Tales of a Designer

Logo Design

I have always been a huge fan of looking at logos. The creativity behind them is amazing if done right. Lately I’ve spent more time than normal looking at them because we, at Tridea, have a client in which we are designing a logo for and it is basically my first time going through a logo design process.

So, while spending time over at Logopond, and another one of my favorite logo designers’ site, I studied some of the better logos that I liked. I spent time on each one trying to grasp the concept and what the logo says itself, and about the company it is for. Of course I always try to gain some inspiration to get the creative juices going for my own project.

Though we’re not done with our project yet, I feel like I started off on the wrong foot. I did the research about the company that I needed to do, but I jumped the gun in the creative process. Normally, with a website design, I like to pencil things out in my sketchbook and try different visuals before things get digital. That wasn’t the case for this logo process.

I dove into Illustrator too quickly before sketching out my ideas. As a result, the one idea that I did have didn’t turn out the way I wanted, and then I hit a brick wall. If I would have sketched out a bunch of different concepts first, I would have felt a little more comfortable by the time I opened up Illustrator. Luckily I was able to get back in the zone with ideas from the team.

What I’ve come to realize with working on a logo, and this could just be me, but the process of logo design seems more rigorous than designing a website. I could just be saying this because I’m not a normal logo designer, but I would put in some 3-4 hour design sessions and just be mentally drained. I can’t say that I’ve ever felt drained from a short design session like that when designing website.

Though I would like to learn more about logo design and get better, I will say that designing websites will still be number 1 for me. But going through this logo design project, it makes me admire great logo designers that much more.

Slow Days

Things have been a bit slow around here, due to a number of reasons, but mainly because work has been pretty busy lately so by the end of the day, I am exhausted with no energy to write something useful. So I figure that I might as well not write at all. I have had a few thoughts about not only my work, but my blog.

As far as the work I’ve been doing lately, I feel as though I’ve made some minor mistakes in where the outcome is not what I expected it to be. Now, I’ve talked about accepting failure before, however, this is a little bit different. Sometimes mistakes can be avoided, however, I heard this quote recently that makes a lot of sense…

If you aren’t making mistakes, then you aren’t learning

I wish I could remember when the quote came from so I could give credit, but I agree to an extent, and some of the mistakes that I’ve made, I have learned a great deal from. I think looking back, I would have rather made those mistakes and learn good lessons from them, than to not make them and learn nothing.

As far as this blog is concerned, I’ve heard about lots of different blogs having goals, both long term, and short term. That got me to thinking about what my personal goals are for this site. I’ve been drawing blanks ever since I started thinking about it. I don’t know if writing about the industry is an actual goal, but that was my intent from the beginning, and it’s still the same.

I can’t say that I’ve ever thought about having long term goals, and definitely have no other idea to where this site is going. Again, I just want to write. So, I am curious to know if others have actual goals for their site (both long and short term)?

The Business Side of Things

When I first started doing freelance work on the side, it was was all fun. I’d get small projects, with a verbal agreement stating how much would be paid, and then I’d have at it. Then only design was the name of the game. A young, naive, thought I had was, I could do this all day, no problem. If only it were that easy.

Now that I’m going through the motions of having my own company, I’ve come to realize that actual design work is a very small percentage in the overall scheme of things. To make it that much harder, I don’t have a business background at all, so all of the aspects of business that I’ve learned up to this point have been through trial and error.

But once things get professional, it’s almost all business, whether it’s chasing down leads for new projects, negotiating project budgets with clients, contracts/proposals, meetings, overall communicating through emails, etc., it never stops. After going through all of the business aspects to get the project rolling, design seems to be the easy, less exhausting part.

Not all of the business stuff is bad. I will always enjoy the designing, but I’ve also come to like some of business stuff and I’ve learned a ton within the last few months. I especially like chasing down leads. That is by far the most interesting aspect, to me, because you find out whether you’re a good fit with a client or not. I also take lots of pride in being able to explain to others what we and how someone would benefit from the services we provide.

Meeting new people is always interesting to me, so I guess that is why I enjoy chasing down leads and learning what other people do. Whether you get along with new client leads or not, you always learn something about them and/or how to do things differently for the next time.

The aspect that I’ve come to like the least is paper……….unless it’s a check! I just don’t deal well with the legal/paper stuff. It gives me a headache, and I always feel like I leave little loopholes for something to go wrong. It’s just a tedious process having to write up proposals and contracts and nothing really excites me about it, however, they are extremely important to every project, and I’d never start a project without one.

Since my company is so new, there is still tons to be learned about the business side of dealing with clients as well as running a small design shop. I am in the process of wrapping up a great book called The Business Side of Creativity, and I would highly recommend checking it out. It packed with useful information on how to get started, and running your own business.

A question for other freelancers/designers……..how do you cope with the business aspect of this industry?