I’d like to start this first post of 2011 by wishing everyone a happy and prosperous new year.

I’ve commented in the past that I don’t really appreciate new years celebrations. For me, it’s a simple marker in time that a lot of people use to set goals for themselves or change their habits in an effort to improve themselves, which is a great thing. Personally, I don’t need the turning of a calendar page as motivation to make changes. I guess I’m a bit of a new year Grinch!

I’ve got a lot to be excited about this year, the main thing being that I will be getting married! There are also a host of new personal and professional opportunities for me to work on. I have plenty to look forward to.

However, the one thing I do like about the new year is pausing to look back at the year that has passed. Every newspaper and TV channel takes this opportunity to make highlight compilations of the year. So I thought I’d conform to the norm and make my own highlight reel!

I’ve listed what I consider to be the best posts I published last year. Please feel free to search around, add to the comments threads and of course let others know about them if they have helped you in any way.
Over the years I’ve been blogging I’ve published a lot of information and kept it all here online for new readers to find.

Research Week
A series of 5 posts focusing on the importance of good research in the design process.

Research – The Dirty End of the Design Process
Research – The Never Ending Task
Research – Sources
Research – Compiling your Findings
Research – Application to the Design Process

The Design Glossary
A series of posts that goes through the alphabet explaining, analysing and commenting on design terms.

The Design Glossary – Aesthetics
The Design Glossary – Branding
The Design Glossary – Clients
The Design Glossary – Debts

Mind the Gap
A post on the GAP logo debacle, the major branding debacle of 2010.

My Life as a Cartoon
I have an archive of 42 design related comic strips that have loosely chronicled my time as a designer while I’ve been blogging.

You Know You’re a Freelance Designer When…
A new series of short comic strips that are a spin-off of my comics here, but over on Graphic Design Blender.

Please let me know in the comments section which posts you liked from last year and the kind of articles you want me to post in 2011.

Here’s another opportunity for you to have your say, with another one of my random questions.

It’s that wonderful time of year when we all gather together and celebrate commercialism!

Of course I’m joking (a little). There are many reasons to celebrate Xmas, and the less cynical side of me appreciates how generous the human race becomes to one another at this time of year.

I know it’s corny, but as I’ve got older I have enjoyed giving gifts rather than receiving them. Plus with the advent of internet shopping I can get all of the gifts I need in between jobs.

There is one regular occurrence in the run up to Xmas in my family. I always get asked to write a list of things I might like. The reaction to this list is usually puzzlement. I’m not sure if it’s just me, or designers in general, but my tastes tend to veer off into the obscure. Any CD’s I like can’t usually be found on the high street and the books I like (design related or not) are limited runs or difficult to find. Luckily I like films, which can be an easy go to gift for the uninitiated!

So, what do you buy a designer for Xmas? Or if you are a designer, what is on your xmas list?

I’m only asking to make my life easier in the future. I can make a list and give my relatives a whole year to do their research and track things down!

A while back I was interviewed by Dave Williams for his blog. It’s now been published for your enjoyment (hopefully).
You can see it here.

Dave’s questions were really interesting and insightful. I hope my answers might be helpful to others too.

While you’re there take a good look at some of Dave’s other articles. He’s been busy producing some interesting stuff for the consumption of the blogosphere.

Design, like any creative pursuit, is all about individual style.

Some designers rely on it as their unique selling point, these are the ‘leopards’ that according to the saying …”never change their spots”.

Others adapt the style they work in according to the requirements of a project, like a ‘chameleon,’ they adapt to their environment.

For a designer or a client what are the advantages of each approach?

Leopards
A designer that is known and sought after for their particular visual brand or the way they go about things is quite a rare thing. I’m sure many people will be able to reel off a list of designers and illustrators working today that have a very distinctive output.

One in particular that sticks out to me is Shepard Fairey. The easiest example to pluck out of the air is his Obama ‘Hope’ poster whose success is exemplified by the sheer number of homages and spin-offs it has inspired.

I believe being a Leopard is quite a rare situation to achieve. You have to be a ‘famous’ designer to be know for your style. That style also has to be in tune with current culture and set it’s own trend.

The rarity of this is summed up by a quote from Noreen Morioka: “Being a famous designer is like being a famous dentist.”
I guess there must be some famous dentists somewhere?

