As a listener of Five on Design, I wanted to start this episode out by saying thanks. This is going to be my last episode for the show. I want to express my gratitude for everybody who's tuned in, subscribed, listened, left comments and emails this last year. 

Five on Design

Thanks

It's that time of year again, when we all sit back and reflect on how the year went for us. Hopefully this year, has been a wonderful year for you. I hope as a listener of the show that you've succeeded in any goals that you set this year and that you saw amazing improvement in your work. 

Resolutions for Designers

Among the many focuses I had as a new freelance designer, one of the big things that I was always concerned about was client satisfaction. I never wanted to drop the ball or give clients reason to fire me, or worse, not want to work with me again. As a result, if a client came to me with a rush project, I was apprehensive to charge a rush rate. I'd charge my normal rate under the guise that it was good karma... or something like that. 

Don't be afraid to charge for rush work

If you're like me, tracking your progress as a designer can be a challenge. We put so much focus on what we're doing right now, that it feels like we're not making any progress in our creative journey. It's why it's important to look back every now and then to appreciate how far you've come as a designer. On this episode, I want to encourage you to do the same thing. 

What did you learn this year?

It's one of the worst feelings on the planet: you sit down to start work on a project and realize that you don't have a single creative idea of what to do. it's even worse when you have a deadline looming, or a client sitting over your shoulder, expecting you to come up with something. Depending on who you work with, you get some rough advice about how you can "just do this" or "just do that" to make it better. But as designers, we know that dealing with designers block can be a frustrating thing. 

Dealing with designer's block

As designers, there are certain things that we enjoy doing and certain things we don't enjoy doing. This can be a departure from what got us into design in the first place: creating things we like or are passionate about. Getting further into your career, its inevitable that you get a project or two that you don't enjoy working on as much. So how get into a creative mindset while working on something you don't like? 

The art of doing design you don't like

It's easy to see why project management software exists. When I started my design career, I was so frustrated when clients wouldn't read emails, skip steps, or deviate from our design process. I was so excited discovering the world of project management apps—I could finally keep things on track in a structured setting. In my mind, this was going to make my life much easier and I'd never have to deal with those issues again. It was pretty short-sighted looking back. 

Don't force your clients to use project management software

On episode 92, we had a great show on what to buy the graphic designer in your life. So I figured it would be beneficial to talk about what graphic designers should be buying for their clients. 

Gift ideas for your clients

One of the things that's most exciting as a graphic designer that doesn't involve starting a new project. It's usually starting at a new place of work. It's exciting to get past the interview process and realize that you're the person for the job. So you show up on your first day excited to show off everything, you know that you're a hard worker, and that you're going to contribute right away to a team. But slow down for a minute. 

Tips for your first day as a graphic designer

If you've ever worked on a larger project—particularly if you're a one-person shop—the project may have required a sub-contractor to help out. Aside from the first task of finding one, the next question is how to handle the relationship between the sub-contractor and your client. 

Subcontractors and clients

For years, when I finished up a project with a client, I didn't think anything of washing my hands of it and walking away. However, I learned in the latter parts of my freelance career how important following up is. We often overlook this step—it's easy to. When our service is done, we don't see a need to keep poking at a client. The truth is, there's actually a lot of value that can be extracted when the project is done that can help us down the road. 

Following up after a project

The holidays right around the corner! You may already be looking at your list of people to buy gifts for and realize that you have a designer on your list. Whether or not you're into design, you may have stumbled across this episode and hoping that it will help you figure out what to buy them. So fear not—on this episode I'm going talk about some great gifts that will make the graphic designer in your life excited when they open them up. 

Gift ideas for graphic designers

Rates are one of the biggest questions that new freelance designers ask about. How much do you charge? Should you negotiate rates? Are you charging too much or too little? These are usually easy things to talk about. But getting lost in the conversation, is how to talk about your rates with your clients. Some clients see rates as a negotiable item when they're in the estimation phase. A common rookie mistake (and one that's been covered before) is to allow that negotiation to take place. 

Justifying your rates

When you're putting your portfolio together, it's easy to put all of your images on to one page, title it “Portfolio” and call it done. I've been guilty of doing this too. The downside is that this doesn't include anything like what you did or who you did it for. All it does is look nice. But you need to dive in deeper. It's not only important to look nice, but our work needs context. You need a case study. 

You need to write case studies

If you ever read about clients from hell, usually there's a story that involves someone who couldn't make up their mind about a design concept. The story typically goes that the designer showed the client, something that they thought was amazing. 50 revisions later, the sky turned green, and the client was dictating what font should be used. Everything goes off the rails. Design revisions are something that won't be going away anytime soon. As long as we're dealing with human beings, there will be design revisions. But they don't have to be the painful process that client from hell type stories usually spell out. 

The joy of un-ending design revisions

In five minutes, Five on Design covers a broad range of topics for graphic designers, freelancers and other creative or entrepreneurial types.

hubhopper

Five on Design

hubhopper