Resourceful Designer - Resources To Help Streamline Your Graphic Design And Web Design Business.

Have you ever been in a productivity slump? It’s nice to think we’ve got everything under control. That we’re on top of our game. That our business is running like a well-oiled machine. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. There will be times when everything just piles up. You feel tired, overwhelmed and have no idea how you got to that point, or how to get out of the hole you're in. You feel stuck with no obvious path out. You’ve found yourself in a productivity slump. You see, the problem with running a business is you want it to succeed. I know that sounds strange. If only we all had the problem of a successful business. Right? But success is addictive. The more we succeed the more we crave it. To the point where we take on so much work that it tips the balance and all of a sudden, success is no longer an option. It’s at that point that things fall in on us and we experience that feeling of being overwhelmed and we're unsure what to do next. Oftentimes that feeling of not knowing what to do next lead

Do you set goals for your design business? [sc name="pod_ad"]In this week's episode of the Resourceful Designer podcast, I'm talking about setting goals for your graphic design business. I'm not talking about resolutions. I know it’s January when I'm releasing this episode, the time of year for setting resolutions, and that’s all fine. But what I’m talking about are goals. Whereas resolutions are more ongoing, like becoming a better illustrator or improving your coding skills. Goals, on the other hand, have a set target to achieve. When is a good time for setting goals? How about right now? I'm not saying this because it's January, the time of year many people are setting goals. What I'm saying is now, no matter when now happens to be, is a great time for setting goals. In fact, you should be setting goals for your business on a regular basis. How else are you going to measure your progress going forward? Why is setting goals important? Setting goals is one of the most important things you can do to stay on t

Have you ever considered a niche for your graphic design business? Working in a design niche can be very rewarding as well as very profitable. Many graphic designers make a very good living by only servicing a very small demographic of clients. In this week's episode of the Resourceful Designer podcast ,I discuss various niches, the benefits of working in one, and how not to limit yourself to just one market. I go into much more depth in the podcast but if you want to know some of what I talked about read on. What is a niche? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a niche is A distinct segment of a market. A place, employment, status, or activity for which a person or thing is best fitted. So what does that mean for us as graphic designers? A niche in the graphic design industry can be defined in three different ways. Design Niche A design niche is when you specialize in a particular section of the design industry. Like a designer who only designs logos, or one who specialises in direct mail campaigns,

What gifts do you get a graphic designer? Have you ever been asked the question "what gifts do you want for the holidays?" and you couldn't think of any ideas to say? In last year's holiday edition of the podcast I talked about graphic design gifts for your office. This time around I share gift ideas you can share when that ever so popular questions comes up.  Software/Apps Gift Cards Face it, we live in a computerized world and as designers, we spend a great deal of our time in front of one screen or another. So why not take advantage of it and ask for gift cards that will allow you to buy software and apps. Apple, Microsoft, Google all have app stores with great software for graphic designers. Education Gift Cards As graphic designers, we need to stay up to date on the latest software and design trends. What better way to do so than by taking courses. Places like Lynda.com, CreativeLive, Udemy are great places to learn. You could ask for gifts of knowledge via a gift cards. Gift Cards for "the other stuff"

How Good Is Your About Page? The About Page or About Me page on your website is arguably the most important page on your site. And yet, it's so often neglected when people create a website in order to concentrate more on the "meat pages" of the site. Pages like their portfolio, or the services they offer. The About Page is often just an afterthought. You know you need one, so you whip one up quickly and move on. But if you look at the analytics for your site you will probably see that your About Page is one of your most visited pages. Chances are you have a link to your About Page in your menu bar, and when someone lands on your site, regardless of the page they land on, they will probably click on that link to learn more about you. If you don't have a well-crafted About Page you could be turning visitors off and leaving potential business on the table. What makes a great About Page? People often fail in their About Page because frankly, they're talking about themselves. You would think that's what an About P

Are your design presentations great? Whether it's in front of just one person or in front of a board of directors, giving design presentations to your clients can be scary, even for the most seasoned graphic designer. In this episode of Resourceful Designer, I share 12 steps you can use to make your design presentations great. Please listen to the podcast to hear me act out two fictional presentations to show you the difference these 12 steps can make. The 12 Steps To Great Design Presentations. 1 Practice your presentation It doesn't look good if you stumble on your words, or you don't come across as knowing what you're talking about. It doesn't matter if you're presenting in person or via video, you need to come across like you know what you're talking about. After all, you should know what you're talking about. If you need to, write out your presentation in full or point form and study it. It will help you know your material inside and out. Plus, should your client interrupt you with questions, you'll know

