Tooting Your Own Horn Series—P1

As some of you might have read in my previous entry, I thought it a good idea to take a page from award winning industry leaders like Jeff Fisher of bLog-o-motives and start promoting myself here. After all, we're essentially in the business of effectively promoting others, so why do visual designers find it such an obstacle to do the same for themselves?

Designers or Businesspeople?

Designers seem to have a hard time remembering...or accepting...that they are running a design business. They conduct themselves as people who happen to be talented designers, but not as professionals who are selling design as part of their range of services.

If one doesn't see themselves as a business first and a designer second, then they won't think to shed their "student" mentality of only working on a good portfolio and start to promote their business as other entrepreneurs do. For instance, utilizing targetted marketing campaigns throughout the year and attending networking events as marketing tools largely end up being passed over. Their business likely won't grow as much as it could because they didn't think to tap into all of that promotional potential.

While a smart looking portfolio and website presence is important, it shouldn't be the "end all" of self-promotion. Truth of the matter is, for those who had a formal college education, the latter is the only thing that is often emphasized in their curriculum, and so it's the option the end up focusing on without considering alternatives.

Employees Need Promotion, Too

Just because one isn't an independent contractor or running their own firm doesn't mean that one shouldn't promote their creative accomplishments. While I'm on it, note that I didn't say, "freelancer." I don't particularly like to use that reference, because these days, potential clients seem to think that it's some sort of code for "you-can't-land-a-real-job" or that "free" means just that...work for virtually nothing.

A designer should always think about promotions because you never know where your next business opportunity will come from. You never know who's going to flip through a design annual of inhouse communications work and run across an ad campaign you did for your employer. Or perhaps see your latest illustration submission in Illustration Friday and present you an even better position at an esteemed firm. At best, it's another means to just get some positive exposure and generate interest in your work, possibly build up a referral base for the possibility that you do branch out on your own, use as leverage when vying for a promotion or a better position elsewhere, or for those who's submissions are accepted into celebrated industry design annuals or industry accolades like The Summit Awards, the chance to add "award winning designer" to your name.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of Word of Mouth Referrals

I originally generated a good deal of business through what's called word of mouth referrals. Basically, one good design gig lead to another because the original client referred me to friends, and they referred me to other interested parties. It was a sweet deal really. I didn't have to go through the "portfolio interview" or work very hard to convince them the pros of hiring an experienced designer who can effectively develop creative solutions to communicate their promotional goals. The person who referred them to me did most of the sales for me and the deal was already pretty much in the bag before I even met them.

Life was indeed good, but "life" being what it is, it didn't last.

For one thing, 9/11 happened. Being a New Yorker and having most of my client base affected by the events of that day blindsided my business. Businesses either suffered, folded or moved away. Of those who remained, they struggled to recupperate losses, which essentially meant that they couldn't afford my services as they tightened their belts. My referral base was a pretty mess, indeed.

I had to rebuild. However I wouldn't have had to do that if I had worked to promote myself during the good times—if I had been submitting my work to annuals and erected a professional web site even if I felt it wasn't necessary at the time. If I had been sending out periodic self promotional collateral to build my business, I might've been minimally affected. I wasn't prepared because I didn't see the hard times coming. Who ever does, really.

And I feel that in part, promotions are not just a means to generate more potential clients, but also use as leverage to build a strong marketing base that can keep your business afloat long enough to weather the storm of the lean times.

Next: Part Two

Arche-Toot!* Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens CD and poster included in Design Recital

A double CD album and poster design for the budding Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens authentic pharaonic apparel line by Dagmar Jeffrey of Archetype Design Studio, was recently included in the innovative market oriented blog, Design Recital. In essence, it showcases captivating promotional designs within the music industry.

