As a designer it’s frequent that companies contract me to do design work, especially for websites.  Often they either don’t have a staff designer or need something in a style they know I can execute well.  I love to design and so I take on these gigs cheerfully, unfortunately there is a downside to this way of working.  Please keep in mind that I love my clients and I’m writing this, not to vent, but as a cautionary tale for other budding designers.

When you’re the contractor on a project the client belongs to the company who has contracted you.  That seems pretty straight forward right?  So it’s no surprise that the company maintains communication with the client whom you are ultimately doing the work for.  Sometimes this can work or even be good if communication flows to you properly.  The company may filter communication allowing you to focus on the design portion of the project. On the other hand it’s frequent that the company who contracted you waters down the communication from the client. Design by nature is a holistic process. The designer therefore needs every and all details, no matter how fine, to craft a proper visual interpretation of the clients’ needs.  When you put someone in between the designer and the client thing gets lost, almost without exception.

Here’s a real-life example I experienced recently:

Me: Do you have a creative brief from the client?

Company:  No, it’s pretty straight-forward, just hit these 3 points, XXX.

Comp is designed and sent to client.

Client:  Hmm, this isn’t anything like what we discussed with the rep.

Another potential issue is presentation.  The client is likely not an expert on design.  You are.  The client also may not be the intended market for the piece you’ve designed.  They may not understand it.  It’s vital that the designer present his or her own work and be able to field questions and defend the decisions that produced the design(s) being discussed.  I’ve been blessed to work with good clients and so this has been less of an issue for me personally but it’s one that plagues many organizations.

Lastly, execution often suffers. It doesn’t matter how fantastic your developer is.  Chances are when they hand the code off the first time things just won’t be perfect.  Design is all about the details and developers operate in a world of function.  They simply don’t see it.  When you’re a hired gun you don’t have the power to tell the developer to fix this and that.  It will often hit the public eye with missing elements, the wrong font and poorly spaced elements here and there.  Personally I find this demoralizing.  You’ve labored over a design with little direction, gotten it past the approval stage only for it to be produced in a sub-standard fashion.  Now not only did you make a small amount of money on the project but you can’t use it in your portfolio because the execution was sloppy.

When it’s your project, or you at least are on the team, you have the ability to push back on the developer or go in and fix it yourself.  And likely you’ll be the one doing the maintenance so you can ensure the design isn’t wrecked down the road.

Last but not least is the client relationship.  You may have done work for a hundred different companies but since you were the contractor, they don’t know who you are.  When your client moves on, so do the contacts.

When you’re a freelance designer contract work is a necessary evil.  Despite the pitfalls I still do it and will likely continue to take on contract projects for some time.  Arm yourself with as much knowledge as you can, insert yourself into the conversation and push back in the name of quality whenever possible.

Ning recently replaced its long-time CEO Gina Bianchini with COO Jason Rosenthal and, as with any shift in power, changes were to follow.  If you work for Ning the bigg news was that they cut 40% (70 peeps) of their staff, for the rest of us the big announcement was that they would no longer offer free accounts.  That means all existing free Ning sites would either have to transition to a premium service or go elsewhere.

Most of the people I questioned on this topic replied with “What’s Ning?”  If you’re one of these people I’ll go ahead and clear up the mystery.  Ning is a hosted service that allows you to create your own network very much like Myspace.  And I don’t mean that you can have your own page like on Myspace, but the network itself.  So if you were into Poodles you could have a Poodle network and all of your Poodle peeps could have their very own Poodle page on your site.  Sweet right!

Yeah it is.  Ning does this quite well really.  When you think of a free (or formerly free) service the picture that comes to mind is something very ghetto and ugly.  And while that may not be far from the truth, Ning could be styled to look quite nice by the right person. And the tools provided by ning are down right decent. Very few products are able to match this service and I’ll bet they stay alive for years to come - even without the freebies.

In my practice I tend to do a healthy amount of Ning build-outs. Luckily all of my clients have premium networks and won’t be negatively affected by the changes. And I’m okay with letting my own free NIng sites die as they were essentially my testing grounds but I had just spent a chunk of my precious time designing a Ning site for a family member.  Oh well.

