Announcing | Forge.

Just wanted to take this opportunity to officially announce my involvement in a new collaborative venture: Forge.

Forge is a brand-new branding and design firm headed by myself, Sean Wilkinson, and Kevin Brooks.

I've followed and respected both Sean's and Kevin's work for a long time and have always jumped at the opportunity to work with either or both of them. The three of us are all long-time freelancers who've simultaneously found ourselves at a turning point and asking the question, "What comes next?" so after a lot of theorizing and philosophizing and planning (kicked off by a Twitter message from Sean that read something like "Worst case, we have a few drinks and decide it's a bad idea.") we decided to take a leap and begin to offer our services as a collective entity.

So, from Forge, hello! Can't wait to see what comes next.

Process | Creative Briefs Made Simple

Recently I found myself halfway through a web design project only to realize that I was just NOT on the same page with the small agency I was sub-contracting for. I the past, this agency hadn't ever given me a ton of direction but had always been happy with my first attempt at a design, so the unequivocal thumbs down surprised me. We worked it out, and came up with a strong design in the end, but it took a solid sit-down to really discuss the goals for the site, end-users' needs, and the client's existing branding. If we'd worked these things out up front, the first round of design would have been much more focused and effective. For me, the process reinforced the need for a solid and well-thought-out creative brief, even for the "simple" projects, and even if, as a designer, you sometimes have to write it yourself.

So what goes into a good creative brief? Simply put, the document should "put down in writing" the project scope, goals, and anything that might influence your design decisions. I've seen creative briefs that spanned over twenty pages with a thorough market analysis and long-term brand strategy, but most web projects don't require anything that dense. In my experience the basics should include:

1. wireframes for the site's homepage and typical lander and body pages, and for any additional pages that feature specialized functionality or content such as galleries or forms (for simpler sites, a wireframe may not be necessary—an overview of planned pages, what they contain, and how they're linked, may suffice).


2. a snapshot of the target audience(s), what they are expected to do with the site, and any special needs or factors such as physical impairments, typical education level, internet connection speed, level of familiarity with web standards, etc.


3. a list of adjectives that describe the personality and emotional tone of the client's brand (ie. professional, high-tech, high-touch, warm, compassionate, expert, educational, helpful, gentle, soft, authoritative, strong, bold .... that kind of thing). Sometimes this is best broken into two lists: "What we are to our current audience," and "What we'd like to be."


4. brand standards—vector logo(s), color, font and photo styling specs.


5. examples of stationery, brand collateral, print materials, advertising, TV spots, whatever the client feels best embodies their brand's current look and feel.


6. examples of and responses to competitors' sites—how does the client feel about design, color, use of photos, fonts, white space, and usability of things like interactive homepage marquees or tabbed content?


7. some sites or brands the client likes that may not have anything to do with their industry at all. It helps to have some description of why they like them, and what details they may not like.

Once a good creative brief has been compiled, ask all project stakeholders to agree to it, in writing. When you present your designs, you can refer back to the fact that in the brief, everyone agreed that X, Y and Z were the most important functions of the site, and point out how you've matched the design to their existing brand. This should focus your decision-making and cut down on requests to change the color scheme or add unnecessary elements to the homepage, or worst of all, start over with a new design.

Resources | Occasional Friday Reading List

A bit of a random list but here are 5 articles and resources I've been finding interesting/helpful/inspirational, business-wise lately:

1. New York Times Business—Corner Office: Can You Pass a C.E.O. Test?
Great advice and thoughts on business leadership from an interview with Greg Brenneman, chairman of CCMP Capital. An excerpt on business plans: "...quickly step back and say, “What are the two or three things that really matter?” And I find in the world that people don’t really do that often. They just dive into all this detail and start using acronyms and buzzwords ... if I can’t simply put what needs to be done on one page, I probably haven’t thought through it very well."

2. creattica.com
creattica.com offers a HUGE wealth of design inspiration, updated constantly. I've been poring over it every time I'm stuck on a design or just looking for ideas.

3. Eye Magazine 38—The Myth of Genius
Eye Magazine is full of thoughtful articles on design but this article particularly made me feel better about not always feeling inherently brilliant. An excerpt: "The myth of genius — which promotes the artist as a lone, pioneer – emerged when craftsmen first strove to become respected members of an elite. ... Michael Howe, in Genius Explained suggests genius is not natural, but the result of hard work, perseverance and the stubbornness to struggle on where others give up." Word.

