially if the resistance within us has been built up over time or condition. So let’s shout out, the notion of messing around a little!!!
A Random Sampling Of What’s On The Mind’s Of College Students…
Day two of a six-hour class where students are working on a project “ripped from the headlines” I figured I had the kind of time to ask the students a question that gives me something to blog about and also help me have the content that may answer questions for them (and perhaps you).
Out of six students (hardly scientific) the main concern was “how will I find a job?” If there’s anything the powers-that-be should be keeping an eye on is this topic—not simply for graphic design. When those students enrolled into school, we lived in a different world. The job market has tightened so much, it’s a valuable thing for these students to develop a laser focus on what they want, as well as an open mind on how they’ll plan to get it.
Second on the list of concerns: internships. Functional, practical thinking is not amiss here. Part of the value of a MICA flex class is “real-world professionals” something I heard a bit when it came to discussing what they wanted out of the class. But even more importantly where does this lead them? Internships are important as is any real-world experience.
One thing that came up was the desire to be paid for an internship. Here’s where I said have an open mind.
It really depends on the specifics of what a candidate is looking for from each opportunity. One one hand, an internship where one might see a firm that is fairly exclusive and the candidate learns a lot for little commitment (once a week, etc.) one may consider the value of going forward with that particularly if, like many of the students, you’re not sure what exactly they might “actually” want to do.
On the other hand: don’t make the assumption that the paid internship is the best way to go. It’s equally possible to do an internship where they pay you but don’t have the time to teach. So, beware either way… Interview potential internships the way they might interview candidates. Nothing worse than wasting time off!!!
Another comment which was sort of out of “left-field”—in a good way— was a comment on how to manage client-design firm/designer relationships.
For this, I commented that the client/designer relationship is a tug of war. It’s important to realize that the client, or alternatively the designer, views aspects of your credibility while “pulling” the momentum of the project relationship into an equal balance. No firm wants to hire a designer who will not be a good fit by not understanding the business’ fundamentals nor does any designer want to do work for a firm that’s mismanaged its business to the point where the work won’t be produced due to a lack of commitment to the project from the client.
The best relationships contribute trust relatively equally, where the designer understands that the client is expertly briefed in their product and the client understands that the designer knows what they are doing. Holes exist when this balance of trust is off-kilter, in one direction or another. That means each must work at being a good partner in order to make the relationship work well.
Students need to understand that their knowledge of business must be relatively as equal as the opposing client’s knowledge of the value of design, if not more, or run the risk of conceding credibility. How can this be done? Translating experience, gained through projects and internships, into action-able knowledge. Stepping outside of the designer’s comfort zone and reading about business and branding in ways that actively translate to your projects and in some cases being unafraid to allow the client to know their business and allow them to tell you about it, if your dogged research turns up a bit short.
Then, the designer/design firm has to understand that there are times when the client’s fears, internal board politics, needs and other issues may interfere in the successful project. After watching a couple spy movies and looking at the way a spy is supposed to handle his contacts, I reckon that there is a great degree of similarity in the realization that the account management is not unlike working for a spy agency, ferreting out problems before they happen, understanding the client’s motivations, making the client look good for their boss, keeping an eye on the client’s bottom line, etc.
(So, many of these contribute to why clients/firms get fired. Even successful work doesn’t assuage this sometimes.)
But even still, knowing you game may help you get to a point where they respect your input because it’s reasoned and honest, not just because you are a pair of hands, like in one of my favorite scenes from the ’60s drama Mad Men:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y4b-DEkIps&feature=player_embedded]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y4b-DEkIps&feature=player_embedded
Having done the homework of “knowing” the client, the ad man, Don Draper, is confident in the approach and puts it to the client.
Free News & $50 Logos
Recently, The New York Times released a bulletin announcing that they will charge frequent site users for access to stories. The announcement went on to comment that paying customers will have unfettered access to the site. This approaches the aging question of how to make the web “pay for itself” is now being taken up by perhaps the flagship newspaper.
The move to web exposes the difficulty inherent in turning impressions into interested people and interested people into paying customers. Web hits don’t necessarily translate into web dollars. Patrick Coyne, editor-in-chief of Communication Arts, resounded this viewpoint on his visit to Baltimore back in April saying that the American public has been conditioned to believe that content is free.