I’m guessing this will be a good move for Ning.  They’ve been around long enough to know where they stand popularity wise and cutting the dead weight should free up valuable resources which will now be able to focus on serving their paying clients.  Sounds good to me.

Below are a few examples of Ning sites I’ve styled:

Yesterday the dominating topic of conversation was Apple’s release of the iPad. Alot of people were speculating about how it would look and what it would do but the actual release went something like the third Matrix flick. The ideas of speculation were better and more exciting than the real thing.

Now that’s a harsh comparison.  The third Matrix movie was terrible at best and should have never been made.  That’s not the case with the iPad.  Once the tech world gets over the fact that it’s not a write-on supercomputer that brushes your teeth while high-five’ng your iPhone they’ll come around.

The truth is the iPad is a natural progression of digital media.  This is your new favorite book or an interesting magazine you read on the toilet. It’s the morning paper and your email you read while eating breakfast.  You iPhone was cool but tiny.  Your laptop was powerful but bulky.  The iPad feels more like traditional media than anything we’ve had before.  And at $500 most of us can have one!

Come one, you weren’t expecting the iPad to be that cheap (I wasn’t).  Especially if you had envisioned a keyboardless laptop.

So what’s next:  a stylus?  a bigger screen?
Maybe, but I’ll bet it’s a low wall outlet in your bathroom.

There’s nothing unfamiliar about The Book of Eli’s post-apocalyptic setting.  Eli, played by Denzel Washington, is every bit a Mad Max character wielding cool and very destructive weapons, clothed in scavenged attire and possessing the uncanny ability to not die.  The post-production effects of perpetually falling ash and a desaturated and dark landscape of destroyed and abandoned cars, buildings and junk all come together for a chord of danger and solitude.  What’s different about this film is Eli’s source of strength and conviction.  He’s a man of God, and not the sort you’re used to seeing on the silver screen.  He’s strong, honorable and knows the word like the back of his hand.

As a follower of Christ you get used to seeing Godly men portrayed as weak, simple-minded individuals easily swayed by circumstance.  The Book of Eli is a stark contrast.  Eli is surrounded by evil men raping and pillaging as they please in a time when the Bible has been nearly eradicated. His mission is to carry the last remaining copy of the Bible to a budding civilization in the West. Gary Oldman plays the boss of small town, supported by a secret water source and brutality, who wants the Bible to use as a tool of control and deception.  He tests Eli with all the usual temptations and when that doesn’t work tries to kill him for the remainder of the movie.  Eli does a great job of maintaining his honor by quoting scripture and fighting like Samson himself.

This is definitely a violent picture from beginning to end with people dying or loosing members in nearly every scene.  So don’t go if that’s not your thing.  What’s great about it is the sense of power and urgency it gives to God’s word.  Even Christians take it for granted today.  You get a copy nearly anywhere so we don’t consume it with the fervor we should.  We think we’ve got plenty of time to read it at our leisure.  The Book of Eli reminds us that when things get bad the word of God is all we’ll have to stand on and tomorrow it might not be so easily come by.  If you don’t believe me try taking a copy into China.

Since the beginning of Webdom banner ads have the been a zit on the face of web. Whether rapidly changing color like a horny cuddle fish, jumping out at you from nowhere or maybe just hanging out in the corner, these attempts at grabbing your attention most often lead to nothing.

I was inspired to write on this topic after seeing a small banner ad for bake mix of some kind (brownies I think) making a sad plea for my time. It was apparently the wrong size because a quarter of it was being cut off and the part that was visible simply showed me a picture of the product packaging, a tag line and a button that said “Click Me.” Day-um. Even if I had been interested in brownies I wouldn’t have clicked that banner. It was trying too hard (but keep trying). By attempting to communicate too much the message was lost all together.

The question they should have asked themselves was “What do I want to accomplish with the ad?”
Was it a click? Are you going to convert a brownie sale right there on the web? Doubtful. If you want brownies you’ll go to the grocery store. Likely the best you can hope for with a web ad for brownies is brand and/or product exposure. Maybe they’ll think of you next time their shopping. So why waste all that real estate with a tag line and button.