To be a ‘leopard’ might be something of a curse in the long-run. If you become known for working in one particular style, it must be great as you ride that zeitgeist wave. But what happens when it crashes on the beach?
You would then feel the pressure to come up with something new that defines the next moment. Or risk being viewed as a has-been or one-design-wonder.

Chameleons
I think that design ‘chameleons’ are a much more common entity. We all need to work and will take on jobs that we may not have total creative control over. This means we have to compromise stylistically in what we produce.

You will notice the use of ‘we’ in the previous paragraph. I consider myself a ‘chameleon’ designer. I will try to work in any style that I feel is demanded by the design brief.

However, I still believe that I have my own overriding style that encompasses many others. I may employ different visual effects to meet a brief but I do it in my own way. Or at least I try.

As a ‘chameleon’ I get the excitement of experimentation. My work isn’t expected to look a certain way. If I were to employ Shepard Fairey, I would have a decent idea of what I would get (that’s probably why I’m hiring him!) I imagine there will be a point where he will want to try something different.

Many clients on a smaller scale (the kind I tend to attract) like to see a bit of variation. They like to be presented with different options and stylistic roads that they can choose to travel. It’s also a lot of fun for the designer to spin one brief in numerous ways.

Conclusions
I guess I could also reclassify ‘Leopards’ and ‘Chameleons’ as ‘trend-setters’ and ‘trend-followers’.

Maybe you don’t have to be well know to be a trend-setter, you just have to produce work that is quintessentially YOU,

I guess I want the best of both worlds. I want to be a ‘chameleon’ with the freedom to try anything that will meet any given brief, but I want to do it like a ‘leopard,’ in my own distinctive way.

Which designer are you? Leopard or Chameleon? Is there an advantage to either approach? Is either approach dependent on ‘fame’? Is style itself, just as subjective as design?

Last week I wrote my thoughts on how badly I thought GAP handled their re-branding. To balance my karma I thought I better shine a spotlight onto a company that, in my opinion, got it right. The electrical chain Comet.

I consider Comet’s re-branding a success due to the commitment they have shown in reinforcing the changes they have made to their logo by following through and making complimentary changes to the rest of their image.
This is the difference between a logo and a brand. A company doesn’t just change a logo because they are bored with the old one. There has to be very good reasons for a change in the first place.
A logo should project all of the important messages that a company wants their customers to know about them in a simple and powerful way. This is why logo design is such a challenge. However, a logo is useless if the company it represents does not follow through on promises a logo makes.
This is why a brand must compliment it’s logo and vice-versa.

In Comet’s case their old logo was very strong and business like. They used bold, dour colours and heavy type, projecting a very masculine and possibly unapproachable feel. It spoke of exclusivity, hinting that some electrical products might not be for everyone.
The new logo shows how Comet’s brand ideals have been reassessed.

This was highlighted in a press release from 15/9/2010:
“The campaign is part of a major rebranding exercise based on extensive customer research and reflects the business’ desire to differentiate, contemporise and broaden its appeal.”

The logo has been redeveloped with a very light touch, using the same iconography but softening it along with a change of font.

A further excerpt from the press release:
“Global brand studio venturethree designed the new brand identity, tone of voice and visual style. They also created the new Comet logo, replacing the former black and gold logo with a softer, orange and white version.”

The change of logo does something very clever. It does not write off the past branding it builds upon it by changing it’s direction and tone. The logo is still very recognisable as the ‘old’ comet, but it is noticeably different in the message it projects.
The more relaxed and friendly tone of the logo is reinforced and complimented by other changes in-store.

More from the press release:
“The new impactful point of sale materials, in bright and bold colours, were developed by Comet’s in house studio and have been rolled out to all stores, giving them a fresh and modern feel.
“All store staff have new uniforms with vibrant shirts in a choice of pink, green or blue.  The tie, part of the old uniform, has also been discarded in order to give uniforms a relaxed and younger look.”

The new approach and attitude of the company totally supports the branding. In other words the new brand ideals came first, then the identity was produced. The thing that Comet got right (that perhaps GAP didn’t) was that they had a clear understanding of how they wanted to change the way they are perceived. Then they figured out the best way to do it.
Everything I read about the GAP re-brand makes me suspect that they didn’t quite know what they wanted to achieve with a fresh look.