4. The Maine SEO Blog: How to Write the Best, Most Clickable Title Tags
This blog on SEO and SEM (from Portland web design gurus Flyte New Media has tons of great info—but this article rang lots of bells for me since I find myself often pressing the point with clients that yes, page titles DO matter; they matter a LOT if you care about SEO. Now I'll just point them here.

5. Design*Sponge Biz Ladies
The Design*Sponge Biz Ladies series was founded in 2006 in order to connect local women running their own art and design-based businesses. (But the advice offered certainly is helpful to non-ladies as well!) Biz Ladies is currently a regular Tuesday feature on Design*Sponge, and archives having to do with legal tips, wholesaling, PR, etc. are archived online.

Events | Compostmodern ME

Compostmodern ME is an interdisciplinary conference constructed to help designers of all stripes, manufacturers, business-people, and social and civic planners and leaders to explore the range of sustainable design thinking necessary to create a socially and ecologically responsible society.

This, the first local conference, is born out of the national Compostmodern event held in San Francisco each year. Content will include webcasts from the national event, live presentations from local experts, and interactive discussions about design thinking and sustainability.

I've seen several of the national webcasts and they are extremely informative, inspiring, and, in some cases, challenging. If you're interested in sustainable design, responsible business, or healthier, more balanced products, environment and society, join AIGA and fellow sustainability thinkers at Compostmodern ME; it takes place Saturday, May 9, 2009 at One Longfellow Square in Portland.

Learn more and register at http://maine.aiga.org.

"I need those."

Just wanted to share this conversation I recently heard between two forty-something business-women. I was at a marketing talk, and the presenter was mentioning social media, but kept referring to to it as "new media". One of the women turned to the other and said "I don't know what that is. What's he talking about?"

The other responded, "New medias. They're like ... blogging ... and face books ... and that sort of thing."

And the first: "Oh, yeah, I need those."

Business success, courtesy of the Stonyfield Institute

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Stonyfield Farm Entrepreneurship Institute at the University of New Hampshire. For those who haven't heard of it, it's basically an interactive and collaborative small-business workshop, with a focus on marketing, management and finance and a bent toward socially and environmentally responsible models.

After an introduction and stories from Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield (preceded, this year, by the President of Seventh Generation, Jeffrey Hollender) The Institute format is as follows: one at a time, a string of small business owners present their story, successes and failures to a panel of marketing or finance experts, in front of the conference-attending audience. The panel members respond with advice and possible solutions. The audience chips in. Repeat times 6 times, and add a good dose of networking plus all the yogurt you can possibly eat.

As I sat listening to the problems entrepreneurs were facing in marketing a huge range of businesses, from a farm incubator program, to a yoga-inspired back pillow, to a food additive that makes flour healthier for diabetics, I began to recognize the same questions asked and the same bits of advice given again and again.

And so, thanks to the insight of the expert panelists and the many audience members who volunteered their own stories and expertise, here follows the step-by-step formula for business success:

1. Clarify and simplify your goals. Know what kind of company you want to run, what you sell and who you sell it to, and be able to describe these things simply and cohesively.

2. Focus your efforts. Dig in deep in one arena. Do what it takes to prove you can succeed and make money on a small scale as quickly as possible.

3. Have the numbers to back up your claims. Be sure you can attach firm and tangible benefits (financial, environmental, etc.) to the thing you're selling and to your business model.

4. Cut start-up costs and establish credibility with strategic partnerships. In lieu of investment, find someone who will share their resources with you or let you leverage their name at minimal cost to them.

5. Look for new ways to engage. Sell directly to your most receptive audiences first and use the force of their opinions to reach others. Use testimonials, engage your clients' customers, etc..

6. Periodically reassess where the customers' needs are and what you could be doing to fill them.

7. Constantly challenge your own assumptions. Build an advisory board to challenge you. Seek out the points of resistance and face them head-on.

On growing the business

Despite the economy being what it is, I'm finding myself poised for my most successful year yet. I know, it's only March and I really shouldn't be counting my chickens, blah blah ... but the fact is, except for a couple of scary weeks last month, I've managed to stay solidly busy since about last November or so, and it's not showing any sign of letting up. I'm excited to be making this increasingly a viable business and I want to keep an eye on what's working and why so that I can continue the momentum. So, why the growth?