A more effective option would be to infuse the ad with humor, that way It’s more likely to be memorable and I, the viewer, would have received something from the ad.  A laugh can be very valuable and I’m likely to reward them with a purchase later on.  Admittedly humor can be difficult to achieve so a simpler approach might be to simply use all the banner real estate to communicate the product.  Fill the banner with the brownies and eliminate the tag line and button, no one will click it anyway.

If you have realistic expectations of what the banner can accomplish you’ll reap a greater reward.

No doubt you’ve heard a little ( or a lot) about the Conan vs. Leno debacle but in case you haven’t here’s the skinny.  NBC promised Conan the Tonight show several years ago.  Seven months ago that became a reality as Jay Leno moved to a new show, with a similar format, on prime time. Conan took over the Tonight Show and frankly was doing a jam-up job.  Leno’s show, however, was a flop and NBC recently announced its cancellation.  Now, Conan show had lost ratings so understandably NBC desired to turn back the clock and restore their late night superiority.  Unfortunately, in life, when we make decisions we don’t have the option of jumping in the time machine.  We must make do and press on.  The decision makers at NBC did no feel the same way and attempted to push Leno’s show back and Conan’s with it.  Of course Conan was not on board with this decision.

Calamity ensued and the war began.  Now let me say that I am not a fan of Jay Leno.  We both have a love for cars and I respect the man but I’ve never found him funny.  My wife will attest that the only time we would watch the Tonight Show with Jay Leno is while waiting for Conan. In contrast my father has been a long time watcher of Leno and never watched Conan O’Brien. What I find interesting is that my father did start watching Conan once he took over the slot and now he won’t shut up about him.  He can’t get enough.

It’s been a mix of fun and awkward watching Conan’s guests come on the show and only want to talk about Conan and the raw hand he’s been dealt.  It’s also been fun listening to Conan joke about the predicament.  I think most of us thought NBC would wake up and give in to Conan but that’s not what happened.

Today NBC announced that they would let Conan walk away and pay him to do so to the tune of 33 million dollars, with an additionally 12 million for his staff.  Insanity?  I say yes.  Leno has dominated the time slot for a long time but it’s easy to see who has the public’s support in this matter.  There have been rallies, empathetic guests and a barrage of blog and media coverage.  Meanwhile Jay Leno has been receiving a backlash from his guests and the public.  It’s commonly accepted that Conan and his rising popularity is/was the future of late night for NBC and frankly their cash cow.  In my mind NBC has effectively traded it’s future for the past.  Will I start watching Leno now?  Certainly not, and I’ll bet a ton of other people won’t either. So to Conan O’Brien I say, “See ya on Fox!”

Sometimes the change caused by technology happens so fast we don’t see it coming.  Other times it leaves us tapping our fingers, waiting for things to catch up.  TV on the web seems to be the later.  It’s not a new concept.  Webtv was a front-runner of the web but the public wasn’t ready.  Now many of us are ready and there’s little to be had.

Now I’m not saying you can’t watch TV shows on the web because you can.  Networks like ABC and NBC, as well as secondary providers like Hulu, have been providing online programming for quite some time but that’s beside the point.  My question is why can’t I see the shows I want to see whenever I want to see them?

As far as I know, networks make money by selling advertising.  And the TV commercial has been somewhat of a phenomenon for oh, a gazzillion years, yet I still can’t watch a full episode of Bear Grylls wrestling up a tree without having cable?  The cable companies must be to blame, right? Maybe they’ve got tight contracts with the networks guaranteeing them exclusive rights to the content.  But why? The internet is nothing new. If you own digital content, which is what TV shows amount to these days, why not distribute them through as many channels as possible?

I can, however, watch 30 Rock, but only the most recent episodes. The current model here seems to be very much based on fear.  Certainly the cable company is worried the internet will take over and for good reason, it is!  But why then are limited “network” shows available? I really don’t have the answer myself.  Storage and hosting costs should certainly be offset by advertising revenue, theft may be an issue but once it’s out there, it’s out there and the damage has already been done or maybe they are afraid of hurting DVD sales.  I’m hoping there’s another reason I’m not smart enough to think of.

