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Are awards EVERYTHING?

Thankfully, no.

It is not enough just to have a great portfolio or medals piled up in your shelf. Being able to sell yourself, building your network and relationships, having a great personality and hard-working attitude, the ability to liaise with clients and work with others, and updating your skills are what counts in surviving out in the dog-eat-dog world out there.

I have encountered a few award-winning designers who struggle like everyone else, to land a design job.

Once when I was an intern, the company I worked for was my second internship. There was a fellow intern with me who was a D&AD winner who was doing her 7th internship. Unfortunately, such a case was not the first I encountered.

I had classmates who won awards and achieved first-class honours, yet they kept losing out to graduates who have more working experience and/or skills more updated than theirs when it comes to landing a job.

Of course, that is not to say that awards are bad. They do to a certain extent, give you credibility and enhance your status, definitely making your CV look good. Awards can also help you get your name out there, and make you more visible in the design scene, where chances of landing your next project or job is much higher.

Depending on awards itself apart from the other important elements of self-promotion is a sure-die method in trying to make a living. Awards should be seen as compliments to your achievements rather than a denominator that dictates your overall performance as a designer.

There are hundreds of thousands of designers out there, many who are winning awards each year. This year’s D&AD award winner will be not be remembered as much once the following year’s winner is announced.

If you have won awards, good for you. However, do remember this:

A great designer is not someone who constantly wins awards, but is one who knows how to solve problems through creative ideas, who can constantly make him/herself relevant to the ever-changing market, and who can satisfy his/her clients’ needs.

The dodgiest ‘client’ experience…

While at a business networking event in London, I was approached by a man who just started a business (not going to say which one).

At first extremely friendly, he agreed to meet a second time to discuss his company’s design needs.

Very confident of the potential success his fledgling business would produce, he tried to convince me to help market his business in Singapore, and to contribute some resources to his company.

Because I knew we had not properly discussed any equity or pay I would receive for such move, I was partially skeptical although without showing it in my expression.

The following month, communication was bare as he was busy, hardly getting back to me.

We finally agreed to meet the third time. This time, he commented that I’ve not contributed any skills or ideas throughout the time, nor showed any interest! (Oh hello, we’ve not even properly discussed anything regarding any payment or share I would get!)

We then proceeded on to discuss the design he wanted for his business. After I emailed the contract which stated a requirement for a deposit before starting any design work, he did not reply.

I gave him a call to ask what his decision was, and he said he was uncomfortable with having to pay a deposit. He wanted me to create some samples and see if he liked them before paying me.

I said no. He got angry. He started saying how a graphic designer shouldn’t ask for a deposit, and given that he was older, I could feel his wave of patronizing and accusations on me. We both decided not to work with each other, and boy was I relieved!

So what have I learned here?

For someone who ask you to work for him without any conditions of you getting paid, that’s a great clue in knowing how dodgy such deal can be. Thank God for Dragon’s Den! Never invest into something without testing its success in shallow waters first.

If someone asks that you do a job before he decides to pay you on the basis of whether he likes your work, is like going in a restaurant and telling the owner that you will not pay for the food unless you find it good after eating it.

If a someone finds a contract or deposit offensive, you might as well run for your life.

That was one close shave for me, and I’m glad he never ended up as a client!!

Why getting along with your classmates will help you in future

To all graduates out there, this of course, is a very common sense statement. If you think that networking for business only starts after graduation, think again. You should be networking NOW while you are studying.

It’s not just friendships and grades that you make when you are at Uni, your classmates are the ones who will make great contacts in the future.

Some of the most exciting jobs I got were from my ex-classmates, the ones whom I was close to and the ones whom I got along. As human nature shows, no one intends to work with someone whom they do not get along, neither does anyone intend to hand him or her a job if a need arises.

However, having a good relationship is not enough. Doing well in your course and having a great attitude will help your classmates remember your ability to work hard and deliver ideas. I had an ex-classmate whom I got along well with. Because she hardly came to school and produced mediocre results throughout the course, I was unable to recommend my clients to her no matter how much I would have liked to help her.