Another thing that strikes he as shrewd in the Comet re-brand is how they have widened their audience. Their old branding was very masculine and intimidating. They may as well have taken the ‘Yorkie’ approach telling their customers that electricals are just for men! With their new softened look and friendly and approachable ethics they have opened their market to female customers and anyone else that is unsure of what they need, or doesn’t know a lot about the products.

Another quote from the press release:
“Our research shows that people love the new Comet brand; that it feels fun and more accessible. We’re really excited about welcoming our customers into our stores and inviting them to “Come and Play”. Our friendly in-store experts have all the knowledge to help customers make the right choices and help them understand the amazing benefits technology can bring to their lives.”

Conclusions
I really do believe this re-brand is an example of how it should be done. Of course ‘how it should be done’ differs with every design brief. Comet have looked at their market, analysed how they’re perceived, figured out if they want to be seen that way, decided how they actually want to come across to their customer and made changes according to that brief.
Of course any re-brand is only as good at it’s implementation. Personally, I think the in-store promotion Comet use to reinforce the new branding is a little weak, and poorly put together, but it still does enough to fit and work with everything else.

Compared to the GAP re-brand, Comet showed great confidence in following through with it right across the board and committing to their new approach. I have a feeling that if they just released the new logo (as GAP did) it would have had a similar negative response. Once you get a chance to see the wide scale changes in the stores and in the customer service that is represented by the new logo, it all makes a lot more sense.

The only way the Comet re-brand will fail is if the customer service and friendly, approachable ethics that their branding promises are not fulfilled by the staff and management on a day by day basis. A good re-brand promises change, that promise has to be honored otherwise the whole exercise is worthless.

What do you think of this re-brand? Is this a good parallel for the recent GAP debacle? Can you think of any other recent brand projects that have done a better job?

While I’ve been away what have I missed? I heard a lot of fuss about the GAP logo, but it seems they are using the same logo they were when I went to take my break?

This whole GAP saga has been very interesting to watch over the past couple of weeks, and I’m in two minds about what to think of it all. For me it raises questions about how businesses value design and how they react to public opinion.

But let’s take this step by step…

4/10/2010
The new GAP logo is introduced on their website. (Only on their website, but more on that later.)

6/10/2010
GAP respond to negative online feedback to the new identity by timidly starting a crowdsourcing competition.

The message from GAP on their Facebook Page:
“Thanks for everyone’s input on the new logo! We’ve had the same logo for 20+ years, and this is just one of the things we’re changing. We know this logo created a lot of buzz and we’re thrilled to see passionate debates unfolding! So much so we’re asking you to share your designs. We love our version, but we’d like to… see other ideas. Stay tuned for details in the next few days on this crowd sourcing project.”

7/10/2010
A press release from GAP President Marka Hansen explaining the new identity.

This past Monday, without a lot of fanfare, we introduced a new logo on our gap.com site, and I wanted to take this opportunity to explain our thinking behind this decision.
I’ve been president at Gap brand for the past three years, and I’ve been living and breathing the changes we’ve been making on our journey to make Gap more relevant to our customers.
You’ve seen this evolution through many of our products, such as the 1969 premium denim and the new black pants, and more modern stores in many locations.
The natural step for us on this journey is to see how our logo – one that we’ve had for more than 20 years – should evolve. Our brand and our clothes are changing and rethinking our logo is part of aligning with that.
We want our customers to take notice of Gap and see what it stands for today.
We chose this design as it’s more contemporary and current. It honors our heritage through the blue box while still taking it forward.
Now, given the passionate outpouring from customers that followed, we’ve decided to engage in the dialogue, take their feedback on board and work together as we move ahead and evolve to the next phase of Gap.
From this online dialogue, it’s clear that Gap still has a close connection to our customers, so tapping into this energy is right. We’ve posted a message on the Gap Facebook Page that says we plan to ask people to share their designs with us as well. We welcome the participation we’ve seen so far.
We’ll explain specifics on how everyone can share designs in a few days.
Thank you to everyone who has already shared feedback. I’m excited about continuing the conversation and believe passionately in where we’re taking our brand.

11/10/2010
GAP decides to scrap the crowdsourcing project and revert back to their original identity.

Facebook Message:
“Ok. We’ve heard loud and clear that you don’t like the new logo. We’ve learned a lot from the feedback. We only want what’s best for the brand and our customers. So instead of crowd sourcing, we’re bringing back the Blue Box tonight.”