Tell me this, how much money are episodes of Hell’s Kitchen Season 4 making Fox right now?  Are people flocking out to buy the series on Blue Ray?  I doubt it.  But I would certainly watch it on Fox.com or Hulu.com.  My wife and I just finished watching Season 5 and 6 online and we’re ready for more, yet it simply isn’t available.  I’m sure one could argue that selling advertising for an older show is difficult but why?  Unlike cable, when I watch a show online the provider knows. Therefore we can( and do) sell advertising based on views.  An old show suddenly becomes just as valuable as the new one.  Especially at the end of a season!

Hopefully it won’t be long before this post is irrelevant but right now I’m wishing for more. In a time where every dollar counts you’d think less would be left on the table.

I think everyone has a Christmas list these days and the decision of “what to buy” can be a significant challenge. It’s fun to give a expensive gift or one that might possibly excite the recipient, but the truth is, most of what we give and receive over the Christmas holiday is completely worthless to us.

It can take serious effort to find that perfect give and it’s easy just to buy something, anything. You’ve got a $30 budget and you’ll give a $30 gift. I’d rather just get a gift card than have you simply guess at what I might like. That may sound shallow but it’s honest. I think of my home as a storage box that holds a specific amount of stuff. Currently it’s more full than I’d like which means anything coming in must either replace something or leave quickly. I keep that in mind when I’m Christmas shopping for others and it helps quite a bit.

So let’s see this in action. First, if you’ve got no idea to begin with then the best option my be perishables. You can get something tasty at any budget and they only occupy space for a short amount of time. Okay, longer for others. Consider going for quality of quantity. When you receive a small but fancy box of chocolates you’re probably getting a true splurge. I’m never going to buy a box of Godiva chocolates for myself. It’s just not going to happen. So if I receive one as a gift it’s a small luxury. You’ll be hard pressed to find another $20 gift that I’ll refer to as a luxury.

If you’re better acquainted with the person you’re shopping for then buying something a little more specific may be in order. Instead of adding to their collection or giving them the latest whatever, think about finding something to replace. I gave my father a set of towels a few years back and admittedly it wasn’t the most exciting gift but I knew his towels were straight up raggedy. He could got out and buy towels on his own at any time but he hadn’t. And even though he didn’t jump for joy when he opened that gift I knew he appreciate it later and I can tell you he’s still using them today.

Now I’m not advocating that all your gifts be common household items. I think clever gifts are fantastic but they do require a savvy shopper and often a larger budget. If it’s your wife you may better stick to the jewelry counter but for the rest of us…

No doubt you’ve seen the barrage of commercials touting the latest item to grace the McDonald’s menu. Yep, coffee.  McDonald’s has sold coffee, well, forever and we’ve all heard plenty about it with the famous hot coffee spillage lawsuit but until recently fancy coffee was something you had to get at Starbucks or the like.

I’m a fan of Starbucks myself, the product anyway, but hearing the overly happy barista read off my total evokes a cringe every time.  I’m willing to pay for two reasons, it wakes me up like a hurricane and it tastes freaking awesome.  I hate coffee but I love a Starbucks mocha-frap. Yum!  Soooo, naturally I had to give Mickey-D’s a shot.

I ordered 2 drinks, a medium mocha frap and an iced coffee for the wife. Both drinks are larger than their Grande equivalents and look about the same, complete with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. My total however was quite different. Five bucks for both and since I had a coupon I only paid two dollars! That’s all fine and good but how does it taste? Slurp. Not like Starbucks; I can tell you that. The Starbucks dynasty may not need to sell off the furniture yet. My frap tastes about like a McD milkshake with coffee added. Not bad but not great either. My wife reported her iced coffee to be crazy-sweet and “no Starbucks.” Oh well. It still had a kick and certainly wasn’t bad by any stretch. Two bucks well spent I’d say but nothing to, cough, blog about.

