I figure this is the right time to write a blog like this. I’ve been in the industry full time for a year now and this is about the time a dirth of recent graduates are finding out just how hard it can be to secure a job at a graduate level, making freelancing a more and more viable solution for fledgling designers.

Now I might not be as experienced as Blogger’s out there who have 5, 10, 15 years under their belt already, but harsh and humorous truths about mixing design with clients are learnt quickly in this industry. In fact I think I learned more in my first 3 months of work than my entire 3 years of university. Experience is King and starting out as a freelancer can be a baptism of fire.

Here are a few of the struggles I’ve come across with a few ventured solutions.

Handling that “Bad Logo” Scenario

A client requests a quote from you, they’ve called you up or emailed you after seeing your website and that your local. You meet up or flesh out the project over the phone and you’re looking forward to taking on another piece of bill paying, portfolio swelling work. But one problem has been niggling away at you, their logo is a complete dogs-dinner and you are not confident you can design a site that looks professional whilst accommodating its obscene use of colours and shapes.

You can offer them a re-brand along with the site design, but be prepared to swallow your pride and knuckle down to some turd-polishing.

In the freelance world, the small businesses are your largest market and a small business will shell out a lot of money for Shopfront Signage long before they’re ready and willing to finance a website. Though their brand looks unprofessional, it has a huge value attached to it and by offering them a re-brand to make your job easier and more pleasant, you’re creating another financial obligation in the form of new Signage and Printed Advertising.

As a designer, its important to understand where you fit in a clients mind. It might be a bit damaging to ones ego, but we are not as important to most clients as we think. Its no good having a business with a brilliant website if your shop has no signage, empty shelves and no staff.

We work to increase a clients visibility by creating sites that set them above their competition and transfix their customers whilst attracting more. Most small business would benefit greatly from re-branding but until websites are as important in a clients mind as getting the keys to their new shop, the majority of projects will involve making a square peg fit into a round hole.

Get good at it or practice sweet-talking.

Bad Logo’s Cont: Make it BIGGER!

This comes up so often there should be legislation protecting the integrity of us Designers.

We live by a less-is-more philosophy, whilst clients make money by being visible. Bigger is usually better for a client and it seems like an obligation. The fact is it is very hard to explain to them that taking up the entire width of your header with your logo smacks of unprofessionalism and desperation.

Try explaining to them that “big” is great for storefronts and adverts, but visitors to your site don’t want or need to have to scroll down one page-height to get past your monolithic logo in order to find the content they’re looking for.

A website is a place to say what you wish you could say to people walking along the street and glancing through your shop/restaurant window. Content is key here and it deserves to as much attention as the logo. Your logo will do a better job nestled securely in its own niche, where its visible, eye catching and out of harms way.

Would you rather be remembered for having “that nice site” or “that site that gave me RSI”?

How to respond to an endless tirade of amends?

Change your phone number.

You need to make sure that the client understands that changes affect the cost. You cannot survive on air and sunlight, the hours you put in have to be paid to put food on your table, clothes on your back and coal in the side of my/your aging PC. That’s the way business is done so it should be no different for designers.

Kidding. This is a tricky one, learning how to put your foot down is simply something you have to do and do fast.

A client has a business and they have costs to consider.

YOU are a business and YOU have costs to consider too.

Amends will sap your time and goodwill like a vampire. It is quite possible to watch  a weeks worth of work stretch to two or three weeks with no extra income. Would a client stand for a customer taking their stock and telling them they’ll pay half the price if they agree to throw some freebies in?

You have to look after yourself, bottom line and you should not feel guilty for that because your clients will be doing the exact same thing.

The solution I have found for this is to first;

1: Take a brief when you first contact a client. You ask them all of the questions you need to create a bullet-proof design and once the brief is written up, you sign it yourself and have your client sign it too.

This is your agreement to design a site based on the information they have given you. You also have to be completely transparent about the cost or your hourly rate. With the brief, you should be able to estimate the cost of the project based on the information given to you, if that information should change or a client requests things that conflict with the brief, you have to let them know that you will invoice at the agreed hourly rate for them.

2: When a design has been agreed upon, take a deposit for the project. People often request a deposit that is 50% of the entire cost, I recommended asking for 25%. It limits the amount of gasping your client will do and they are less likely to cut you loose. The reason why, is that you are again protecting your time.

The deposit is your guarantee that the website will then be built exactly as it has been designed.

Amends should have been ironed out at this point but if changes are still being requested, you need to make sure they understand that changes affect the cost. You cannot survive on air and sunlight, the hours you put in have to be paid to put food on your table, clothes on your back and coal in the side of my/your aging PC. That’s the way business is done and it should be no different for designers.

3: Upon completion, don’t let your guard down! The website is visible to them on your test domain. Its tantalizingly close, all they have to do is pay you. You can make it easy for them at this point, offer them a payment plan if its a bit much, split it into 3 payments or so. But until that first cheque comes in, its on your domain and there it shall stay.