Press Release:
“Since we rolled out an updated version of our logo last week on our website, we’ve seen an outpouring of comments from customers and the online community in support of the iconic blue box logo.
“Last week, we moved to address the feedback and began exploring how we could tap into all of the passion. Ultimately, we’ve learned just how much energy there is around our brand. All roads were leading us back to the blue box, so we’ve made the decision not to use the new logo on gap.com any further.
“At Gap brand, our customers have always come first. We’ve been listening to and watching all of the comments this past week. We heard them say over and over again they are passionate about our blue box logo, and they want it back. So we’ve made the decision to do just that – we will bring it back across all channels.
“In the meantime, the website will go back to our iconic blue box logo and, for Holiday, we’ll turn our blue box red for our seasonal campaign.
“We’ve learned a lot in this process. And we are clear that we did not go about this in the right way. We recognize that we missed the opportunity to engage with the online community.  This wasn’t the right project at the right time for crowd sourcing. 
“There may be a time to evolve our logo, but if and when that time comes, we’ll handle it in a different way.“

The logo’s the same, but something else changed
So much happened in the span of a week, resulting in nothing changing. Or has it? In my opinion this whole debacle may well have changed how design is perceived by the public. It may also change how large companies have to relate to their customers when making changes to their brand.

I guess I should start by giving my own opinion of the ‘new’ logo. I think it would have worked.
Yes it was very simplistic, it wasn’t all that original and unfortunately it looked like anyone with a trial version of photoshop could have whipped it up in 10 minutes.
These criticisms don’t mean that the identity wouldn’t have been successful.

I think the real victim of this whole episode is the design consultancy Laird & Partners (New York) who created the logo for GAP. I can only presume that they adhered to a brief and produced a range of ideas and solutions to present to their client. Maybe you could argue that the logo that resulted should never have been pitched to the client, but we aren’t privy to the machinations of the creative process or client relations.
I not sure how much of the blame can be laid at the designers door. At the end of the process the client chooses the path that they want to take.

I wonder how much confidence GAP had in the logo to begin with. They unleashed it onto the world by changing their website header, and that’s IT! It wasn’t a multi-million dollar rollout. They presented the new identity in the most cost effective way possible, it cost them virtually nothing to implement the logo to gauge a reaction. This is where I feel like GAP let the designers and the logo itself down.

A logo on it’s own isn’t a brand identity. If you change just the logo in any brand identity it’s like putting a square peg in a round hole. The logo is the central cog of the brand, but everything else that surrounds it and locks into it works with it to create the overall effect.
By not committing to implement the new logo fully they sold it short.
A logo on it’s own is easy to judge and write off, but it doesn’t tell the whole story, in fact I’d say it’s barely half way there. You need to implement it fully, to actually put it to use in it’s proper surroundings and context to see if it will work.

This whole GAP saga reminded me of the reaction to the London 2012 Olympic logo. It produced a visceral and outraged reaction from the general public, and I still hear snarky comments about it now. At the time I was surprised by the logo and didn’t really know what to think of it. After a considerable amount of thought I decided it would work, and work really well when it was implemented.
I imagined London streets on hot summer days with banners and posters using the vibrant and shocking colours of the olympic identity, and felt that i ‘got’ what they were trying to achieve.

I tried the same thought experiment with the GAP logo and felt as though they could have been onto something. But we’ll never know now.

People Power, is it a good thing?
Many people will see how GAP reacted to the opinions of their customers as a positive move. I’m not so sure. I felt that it was handled in a very reactionary way. It’s almost as though they expected a negative reaction and tried to use the U-turn as a publicity stunt. I hope this isn’t the case but it does make me wonder. Many people will view the U-turn as GAP listening to it’s customers and being sympathetic to their thoughts.
Personally, I don’t think a lot of the negative comments on the internet came from regular and staunch customers of GAP. The internet has given everyone a voice, and many people use it to cast their views far and wide, sometimes in ways that they would never think of doing in the real world. Just because the internet gives people a veil to hide behind so they can be completely honest does this mean that the opinions should be taken more seriously? Isn’t there a case to be heard that many of the negative comments were the result of a lot of people spotting a band-wagon and climbing aboard?