On the surface I haven't done anything differently in the past couple of months. I think the growth I'm seeing is based on longer-term efforts that are slowly but steadily coming to fruition. Here's what I think is working:


1. Streamlined creative process.

In the early years of freelancing, I would put together 3 or 4 or 5 concepts for a client. I would labor over getting all of them just right so that I could feel pleased moving forward with any one of them. I would proudly present them to the client and await their response. But I soon learned that this method was just as likely to garner a "Hmmm... these aren't really what I was picturing..." as a "#2 is GREAT—let's print it!" I was always disappointed when the client didn't 'get' what I was going for or when I had to step back to square one, sacrificing all those billable hours rather than blow their budget and lose the job.

One of the most valuable things I'm working on is engaging the client in the creative process at an earlier phase. I have started to do this through the likes of creative brief documents, sharing and discussing lots of visual reference, creating inspiration boards and having informal brainstorming meetings, all before even touching the actual work. These tools don't cost nearly the time they save, and they help eliminate subjective decision-making later on. They really help to focus the design objectives at an early stage, and when I sit down to build the actual piece, I already know what colors, fonts, and aesthetic are going to work for the client and their audience. Many times I need only show one concept to nail it.


2. Evolving the portfolio.

At the end of each project, I decide whether it's the kind of work I want to do more of in the future or not. If it is, and it's an example of my best work, I'll put it in my online portfolio. Before I put it in, I take a look at the existing portfolio and decide if there's something in there that can be replaced with the new piece, either because it's old and doesn't show my current skills or because it's not something I want or need to do more of. This way, I'm constantly shaping my portfolio to show the kind of work I want to be doing. Like attracts like—slowly my client base shifts in the direction that allows my to do my best work.


3. Building a wide skillset and not being picky.

The work I love most will never make up 100% of the work I do, simply because there's not enough of it to go around. In my opinion, refusing to do work you're not passionate about will put you out of business faster than you can realize what's happened. Not every client can afford (or needs) a well-thought out total branding solution, but there are all sorts of jobs out there that can fill in the gaps and make up the billable hours. I'll never be a star programmer, but the passable display coding skills I've picked up can provide a good source of income in the downtime. So can those quick print design jobs without a budget, where the work is largely just picking nice colors and fonts so that the client looks a little better than their competition. The secret is to tailor the work to the budget, then, if you want to shine, give it just 10% more.


4. Careful tracking.

I keep a running spreadsheet that tallies my daily and weekly hours worked, percent billable, money brought in and effective hourly rate. I know where I should be to make a solid living. With this constant reference point, I am motivated to work that extra billable hour or take that quick programming job that I might not otherwise be thrilled about.


And where I've got room for improvement:


1. Be more responsive.

I HATE talking on the phone and there are lots of days that I get into the groove of working and don't stop to return or make calls or reply to emails. I tend to put off communicating where I wouldn't put off actual work, and there are inevitably opportunities that pass me by and small tasks that slip through the cracks as a result. I always feel like a huge jerk when a client has to remind me about some detail they asked me about 3 weeks ago. I need to be better about taking a chunk of my day to respond to and take care of those little things.


2. Administrative efficiencies.

Most of my records are kept in various spreadsheets. I could probably gain a good chunk of time by further consolidating that info, and maybe starting to use some time tracking and bookkeeping software.

Professionally printing some items, like envelopes and letterheads, could save me from needless struggle with the printer as I relearn which way to feed things in, unjam it, run to the store for ink, etc.

My templates for estimates, contracts and invoices are ongoing project. I used to write them almost from scratch each time. I'm now getting close to some standard formats, so that I can just fill in the project-specific details and send them off. I'm also working on keeping them short and simple so that clients don't become overwhelmed (or scared) by unnecessary legalese.


3. More structure.

When I sit down to work, or when I'm between tasks, I tend to spend a good chunk of time reading design blogs, checking Facebook, doing my personal banking online, etc, etc.. My work day is not very structured. If I haven't got a lot of billable work, I'll get up and do laundry, go for a walk, clean the dishes. I love this flexibility and the integration of work and life, but it's not always the most efficient. I should probably be about 50% better about making working hours for work, so I don't lose time in the transitions. I'm thinking of maybe trying to focus on work and only work between 8-12 am, or 10-2, and leaving the rest of the hours open to a flexible work/life balance.


4. Marketing.

This one's a bit of a mystery to me. Most of my work comes from referrals or from people finding my website and calling me. I know that if I want to take it to the next level, I need to do more direct marketing. I've done some postcard mailings in the past and I always do a holiday card/mailing of some sort, but I know that's not enough. I've seen that often clients don't realize I do more than the one thing they've hired me for and that's an obvious marketing opportunity. I'm hoping to put together a solid promotional brochure to send to past clients that will highlight other things I might be able to do for them. And then I have to get over my phone-phobia and follow up with them!