There are some great perks to running a graphic design business. There are many benefits to running your own home-based graphic design business. In episode 24 I covered some of them, including getting to choose who you work with. Making your own hours. Deciding how much you want to charge and other things like the tax breaks you get and being able to work in your bathrobe if you want to. All of these are great reasons to want to run a graphic design business, especially from home. But in this episode of the Resourceful Designer podcast, I'm talking about perks. The little things that go a bit beyond the benefits. 7 Perks to running your business. Free Stuff When you register your business you are put on a list that becomes available to anyone who wants to purchase it. I know that sounds scary, but in fact, it's a good thing. Because many of the people who purchase that list want to send you FREE STUFF! Mostly promotional items like pens, mugs, keychains etc. usually with your company name on them. They hope t

Print Brokering, it's easy money. Is print brokering part of your graphic design business strategy? If not, it should be. We spend hours upon hours putting our creative skills to use for our clients. But if at the end of a design project we simply hand the printer files over to our client then we're leaving money on the table. With the addition of print brokering to your services you not only increase your value to your clients, but you can also drastically increase your income. It's not as scary as it sounds Getting into print brokering isn't that daunting a task. You don't even need to know anything about the print industry. You only need to know how to set up a proper print file, which you should be doing already. Then, instead of handing those files over to your client, you send them to the printer on your client's behalf. So what's the point? Let me illustrate it for you with an example. Let's say you design a 4-colour tri-fold brochure for your client. You spend several hours creating it until it's exac

Before starting your home based graphic design business. It sounds easy, doesn't it? You have your skills and a computer, so why not start a graphic design business from your home? Go for it I say. However, there are certain things you need to do before starting on your new journey. In this episode of the Resourceful Designer podcast, I go into detail on what you should do before starting your own home based graphic design business. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. Required research before starting your business. The first thing you need to do before starting your home based graphic design business is research. Being prepared for what's to come is the key to success. Here are a few things you should look into. Choose your type of business You have the options of operating as a sole proprietor, a partnership with someone, or one of the many forms of corporations. Choosing your business structure lays the groundwork for what you will do next. Study up on tax laws It's a good ide

Have you ever considered bartering your design skills? Like it or not, money rules our world. Without it, businesses fail, economies collapse and people suffer. However, money isn't the only commodity when it comes to doing business. Thousands of years ago, long before currencies were introduced, people relied on bartering in order to survive. If you had a field of wheat but no meat and your neighbour had a herd of cattle but no grain, the two of you would barter the goods you had in exchange for those you required. Everybody was happy in the end. Bartering still remains a viable way of conducting business and there's no reason why it wouldn't work for your graphic design business. In this week's Resourceful Designer podcast I share examples of how bartering can help your business. Be sure to have a listen, or better yet, subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. What is bartering? According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Barter means to trade or exchange commodities (such as products or services

What happens to your business if you don't take care of yourself? Running a home based graphic design business offers you the freedom and flexibility to work when you want and the way you want. But what if you don't take care of yourself and you get sick? What becomes of your business? In this episode of the Resourceful Designer podcasts, I discuss how you need to take care of yourself if you want your graphic design business to prosper. As designers, our clients rely on us to give their projects our undivided attention. But how are we suppose to do that if we're dashing to the washroom every few minutes or if we have a headache so bad that we can't look at our computer screens? The answer is we can't. Face it, when we're under the weather our business suffers. So what can you do about it? Have you ever heard the term "prevention is the best form of medication"? It holds true for us designers. If we take care of ourselves both physically and mentally we won't have to face this dilemma that often. Although the

It's OK for Graphic Designers To Ask For Help What's the one thing every business person struggles with, regardless of their occupation? The answer is time. No matter how hard you work there just never seems to be enough time in the day to get everything done. So what's the solution? Ask for help. You see, the problem is time is finite. Once it's gone, it's gone. So you have to make the best use of the time you have. This applies to life in general but in this week's Resourceful Designer podcast, I'm talking about how it applies to your graphic design business. About all the time you spend struggling or fiddling with client projects as well as other aspects of your business. You'll never get that time back. So why waste it in the first place when all you have to do is ask for help with it.? I said I was going to talk about your business, however, there are things you could ask for help with that are not necessarily related to your business, but can still help benefit your business. Consider getting help with

From time to time, every business will have hurdles to overcome. Have you ever had one of those weeks that you just want to sweep under the rug and forget ever happened? Me too. In fact, that's how last week went for me. But instead of letting it go, I've decided to share my hurdles with you in this episode of the Resourceful Designer podcast. My week from hell My week started off like any other until I received a phone call from a website client. There was a problem with their site. Members couldn't log out. I had recently migrated their website from a Windows server to a Linux server and thought perhaps something had happened in the move. I told them I'd look into it and got to work. This should have been a warning sign but it took me roughly 5 hours to find and fix the problem. A problem that should have only taken me two minutes if I had just looked. I spent hours combing through code trying to find the issue when it turns out the Logout button had the wrong URL associated with it. Other than some wasted

