Tag Archives: business

Fake It ’til You Make It

Very, very few of us spring fully-formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. And very, very few of us are graphic design prodigies. Those who are often hire people like me to do the practical and boring work of executing their brilliance. And me? I bask in the glory of learning how their minds work.

Sometimes I freelance on-site for companies. I may be helping during a busy time, or I may be covering for someone who is on leave, or maybe I’m assigned to a short term project. For instance, a few years ago, I was asked to help the “Soft Home” department of a national retailer prepare a number of bedding files for release to the factory. I’d never worked with textile files, but once I had the specs the process wasn’t much different than releasing files for print. I simply needed to stay organized, dot my i’s, cross my t’s and think of England.

I finished faster than expected and needed something to do for the rest of the day. The department manager asked if I could draw. Yes. I’m an illustrator first and foremost, and I can draw. He asked if I could draw jewelry trees. “If you show me what a jewelry tree is,” I replied. I’m not really a jewelry tree kind of gal, I guess. He spent a few minutes showing me various jewelry trees and explained that the “Hard Home” department needed to sketch a number of potential products for factories in Asia to prototype so the buyers could make decisions for next year’s line. Could I draw a handful of jewelry trees with various floral motifs?

Now, I’m not a product designer. Never said I was. And I wasn’t hired to sketch jewelry tree prototypes. But I was getting paid for the day and I’m game for something new. I ended up staying on that job for five months longer than I was initially contracted, drawing jewelry trees and frames and desk accessories and a whole bunch of fun Halloween products and learning a ton about how these products are developed and produced.

In the same way I’ve learned how to design soccer balls and goalie gloves for Brine/Warrior Sports. I learned how to manage and update an enormous CMS for a major medical manufacturer. I’ve developed labeling and packaging for an upstart craft brewery. I showed up, I listened, I used the experience I already have to ask smart questions and I turned down no challenge. I could probably extrapolate that and say it’s how I’ve raised my son, as well.

Being intelligent is not knowing all the answers. Being intelligent is being open to new experiences and knowing where to look for the answers. An intelligent designer will grow with your business and find the right solutions to create your brand and communicate your message.

Tools Tuesday

Tools Tuesday, something tells me this could be an awkward category to carry forward!

One of the things I would like to do with this blog is showcase tools that help me do my job better. This could be a book, a website, an app, an inspiring place to take a walk, etc. Today we have an app.

I’m a Mac girl, naturally a lot of us “creatives” are. But I have used PCs, I have heard great things about Android phones, I don’t judge people by their laptops—by their music collection, yes, but not by their laptops. That said, most of the software I’ll be recommending will be for Apple products.

It took a while for me to find a time tracking option that worked for me. I wanted to avoid a subscription based model like Cube or one that would hit me with lots of expensive in-app upgrades like TimeMaster + Billing. If possible, I hoped to find an app that was affordable, universal for iPad and iPhone, and allowed me to export and backup my information. But most importantly I didn’t want to change how I do things to match the app, I wanted an app that was customizable enough to work with me.

TimeTracker by Silverware Software is pretty new to the App Store. It’s available for iPad and iPhone. It’s $2.99 with two in-app upgrades available, Device Syncing for $1.99 and Dropbox mobile backup for another $0.99. The interface is very clean and simple with a little customization available, for instance you can upload client logos or other icons to the time logs. It allows for a variety of billing options, including Flat-Rates, Pro-Bono and Day Rate and it even tracks your break time, if you like to record that kind of thing. Information is exportable in plain text or CSV for easy porting to Excel or Numbers.

I particularly like that it can remember frequently used clients, projects, rates and tasks which makes it less labor intensive to record all the important information that you might forget later, like, “what, exactly, was I researching for my client for 3.5 hours last Wednesday night? Hmmm, now that he’s questioning the invoice, I can’t recall!” You don’t want to be in that situation, neither does your client, so making the annotation of your time as automatic as possible is a definite plus for everyone.

I can’t speak to how TimeTracker would work for me if I had a number of employees. I really wasn’t looking into a solution that would apply to an office. But for a single freelancer who wants to get paid for the time she’s working, and track where that time goes. I think it’s an excellent, easy-to-learn, and affordable tool.

TimeTracker for iPhone Screenshot
TimeTracker for iPhone, Time Log
TimeTracker iPad Screenshot
TimeTracker for iPad, entering hours and information

HiWired, Inc. Presentation Folder and Datasheets

Working for a tech start-up in August 2008 was like having tickets for the maiden cruise of the Titanic. Everyone was working hard, making money, enjoying Free Bagel Fridays and signing up for ping-pong tournaments. And then we hit an iceberg called Lehman Bros. and it was women and children first.

Before disaster hit, I was focused on developing the company branding and producing collateral materials like this presentation folder and datasheets. Free bagels, sigh, it was fun while it lasted.

Don’t Make ‘Perfect’ the Enemy of ‘Good’

I have needed to build a portfolio site forever. I had one associated with my personal blog years ago, but then my son hit puberty and I was forced to take down my site full of great, albeit embarrassing stories of his youth. With it came my portfolio site and I’ve neglected replacing it ever since.

The problem is a common one for designers, we want everything to be perfect. To be a good graphic designer that’s a job requirement. We need to identify every flaw and fix it until there is nothing left to fix—then look in the mirror and remove one accessory before leaving the house, right? But when perfection becomes the bottleneck that keeps you from moving forward, it no longer serves its purpose.

So, I bit the bullet and started with a wordpress template. It hurt. I felt like the master seamstress buying her daughter’s wedding gown at David’s. It’s cheating, right? But I’m tweaking the template, I’m identifying flaws, I’m making it work for me—the client—and I’m getting my portfolio online where people can see what I do and maybe pay me money to do it for them.

And that’s the purpose of communication—not to show off how clever your designer is, not to recreate the wheel—to get your message out there and build your business.

So, this is my site. It’s not perfect, but neither am I. But it’s good and that’s something we have in common.