Having both good relationships and a hard-working attitude is essential in helping your future prospects and career. Good recommendations and word-of-mouth are the results of this key principle.

Join clubs, hang out, socialise… try to network with many people as you can in class and in school. At the end of the day, you do not know who will be your greatest help in need.

So enjoy your school life while you can, but don’t forget, business begins with relationships.

Graphic Designer on Dragon’s Den

I’ve only started watching Dragon’s Den quite recently, and really loved the show, educating on entrepreneurship and investment. One of my favourites has to be this, where graphic designer Sarah Lu successfully pitches her idea of her Yoodoo Dolls, which was aired on 22 October 2007. A great way to push the boundaries of graphic design. And who says you can’t earn money from design?

OOOOCH!

Left: Snog yogurt
Right: London Connected
Spot the difference similarity? 2 extremely different companies with similar stock photography……is anybody confused?

When your client chooses a non-designer’s advice over yours…

Well, we’ve all come across this at some point in time, don’t we, all designers out there?

How do you deal with clients who would consider the opinions of their friends and families more important than the designer, despite the fact that you’re the pro here, not them?

This is perhaps one of the toughest and most annoying situations when facing the client. Unfortunately, such situations are unavoidable and it’s up to the designer’s ability to handle the situation professionally, if not avoid it.

Design happens to be one of the most sensitive, emotion-provoking stuff out there. Yes, sensitive. You don’t want to tell the client directly that the design they chose is ugly, but you should change your approach and talk through to them why your advice would be better than that of non-designers, without sounding arrogant.

1. You are the professional here, not them
You did not get your BA or diploma for nothing, right? Those years of training you as a graphic designer, you realise that Microsoft Word is NOT the thing to layout your design, or that your once favourite Comic Sans font happens to be one of the worst and most hated fonts in the design community. You now know why designing a logo does NOT cost £5 and how much effort, time, research and work it takes to perfect it. You’ve been trained to handle and accept critique well, work fast and can think quick creatively, and spot those errors before anybody did. You ARE the professional.

It’s important to emphasize to your client, that you have the experience and expertise to sift out good and bad design, without mentioning anything negative about the other person’s advice.

Explain tactfully how trying to bring in many people’s opinions may not be such a good idea, for eg. their judgements tend to be based on their preferences rather than based on what will suit with the brand image and the message.

Say something like this: “You would go to a doctor if you are ill, seek a lawyer to sort out legal issues, and hire an architect to design your house, so why not seek a designer for design issues?”

2. Looking ‘nice’ doesn’t necessarily mean it makes sense
This sounds familiar, doesn’t it? How do you convince your client that having a big violin on a background for a luxurious real estate brochure will not work?

The difference between a trained eye and a non-trained one is the ability to sort out what looks good AND make sense in visual communication. You can’t have one without the other.

This is a very tough one especially when the client ‘likes’ the violin in the background. Talk with the client with the 5 Ws, 1 H (why, when, what, who, where, how) in mind, explaining to them the disadvantages and the impression that violin would make on the brochure, and how their clients would perceive it. Suggest to them other possibilities, and go something like this: “Instead of a violin, I believe a clear sky-blue background will work because…”

3. Don’t be afraid to voice out your opinions
Just because your client seems to like how this design will look doesn’t mean that you can’t present some opinions of your own. After all, why do you think they come to seek you? Contrary to what many designers think, most clients actually do appreciate it when designers give advice or opinions even though it doesn’t mean they may follow them. Presenting alternatives to the clients rather than thumping their ideas down show that you are sensitive to their needs in coming up with solutions to solve their problems.

A client of mine once said this: “I’d rather work with someone who can think intelligently and contribute ideas than with someone who follows everything I say.”

4. Present concepts that you want your client to choose
When presenting a few concepts to your clients, make sure you present the best ones and the ones you want them to choose. This will save you some headache as you go along.

5. Educate your clients
Most clients have not been to design school, or trained in design. It is important that you as a designer, step down to their level and understand how they see things. From there, you can properly explain and educate them as to why plan A would work rather than plan B. Show them case studies on how such design proposal can work, or why plan B did not do well in this other example. Explain to them the design process and how much work and thought goes to it.