Regain valuable time by creating a Don't Do List. Every day we spend needless time on tasks, routines and distractions just because they've become habits. We also spend valuable time doing things just to please others. Even if it doesn't benefit us at all. If you take back some of that wasted time you'd be amazed at how much more efficient your business can be. That's where a Don't Do list comes in. Let me ask you a question. Imagine this fictional scenario; you are a busy graphic designer with multiple client projects on the go. You win a great proposal and are  awarded a new 40-hour project to complete within a tight deadline. Unfortunately, due to personal issues, you are only able to devote 4 hours per day to your business for the foreseeable future. What would you eliminate from your daily tasks and routines to make your life easier? What would you include on your Don't Do List? Create a Don't Do List By creating a Don't Do List for your graphic design business you are able to hold yourself accountable a

If you don't want to do it, just say no. As human beings, it's in our nature to want to please others. So when a client comes to us with a new graphic design project we have a desire to take it on even if it's not in our best interest. As a graphic designer, you have to determine if the project affects you in any negative way. If it does, just say no to it. In this episode of Resourceful Designer, I discuss the various reason, implications, and outcomes when you say no to graphic design work. Pless play on the podcast player to listen to the episode. No is a complete sentence. Why do we insist on coming up with excuses or feel the need to apologise when we say no? Saying no in itself is a complete sentence. There's no need to follow it with any form of reasoning to justify it. "I'm too busy", "there isn't enough time", "I'm already committed to something else". These are some of the excuses we use when we say no. Why do we insist on justifying ourselves? How do you say no? It's harder to say no to existing cl

Trouble naming your graphic design business? Forget colours, forget logos, forget layouts, one of the hardest things you will face when starting out on your own, is naming your graphic design business. Colours can be changed, logos can be updated, layouts can be tweaked, but your business name is something that will endure for the life of your business. That's why it's so important to get it right the first time. In this episode of the Resourceful Designer podcast I go over the PROs and CONs of working under your own name vs. coming up with a unique business name. I talk about a lot of different considerations and problems that could arise when naming your graphic design business. I hope you find this episode helpful. Here are a few of the things I covered in the podcast. Naming your graphic design business with your own name PROs It makes you look more affordable It makes you feel more transparent and approachable People remember you and not a business Your name is recognisable to people who know you No wor

Do you show courtesy for whoever will work on your files once you're done? Chances are while you're busy working away on your client's latest design project the last thing on your mind is who might one day be working on your files. Or what will happen when you need to open these same files a year or two from now. Don't worry, I don't think about it either. However, I do take it into consideration the convenience of properly organised files and how much easier they are to work with. So should you. In this week's podcast episode, I talk about simple things you can do while creating your files that will make it easier for yourself or perhaps another designer to someday down the road work with your files. I go in depth on this topic but here are some of the points I cover. Use the right tool Take into consideration what kind of project you're working on and what application you will design it in. Adobe Photoshop is great for manipulating images but not so good at laying out type. Look at your design toolbox and c

Are all your clients grouped into one basket? This week's podcast episode comes after a conversation I had with an old classmate from college. For the purpose of this episode let's call him "Bob". During my conversation with Bob, he made mention of his boss. I immediately took note and asked him about it because I knew that Bob ran his own design business. It turns out that when Bob's three major clients all left him within a few month period he found himself unable to sustain his business. He enjoyed designing so much that he neglected the marketing and salesmanship side of the business and didn't have enough clients to fall back on. Bob had kept his design work in one basket and it came back to bite him. That conversation led me to record this episode about diversifying your client base so that what happened to Bob doesn't happen to you. What do you mean by basket? In the context of this podcast, a basket is a metaphor for a demographic, industry, market segment or anywhere a client may fall into. For examp

How many hats do you wear in your graphic design business? If you run a home-based graphic design business, the title of this podcast episode, "The Many Hats Of A Home Based Graphic Designer", shouldn't be much of a mystery.  However, if you are not running your own business yet, the many hats I talk about may come as a surprise. Let me ask you a question. When did you decide to become a graphic designer? Did you know from a young age? Did you know another graphic designer and aspired to follow in their footsteps? Did you enjoy art class in high school so much that you decided to pursue a career in the arts and chose graphic design? Maybe this is your second career. Maybe you got tired of the mundane job you were doing or maybe your company got downsized and you decided to look for something different. Maybe you didn't even go to school for graphic design. Maybe you or a friend had some event to organize and you decided to make the poster or flyer for it yourself. After doing so you thought "I like doing this

Did you ever think you would be pinching pennies in order to save money? Some people view the life of a graphic designer as exotic and full of creative wonder. They see us portrayed on TV and in movies as smart, responsible people who, although not necessarily wealthy, do manage a pretty good living. For some reason, those fictional graphic designers are rarely shown struggling to make a living and trying to save money on every purchase they make. Truth be told, graphic design is not a profession you get into if you have aspirations of being rich. Don't get me wrong, there are some very wealthy designers out there, and the average designer can make a very good living. But for some of us, especially those working from home, living a simple but comfortable life through careful spending and creative ways to save money is what we can expect. With that said, I thought I'd share the knowledge I've gained over more than 25 years as a graphic designer of various ways for us to save money. Be sure to listen to the pod