Of all the fantastic panels and discussions I attended at SXSW here in Austin last week; there was one that stood out, and not in a good way. Spec work has long been a sore subject of the graphic design industry and a conversations on the topic have become more and more common with the help of awareness campaigns like http://www.no-spec.com/. If you’re scratching your head as to what spec work is, it’s simply work done in hopes of being paid later. The most common example would be a so-called design competition in which participants are asked to create a particular logo and the winner will be financially compensated. This may sound innocuous enough on the surface but think about the bigger picture.

You wouldn’t ask 2 attorneys, let along a hundred, to draw up a contract specific to your needs and then promise to pay whoever had the best verbage. How about your doctor or even the plumber? The idea quickly because laughable. But that’s exactly what people are asking designers to do when they post “contests” or matter of factly ask for design before agreeing to pay for it.  People assume designers are artsits and artist love to create art whether compensated or not.  That may not be a huge stretch but the fact remains that creating a logo or design for a company or individual based on their specific requirements is the furthest thing from art. So here’s where the panel discussion began.

The panel consisted of David Carson (davidcarsondesign.com), Lydia Mann (AIGA), Jeffrey Kalmikoff (skinnyCorp / Threadless), Jeremiah Owyang (Forrester Research) and  Mike Samson(Crowdspring). You might expect Mike Samson to get beat up on in this discussion since it seems obvious to most designers that spec work is indeed a bad thing, but in reality it was David Carson who took most of the audience heat.  In a nut shell David Carson was firm in his disdain for spec work and sites that promote it such as Crowdspring. Jeffrey Kalmikoff was also adamant about the ills of spec work. Jeremiah Owyang was essentially for it or at least for letting the market do its thing. Mike Samson was, of course, all for it, and Lydia Mann offered litle opinion at all.

All was to be expected except I didn’t realize how outspoken Jeffrey was on the no-spec issue.  He was getting quite angry, especially when Mike told him Crowdspring was based on Threadless.com.  I’ll attempt to sum up the arguments and give my own 2-cents for each. You’ll quickly see that I am against spec work!

Pros for Spec-work according advocating panel member(s).

Spec-work markets like Crowdspring allow budding designers to get work they otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

That may be true, many of the participants on spec work sites wouldn’t have access to those clients otherwise. However only a small percentage are ever compensated for the work they are putting in and there are other, better ways for new designers to get business - most of which include pay!

Small businesses can’t afford to hire professional designers and must use sites like Crowdspring which attract amateurs.

The argument holds that maybe they can’t afford not to hire a professional designer. Owner, Mike Samson, admits that most of the work presented on the site is sub-par. I’d say the addage of “You get what you pay for applies here.”

Designers on spec sites get other work resulting from participation on the site.

I’m sure a few do but it’s the vast minority and if you’re good enough to capture work(ie. win) then you didn’t need a spec site in the first place.  It still says nothing for the countless designers who put in work and received nothing.

Cons of Spec work according to some panel memebers.

Only the designer who “win” are paid.

The work designers do on these spec sites can not be reused by the designer.

The designs rendered are based on a brief and is therefore specific to the needs of that client.

Spec work degrades the design profession.

It certainly does but I do believe good designer will always have work and be compensated according to their skill.

The clients who use spec sites are suffering as a result.

Un-doubtably the client is getting an inferior service.  Part of the design process is a two-way exchange between the client and designer.  This serves the purpose of conveying the company’s mission, attitude and market aspirations to the designer. And also provides education and advisement to the client from the designer.  A large part of what you are paying a designer for is their expertese not only in illustration but also what makes a logo function out in the world.

So, back to the panel.  As I mentioned Jeffrey became angered by the comparison of Threadless.com to spec sites like Crowdspring and here’s why.  Threadless is not just a t-shirt shop. It’s a design community full of designers creating illustrations that inspire them.  There are no deadlines or specifications. Designer create what they want to create and if it’s popular Threadless will print it on a shirt and split the money.  They also pay noticeably better than spec-sites.  I could go on but I’ll spare you.

If you want to waste more of your life you can watch the discussion for yourself.

SXSW 2009 Is Spec Work Evil?