I spent a very enjoyable evening last night at
Lasell College in Auburndale/Newton, Massachusetts. I am on the Advisory Board for the Graphic Design Department and we have an annual dinner with about 24 people from across the design, academic, advertising world. I think this is my 4th time. The department poses questions or curriculum ideas or just looks for feedback on what they are doing, and we way in along with some good food. It is always so interesting listening all the different views.
I find that this dinner makes me also think and reflect a lot about what I have done over the past 30+ years of my own design career. My mind was spinning on the ride home comparing my design journey and building a business and listening to how it is done today. It is so different. I started with the waxer and paste-up and just print. Now we have the web and video and Instagram and as one art director said, "it is all mobile". It is all about the phone.
Last night's discussion was about the portfolio, is it still needed, how many items, how is it used. Great conversations. Your portfolio is used to sell yourself and your skills. I lugged mine around in the early days but rarely in the latter half of my career. Reputation and building steady clients makes a business. On the drive home I did reflect on two decisions that I made when I started my business that were different than many others.
The first being that instead of directing my energies to agencies I went directly to companies and firms looking for business. I started out working at the art supply store Charrette, and heard all the stories about agencies from freelancers and their employees and it was all so negative about how they burned people out and never paid their bills. So when I started I decided not to approach agencies for design work. That proved to be a good move. I got linked to business owners and firm marketing directors as my clients and took out the agency middle man. Marketing directors also move around and they take their teams with them. And owners of businesses are fun to deal with.
The second decision I made was to go after the boring work instead of the fancy work. All the designers were competing for the annual reports, nice brochures and flashier projects. I went after the newsletter production, event packages, stationery, etc. The stuff that repeated over and over. The stuff that is in the desk drawer that is used to run a business day to day. The result is that the companies get comfortable with me and when the fancier projects come up you are already there. You get the work but didn't have to compete for it.
A third decision that evolved as the web and print-on-demand and e-commerce developed is that I created and sold products. I used my design skills to develop a second and third and forth source of income. This has been a message that I preached whenever I can to design students. They have a skill set that matches perfectly to the web. They know how to make all the parts and they are getting exposure to many different clients and seeing many different business opportunities. I encourage students to create and publish books but they can also create pretty much anything else; T-shirts, posters, hats, mugs, the list is huge, even creating one product and making a single dollar on-line can be a lightbulb, life changing moment. It can open a path to independence and if nothing else a second income stream. They have the skills, they just don't know that they can make money from it separate from an employer.
It was a great evening and thank you to Ken Calhoun, Program Director of Graphic Design
Connection and Learning
Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 self-published books.
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