With rising gas prices and other economic troubles, freelance designers (as well as their clients) may be feeling the pinch. Clients are eschewing major redesign jobs and other big budget projects, and designers are scrambling for ways to keep work rolling in.

But you might be able to get back on track with two little words: Thank you.

Now is the time to remind former clients of your services so you can encourage more business from them, and sending a thank you note for previous work is a great way to do it. Unlike a flashy brochure or generic card, a handwritten thank you note puts a personal touch on your communication and gives you a reason to extend a special deal to specific clients. Here are some tips for making it work: (more…)

Do we have any responsibility for the messages we help to communicate? Everyone has run into a prospective client that wants to sell fantasy to people who are living in fact. The truth be told, many of us use the fantasy approach ourselves—I am the first to admit it. But is it possible to design without deception? You bet it is—here’s how:

1. Work exclusively with the truth.
More than ever, it seems, we live in two distinct worlds—fantasy and fact. In fantasy world smoking is cool. In fact world smoking is a first class addiction. In fantasy world, skinny people eat triple cheeseburgers. In fact world huge numbers of folks struggle with obesity. In fantasy world, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” while in fact world, last time I checked, there are consequences for our every action. The truth is, in fact world, deception is never a valid marketing strategy—it is at minimum unethical and at the extreme, criminal. The problem isn’t with the presentation, it’s with the delivery. You can attract a customer with fantasy but you can only deliver fact. If there isn’t a match, you are guaranteed to disappoint the customer. And that, in the long run, does a disservice to both the customer and the client. (more…)

No doubt you already know the value of tracking your site’s traffic. You know to look at visit totals. You know to look at what sites your visitors are coming from. You know never to rely on the number of hits. But there can be even more interesting information found in common site statistics that you can use to track down ne’er-do-wells or enhance your content.

1) Look at traffic to image files. Don’t just take note of which pages are visited most, but which images. When you see a spike on a specific image file that doesn’t mesh with the traffic on the page the image is located on, that file might be hotlinked. That means someone is using your image on his/her own site, and using your bandwidth to do it. (more…)

Since the folks at Notes on Design have asked me to contribute a few posts previewing the upcoming HOW Design Conference, I wrestled with where to start. So I figure I’ll begin with a few of the presenters I’m most excited to see in Boston. Namely:

• Debbie Millman. She’s flat-out one of the brightest, most talented, nicest people I know. We’ve invited her to do a live version of her “Design Matters” radio show, where she can interview a major-league designer of her choosing. Her pick? Michael Bierut. This will be unlike any other HOW Conference session to date (except maybe the one in New Orleans where Ann Willoughby chatted with her mentor, Milton Glaser). (more…)

You asked your legal, copyright, and trademark questions, and Jean has answered! All questions are culled from the comments section attached to the original ‘Ask Jean’ post. We invite you to ask more questions.

Dear Jean,

Hope all is well with you. I am in the music entertainment business and recently one of the companies I do business is selling out to another music company. I licensed many songs to them as well as they administrate my publishing. I was not contacted about them selling out to the other company, which I think they should have done as a sign of courtesy. I called to speak with them, put keep getting the run around (not in office, sick, in a meeting, on holiday……).What are some of the questions you think I can ask them concerning them selling out and transferring all my catalogue and publishing to the other company (my publishing contract would expire in 2010). What are my rights and what might I be entitled to from the company? Hope you can answer my questions. Thanks in advance.

Cathy

Cathy:

It sounds like your best bet is to talk to the acquiring company to find out how they will handle the transfer of your agreements. Generally, in a merger or acquisition, the buying company takes over all the assets of the bought company including the licenses for your songs and your publishing agreement. They are legally bound by the same terms you had with your old company. The only way that may not be true is if your agreement with the old company did not allow them to assign the agreements. But, that’s very unlikely. To know what your rights are, you have to look at your agreements or have an attorney review them for you.

Jean

Checking on the incoming links to my blog one day, I found a link to a photo from one of my posts. I was surprised to see that another blog was using my photo in one of their posts. They didn’t give any credit to me for the photo, though they did link back to it.

I spent some time trying to figure out how they’d found that photo to use and didn’t come up with any firm answers. I even emailed the blog writer, but got no response. It did open my eyes a bit to something I know can be a problem: people taking the images on your web site and using them elsewhere. (more…)

With the recent success of the sarcastic and definitely NSFW (not safe for work) You Suck at Photoshop tutorials that have made the Internet rounds, I’ve noticed a lot of people are trying to make their own design software tutorials to share on YouTube.

Search on any design app and you’ll find lots of tutorials from designers. What can you teach?
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This competition is about more than creating great design concept; it’s about creating an end to extreme poverty. Design 21 calls for the design of a web based campaign for the non-profit organization Millenium Promise that promotes public awareness of the Millennium Development Goals (the UN declaration to address extreme poverty that was signed by 189 world leaders in 2000). The aim of the campaign is to prompt the general public to do what they can to support the cause and urge their leaders to stick to their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals.

Design 21 – The Social Design Network, is a non-profit organization and Unesco partner that promotes design that addresses social issues by creating networks between designers, non-profits and corporations. Read an interview with Design and Content manager Jacqueline Khiu here

Millennium Promise is a non-profit organization working to end extreme poverty. Their mission is to achieve the MDGs in Africa by 2015, working with the belief that for the first time in history our generation has the opportunity to end extreme poverty, hunger and disease.

Competition closes June 17, 2008
First prize: $5000

http://www.design21sdn.com/competitions/13

Let’s talk about harmony. Not the hippy-dippy kind… the kind dictated by your color wheel. Unfortunately, with crazy deadlines looming and pushy clients on the phone, designers often don’t have time to go back to basics. The fundamentals of color theory that you learn early in your design education might even be a distant memory. You probably have a decent eye for color, but you rarely think “triadic scheme” or “a split-complementary will be great here!”

When you start losing sight of the fundamentals, it’s time for a field trip. Like the corporate branding field trip I sent you on last year, getting out and looking at design in use can give you a better sense of what works in the commercial world. (more…)

Part I: Sustainable paper and the graphic designer

“There is no business to be done on a dead planet.” – David Brower (Sierra Club Foundation Founder)

We’ve heard a lot lately about global warming and its connected dangers posed to our civilization and current way of life. But what does this mean for the graphic designer? Do we have responsibilities beyond possibly investing in a stylish new bike or replacing a few incandescent light bulbs with some compact fluorescents (CFLs)? In this first installment of a multi-part essay, I’ll focus on why sustainability is important for the future and current success of our craft by looking at the material that the graphic designer has historically yet to be able to live without: paper. (more…)