The view that content should be free is fairly insidious. It means that you’ll put up with the nightly news being dominated by content you either could not care about or don’t care to see. Perhaps you’d like to know a bit about India-Pakistan relations—just a bit—but instead the news will heap on more gossip with a break-in of the latest in Entertainment under the guise of news. The news, for all intents and purposes, is free and often, they’ll support that they’re delivering the news you want to know. Perhaps it’s a worthwhile event to telecast three hours of snow coverage, because we need to see that we shouldn’t be out in it trying to go places.
All this obfuscates the fact that developing real news is not free. A story about Kabul written in New York is much different than the same story written in Kabul. There’s costs of sending people, training them, keeping them secure, connecting them with sources and that’s just to get there. They’ll need to break stories, embed with troops and all that for people to get an authentic look at what could be glossed over in another story in a back page news story.
This notion that content is not free is not held in only the news business. Graphic design also suffers from the same fate very often.
This came to a head for me recently (not in thought, but in figuring I’d say something about it) in a meeting where the notion of $50 logos and a stance against it was being discussed. As far as I can tell, there is no official stance against a $50 logo and I’m sure there should be.
What I do know is that designers who take themselves seriously look long and hard at projects with that type of budget—even students. I mean, what school takes anything other than money to allow you to enroll at their institution? Does your plumber take color palette suggestions in exchange for working an eight-hour day on your main-line backup? Well, why should designers not reflect the real value of their work? Because there are a lot of them is not adequate as an answer.
Design, in its ubiquity, is perceived as a commodity. As commodities grow (land, oil, water) they have the potential to be less expensive—a law of supply and demand. Yet, the right piece of land or the purified water or the properly processed gasoline have a value in that they are (or can be) solutions developed for specific challenges. Design is the same way.
A designer hired just to be a pair of hands needs to keep her resumé fresh. Because as the need shifts, the work expectation will shift or the compensation will shift. When the design is considered a commodity, the client may decide—and perhaps rightfully so—I need this cheaper now. (If you get that call, the handwriting is on the wall). If the design firm used was not effective at distinguishing the client or highly efficient at satisfying the client challenge, that gap in value will exist. Instead of competing on the value that firm can bring to the client, they’ll be hoping that the client doesn’t question the costs or reduce the budget without reducing the expectation.
To avoid this, designers need to position themselves with projects that are not cut from cookie tins. Instead, developing projects that have a laser-accurate reflection on solving client needs in some fashion or form. Whether it’s the in-house designer showing a high-level of specialty knowledge for the product of the corporate client or the solo designer showing a high-level of verve to showcase an initiative, these clients pay for what they figure they can’t get elsewhere. These designers and writers work to understand the client’s need from the inside out.
Remember not to think that the relationship ends at what you did and what you got paid, but constantly over-reach their expectation—if not to satisfy your creative needs, but to show them what’s possible. Done consistently, they’ll think twice before don’t shop the big in-house project with outside vendors (we can so do that!) or “forget” that your firm does something special that they never ask for. All that is worth more than $50.
A $50 logo has a hard time paying for the resources put into it—project management, SWOT analysis, even the time that it might take to do an estimate. While a business’s budget is on some level a true reflection of the expected capitalization of the communication goal (a teen with a yard-cleaning business v. an internet start-up), the business has the right to set its budget. Yet, it doesn’t have the right to declare that the venture be taken seriously. Instead of outlawing stupendously low budgets, let’s stick with making sure designers aren’t taking them seriously.
Moving your portfolio to the AIGA Member Gallery
COPIED FROM A EMAIL BULLETIN:
Last month, we wrote to invite you to AIGA’s new portfolio service on Behance, the AIGA Member Gallery. We hope you’ve been able to take the system for a test drive since then. We wanted to let you know that we’ve set a firm transition date for member portfolios:
Design Jobs portfolios will be deactivated on February 28.
Current members with a portfolio on Design Jobs, this means you’ll need to set up your new portfolio on the AIGA Member Gallery before February 28. After that date, you’ll no longer have access to your Design Jobs portfolio.
Get started
a) The AIGA Member Gallery is an advanced, integrated platform for you to showcase your work, get connected with like-minded creatives and be found by employers and recruiters. Here’s how to get started in the new system:
b) Create a Behance account (If you already have a Behance account, skip to the next step.)
c) Edit your profile in Behance
d) Select My Networks tab
e) Select All Networks
f) Click “Join” link next to AIGA Member Gallery
g) Enter your AIGA credentials (Forgot them? Use the Find Me link on My AIGA.)
See www.aiga.org/aiga-member-gallery for more information, including answers to FAQs and links for further support.
Thanks for taking the time to set up your new portfolio!