Keep your cool and be helpful. Of course, at the end of the day, clients have the final say of what they want, but keeping such principles do help ease such situations. In time, your clients will learn to trust you.

Royalty-free images: when should you use them?

“…Creative works, including art, photography, music, movies, and software, are usually owned by their creator. If someone else wants to use someone’s song in a commercial, or put one of their photos on a website, the creator often earns a royalty. The royalty is a payment for each use of the creative work.

Sometimes artists create work that they sell as royalty-free. If a piece of work is royalty-free, you can purchase the right to use the work without paying a royalty each and every time the art is used. This can sometimes be a very cost-effective way for someone to use a piece of art, music, or software. The savings associated with using royalty-free works are especially high when the work will be used over and over.

Royalty-free images are free of royalties, but they are not free to use without purchase. The creator of a royalty-free song or photo still owns the work. The software, movie, or other royalty-free work belongs to its creator, and you are allowed to use it for specific purposes by paying a fee. This is usually much less than you would pay in royalties for a similar piece of work, but you are still required to pay….” – Wisegeek.com

The use of royalty-free images is a very popular choice among businesses and creatives alike when creating brochures, artworks, websites etc. They are cheap and you can use them over and over again without having to pay royalties. Not only do royalty-free images spoil you with choice of what images you are looking for, they offer you a fast and easy convenience to get the images you want without needing to resort a photographer or artist.

If you are a designer, royalty-free images can be a great way of gathering objects for you to digitally manipulate in your artworks.

However, there are restrictions when using royalty-free images. And despite what some websites may say otherwise, one should always consider and think twice before resorting to royalty-free images for certain uses. Below are some factors to consider:

1. Royalty-free images are NOT copy-rightable
Yup, they’re not. Just because you purchased them doesn’t mean the copyright goes to you. According to international copyright laws, the author or creator of the artwork automatically owns the copyright to that artwork.

Many royalty-free images give you non-exclusive rights to use the artwork for your own use. Some artworks charge you on certain specific criteria:

Medium of Use (eg. brochure, poster, magazine etc.)

Size of use (eg. 72 dpi, 300dpi, half-page, full-page etc.)

Placement of image ( eg. cover, inside, website etc.)

Press Run or Circulation (eg. 2000 brochures, an ad in 50,000 press run magazine etc.)

Duration of Use (eg. 3 months, 6 months, 1 year etc.)

Geographical Location (eg. local, regional, national or international )

Stock art sites like istock and Shutterstock offer greater flexibility and more affordable prices, while GettyImages are more costly, but offer very high quality images from selective photographers. It is important to know the rights and licenses you are assigned to before making a purchase.

2. Avoid royalty-free images when creating your brand identity
For more permanent mediums such as brand identity (logos, business cards, etc.), royalty-free image is a great NO-NO.

Not only does it lack originality, it makes your branding look cheap, and that is not the first impression you want to give to your clients (see example). Someone else out there can have the same logo icon or artwork as you, how embarrassing is that!

Due to the cheap options available out there such as online D.I.Y logo creations and templates, you cannot copyright or trademark your logos. If your company is worth it, don’t be afraid invest in originality and quality. Remember, cheap doesn’t always equal quality, and it can cost you a lot more in the long run.

3. Use royalty-free images on temporary mediums
So, when should you use royalty-free images?

If you are looking to design a brochure or flyer, and you are a on low budget, you can certainly get away with royalty-free images since such mediums tend to have a shorter duration of use.

If using it for a website, try not to use images that have been popular in downloads! Chances are someone has seen it somewhere else, and I have encountered this too many times.

4. Choose your images CAREFULLY
Whether you are using istock or Getty Images to purchase your images, make sure you know what size, the rights that you are assigned to and what mediums you are using these images in before making the purchase.

It is good to get a rough snapshot of the image and test them out in the artwork before deciding whether to purchase the images. Careful planning and wise decision-making will save you both time and money.

A running man or a running heart?

Traffic b-light?

Bent traffic light along Oxford Street, London