If your more trusting than me, stick it up on their domain. But if that cheque doesn’t arrive within two weeks, you have been shafted my friend and morally, you should pull that website down off their ftp and stake a claim to your creative rights.

“You can have your toys back once you’ve finished your chores!”

If any of that seems mercenary then bear in mind that I offer up to three design mock ups for free. There is no obligation, the clients can take them or leave them and if they want to go forward to the construction of a site, I estimate the cost of the build and the build only. This is a great way to attract clients and though they might not think it when you put your foot down, you ARE meeting them halfway by doing perhaps a third of the project for free.

Who owns who when the money changes hands?

A lot of people will testify to this. If a client gives you a shiny pound, you will be doing cartwheels for them all week.

This again is a matter of firmly establishing the value of your time and work and that you are not a charity. If you receive an email detailing amends, write one back with their garbled requests bullet pointed and tidied. Close the email with the time it will take you and the cost of that time as well as a running total of the complete cost.

If a client does get sore about the cost rising in direct – and reasonable – proportion to the changes, you have to let them know that extra time on their project pushes back other projects.

IE6 Will rear its ugly head

Don’t think you can skip this ugly process. IE6 may be in its death-throws but it is still out there.

“Expect the worst and you will always be pleasantly surprised.”

Make sure when you invoice, you include the extra time it will take you to fit your perfectly usable site into Microsoft’s “I was tripping when I made this” software. You don’t have to specify you spent 5 hours wrestling a Microsoft sized crocodile, clients might then call them up and ask for the money they just threw away on their software.

Understand the Value of your own work and STICK TO YOUR GUNS!

If you are conscientious enough to be reading design blogs and discussing your craft, you ARE one of the talented ones. The market is saturated with cheapskate, table-based web design. And these people are largely unrivaled by those of us who do it well, because they charge perhaps £100 less than you do.

They are sharks whose only creative spark was used to undercut and rip off clients by charging a weeks wages for work you could do to the same standard in a day. Unfortunately, clients aren’t aware of how cheeky this is.

If you are angry at these people, call them up or email them and say “This is the nineties calling, I want my web designs back.” Catty much?

It is worth remembering though, that by charging rock bottom prices for ugly designs, these people are actually opening the market for those of us who offer more for a slightly higher cost. Clients are becoming familiarised by the web and are seeing its potential. They are also looking critically at their current website and are suddenly keen to change it.

This is where YOU come in. You offer so much more in terms of design and function for a cost that is fair. You tell them exactly how much YOU would have charged them for their former site to establish the value of what you ARE offering them.

If you and a client lock horns about the price, negotiate. You will always be tempted to do more for less in order to win a contract, but what if two or three others fall by the wayside as this one runs over time? Negotiate down to a price that you feel comfortable with, not a price your client will, because that will always be as close to 0 as possible.

If you can’t agree, go your separate ways. If the client has a price in mind, it will probably be based on “Johnny-Table-Based’s” costs. They will soon find out that the website they want will cost more than the website that they prefer the cost of.

You might also feel nervous about the rising costs generated by amends. A client understanding that their experimenting with your design time has a financial obligation will force better results in the end.

If a client has you dangling by a string, you are making all of the changes they want and the website will suffer aesthetically. By establishing a firm agreement for the way you spend your time, clients are no longer gambling their ideas with your time, but rather their money. When this agreement is set, you will find a client will consider their ideas more reasonably and they will cut to what changes they want faster!

Knock them dead

Cheap websites are everywhere on the Internet. In fact if you start a new contract with a client who is looking for a re-design, you can almost guarantee they’re a victim of this.

How do you justify being more expensive?

Through your portfolio for a start, only put the cream of the crop in there.

It is also ESSENTIAL to have a website, I can’t even begin to explain how pointless it is applying for Web Design contract without having a site yourself.

To get the ball rolling with your folio, find a friend or family member or local business who could benefit from a site. Charge them nothing and make it the most immaculate online experience you can, then for the next one, go further!

Your folio is all about what your made of and it should stand head and shoulders above the cheaper competition even with a handful of projects on there.

The other way to justify your costs is to knock your client on their backs with a design. You need to surprise them so much that they are incapable of finding flaws.

“Yes I didn’t use comic sans like you asked, yes I didn’t make it bright blue and yellow, yes I didn’t add your old cascading type effect. I’m Sorry, but can you see why?”

Of course they can. You’ve taken their brief, looked at their market, their competition and their products and you have designed something elegant for them. If you display all that initial cleverness for no cost, the client will know you are motivated to make them look the part.

The job is yours.

A good Designer – Client relationship is a long one. They have to know they are being respected and taken care of whilst you have to be comfortable with what you are charging for the work.

You are that good designer for the simple fact that you care enough about your craft to learn about it, to pursue and discuss it by twittering and blogging and digging. By networking and continuing to learn.

Experience, variety and an eye for design all come from exploring the way that you do.