Design Recital is the brain child of noted award winning designer Randy Hill of Hill Design Studios, a Pacific Northwest-based graphics communication business, with an impressive design resume that spans over thirty years. Designers who have created compelling illustrative, photographic, multimedia and digital design creations geared towards the music industry are invited to submit their pieces for inclusion amongst their talented peers. You'll find a multi-faceted showcase of targetted promotional material that caters to all genres, from soulful gospel to heavy metal. For anyone interested in exploring the myriad of creative solutions for promoting music artists in the industry, it'll be worth your while to look through the array of visually stimulating graphic designs presented there.

The submission came by way of an invitation after sending Mr. Hill the CD packaging and poster images presented in the online article, with a brief description behind the concept. It also detailed some of the printing choices that Dagmar believed would enhance the color's brilliance while selecting a paper stock that would compliment the texture and epic feel that the client wished to communicate. For example, in the CD (covers shown below), and poster (image detail here) it was decided to output a separate specific pantone spot color for the color blue because an ordinary four color high resolution offset didn't sufficiently enhance the deep azure that the client intended. Here, because color is key to the branding itself, the added expense was well worth the dividends.

Dagmar Jeffrey utilizes the internet in part as a medium to promote her creative versatility to prospective clients within the global market. It is also a great way to network with potential clients, colleagues, vendors, keeps Dagmar abreast of trends and pertinent issues and makes for an invaluable resource tool. And every so often, online games are a welcome quick stress relieving respite during the work day.

*No need to ventilate—an "arche-toot" is just my little blurb for promoting any noteworthy accolades, press releases or "pat on the back" accomplishments related to Archetype Design Studio. It's a phrase that was partially coined and totally inspired by Jeff Fisher of Jeff Fisher Logomotives (illustrated here in his widely read bLog-o-motives). In innovative Bojangles fashion, he has made his famous "toot toots!" a positively copacetic self-promotional term. The little asterisk was gleaned by him as well. As he so aptly explains at the footnote of every "toot" post in his blog, "If I don't 'toot' my own horn, nobody will." A good reminder for the creative masses, methinks. Incidently, the royalties are in the mail Jeff, heh.

The Gradient Stigma

Here's my brief personal take on gradients and why they've unjustly received such a bad break.

Ordinarily gradients were largely frowned upon by the professional community for technical reasons. They were either created in a raster based program like photoshop and then improperly refitted in print collateral, or suffered incompatibility (banding) issues with a printer or pre-press bureau's technology.

Solid color to color gradients were once often applied using a raster program like photoshop—a pretty effective medium if the design were intended to be used on the web, but not so for print. Take identity design as an example. There were plenty of creative denizens who were commissioned to somehow utilize gradient filled rastered logos with the expectation of resizing and outputting them as crisp and clean as if it were originally made in a vector program. Clients didn't understand that applying it cross platform this way was a recipe for bitmapped spew. Why would they, when they didn't even consider the stark differences between high print and low screen resolution, let alone raster pixel technology and vector's mathematical computations. For those who may want to expand your knowledge on these distinctions a bit more, try to google keywords along the lines of Raster vs. Vector for a start. As I say, the internet can be your friend.

Then there were those who did apply gradients using vector software. As I mentioned earlier, there were banding problems depending on the equipment printers used, plus somewhere along the line it sometimes had trouble translating a consistently smooth gradation in print because of the nature of the software itself. The latest technology in large part addressed these problems, but you can't guarantee that all printers are up to date because it is very expensive to upgrade. They will use what they have, for as long as they can remain a competitive force in the market.

Finally, gradients should be treated the same way as solid colors. They shouldn't be used to "carry" a design, yet more often than not that's what happens. That's why I'm a supporter of designing in black and white first when developing logos. Not only is it easier to pinpoint any design flaws, but without the added distraction of colors and gradients, a Creative can focus on the primary task at hand—developing a good strong mark.

I feel that all things considered gradients can most certainly be applied to compliment or accent a strong mark/design/what-have-you in proper context. That's why I'm not against using them. But the fact remains that there seems to be more instances where it's used to mask poor design instead.