Business posts

We all know that there are a few differences between small businesses and larger corporations, especially when they begin considering the web design aspect of their marketing plan and branding. And while for the most part, the nuts and bolts basics are often the same for both, small business owners and freelancers often have to make many more considerations before they get to the actual design.

Before approaching a designer, small business owners should already have some solid ideas of what they need and what they want (which can sometimes be two very different things) ready to present. Larger corporations have creative departments and teams at the ready to bring the company’s brand to the web with ease. The people at the top rarely have to get their...

Every now and then, on some blog or design group, someone brings up the question of designers unionizing or having some sort of certification in the hopes of assuring the public that we are professionals and adept at our craft. Can it be done, and if so, how?

The huge response to Monday’s April Fools’ prank on the introduction of certification in the U.S. shows that a lot of people are passionate on the subject.

For many years I volunteered to head various committees and sit on the board of directors for several design and illustration organizations and they have all made the question of unionizing a priority. The Graphic Artists Guild, for one, actually had meetings and outreach to established unions to see if they would either create a sub-chapter, so to speak, for creatives or at least support a small...

The much talked about step of creating professional certification for graphic/web designers looks like it will become a reality in a little more than a year. Having passed the U.S. Senate as a rider to a larger work rights bill, the measure is expected to easily pass the House of Representatives as well as having President Obama sign it into law.

The bill, originally created as a stand-alone measure was co-sponsored by Democratic New York Senator, “Buck” Schlumer and Republican Texas Senator, R. Fredrick Bruz, was intended to help regulate an industry many see as being one of the hopes for the United States to lead the future of technology innovation in the world.

The...

In just a couple of years, Pinterest has established itself as the third largest social networking website, behind Facebook and Twitter (and ahead of the likes of Google+).

For a website that is still in relative infancy, such a record is definitely commendable. The question that now arises is, can we harness Pinterest’s popularity to promote our online ventures? In other words, just as we employ Twitter and Facebook to create an online identity of our businesses, will it be possible...

When I write about the black and white, crossword puzzle-like QR code, I feel like I’m talking about the stone age of human development.

The few years of existence for the QR code in marketing efforts, seem like they were first experienced by our grandparents when you look at how the code itself has evolved to walk upright. Whatever you read in this article, chances are, as with buying a new mobile phone or computer, it will all be obsolete almost immediately… or possibly not with this latest step.

First, there were those who decided they could beautify the ugly codes with color. Then, savvy coders learned that codes had a 30% error correction and images could be inserted into the codes for a more enticing design for businesses. Some went as far as building codes out of objects such as bottle corks for wineries and bottle caps for breweries.

It didn’t take long for enterprising websites to pop up that allowed people to design their own QR codes, mixing in images and logos without...

I recently received a call from a young designer who I met when she was in art school. I reviewed her portfolio and several years later at a local graphic design group meeting, she reintroduced herself and thanked me for being kind and helpful in that review. She became an avid reader of my articles on the design business and on one occasion told me that when it came to clients, she needed to “borrow [my] bastardness”.

Apparently she thought I was tough in client negotiations and thought...

Who said that? Both parties often do. Both the client and the designer often accuse each other of ruining a web project. Why? What is it both parties expect that the other can’t or won’t fulfill. Is it a breakdown in communications, and if it is, what can be done to prevent it?

You know all of the funny horror stories. The client doesn’t know what they’ll like until they see it, they have an eight year-old niece who won a finger painting contest when she was only five and is a creative genius, they thought the whole site wouldn’t cost so much to design because their great-great grandfather had an entire web site designed for a nickel in 1903, blah-blah-blah. Well they have their stories and complaints about us, too, only they aren’t creative enough to...

Do you call yourself a freelance web designer? If so, you are only partially correct. The truth is that you also need to be a salesperson.

If you can’t sell your own services, you likely won’t be a freelance web designer for long. A Google search of “freelance web designers” returns 82.2 million results, while the singular term “freelance web designer” returns 99.6 million results. Though some of these hits are articles or blog posts about web design, the majority are websites of designers themselves. Because almost anyone can get into the...

As I put the phone down, I was still shaking quietly. It was one of the hardest phone calls I’ve had to make. I had just told the client that I was tired of him messing me around, that the way he worked was making it impossible for me to produce good work, and I was fed up of haggling over every nickel of every invoice. I’d previously raised all these issues with him, but nothing had changed. So I told him I no longer wanted to do work for him. For the first time, I’d just fired a client.

Every web designer who wishes to get paid for their efforts will almost inevitably need clients, and work for a fee on the client’s website. Building a good working relationship between client and designer is essential for a good outcome and for job satisfaction. But what if things don’t work out, and you find yourself hating working on a project? It’s time to terminate your client relationship.

Firing a client might sound like committing professional suicide, and in...

Have you ever just finished a project and wondered: How can I do more for this client? or perhaps you were thinking: Oh darn, now I have to look for new clients.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The most valuable clients are the ones that stay with you, not the ones that provide one-off projects. So how do you get valuable clients that want to stick with you for the long haul?

In...

Whilst the trend for online business continues to grow, there is a significant increase in the number of consumers choosing not to do business online. The most oft-quoted reason is privacy.

Six months ago, several thousand euros were charged to one of my cards. A criminal had somehow accessed my Amazon...