Personally, I think GAP made a mistake by giving in. I don’t see them as sympathetic to their customers, I see them as weak willed and reactionary. I can only assume that they paid a good chunk of money to develop a new logo and identity, within a week they gave up on that expenditure and wrote it off as a mistake.
Surely, they would have tested the new identity before trying to launch it, even if it was the most timid logo launch in the world! They must have had an idea of the reaction the logo would generate. Which makes me wonder once again if this was just a clever publicity stunt.
If they had gone ahead and rolled out the identity despite the reaction I would have had a good deal of respect for GAP. They should have had the confidence to assume that it would have worked when in-situ.
Long established brands always battle the problem that , generally, people don’t enjoy change. If someone buys into a brand and invests in it, for it to then change, can have an unsettling impact. That’s why big brands have to be very careful about how they evolve their identity.
Perhaps the ‘new’ logo was too much of a departure from the established identity. Even if it did present the same core brand values, just in a different way.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for free speech and everyone is entitled to their opinion, they should also feel free to voice their opinion (says the guy with the blog!) but it’s also up to the individual and company to decide which opinions to listen to. I’m not sure GAP chose the correct audience to listen to.

So when is ‘people power’ a bad thing? When a large company decides to harness it in the form of a crowdsourcing design project.

This was the point at which GAP totally lost my respect. As I’ve said I feel like the design agency that created the logo is the victim in all of this. This is especially highlighted when GAP decide to discard the logo they have worked on, and ask the general public to do better.
This is the move that made me think the whole debacle might reflect badly on design as an industry. The point at which a large company turns to the general public for design advice above the people they originally employed to help them. How valued do you think the design agency felt then?
Why is public opinion valued over design experience? Isn’t it possible that the designers might have been right if their solution was given a fair crack of the whip?

I find the idea of crowdsourcing as a design solution laughable and dangerous. 99Designs started their own competition to create a new GAP logo while the saga rolled on. As always there seems to be plenty of designers out there willing to give work away in the hope of a bit of cash. I understand the motivations to do this at a certain point in everyone’s career when you believe that if you win you will get your big break, but I feel like I’m past that now.
I think there’s more satisfaction working with a client that respects a designers opinions and input instead of being a tool that is told what to do unthinkingly.

Conclusions
Once the saga ran it’s course I’m left with a sense of disappointment and nervousness. I think it’s a shame GAP didn’t stick to their guns. Yes the logo may have appeared weak on first impressions, but none of us knows how effective it might have been in practice. We can imagine and make an educated guess, but the reality is we will never know.
The nervousness comes from how a large company like GAP can so easily abandon the creative process and resort to crowdsourcing as a reaction to online opinion. I will always wonder what went wrong and why the creative process was abandoned so carelessly?

Feel free to add any of your own thoughts and opinions in the comments section below. Did GAP get it right? How else could they have dealt with the situation? Should they have abandoned the creative process?

The wonderful thing about life is how things never seem to stop! Being busy is the most wonderful problem a freelancer, or any business, can have.
This means that because of time constraints over the next few weeks I will not be posting as regularly as I have been for the past year or so.

Change is always an exciting thing, I don’t really get people that fear it. So I’m very happy to be moving home in the near future. It’s not a big move, I’m staying in the same town, just upgrading my flat.

So in an attempt to juggle work, moving home, freelance clients and blogging, one of these activities will have to give way for a short time. That activity is my blogging, which is a shame, but it simply can’t be helped!

I plan a 2 or 3 week break, but hopefully it won’t be a complete void. I’ll leave you with one more comic strip on Thursday, then hopefully there may be one or two guest articles from other designers and freelancers until I return.

In fact if you have an article that you’ve been looking to get published somewhere online, feel free to submit it to me via my contact page.

As I mentioned previously I have been blogging for a while now so there is a sizable archive of content that you are free to browse. I’ve picked a few of my favourite articles from the archives to give you an idea of what you might have missed.

Blog-Ject #1

A while back I started a series of posts that would walk-through my creative process and business practices.
I’m about half-way through the series so far, about to embark on the real design work. You can catch up on the series so far here.

My Life as a Cartoon – Comic Strips

A collection of graphic design based comic strips featuring myself and others. There are over 30 strips to read through, more than enough to waste a lunch hour as one reader informed me recently!

7 Tips for Freelancers Arranging a Holiday

A post suggesting some tips how freelancers might prepare for a holiday.

The Great Design Myth – Exposure

This is an article where I outline my mistrust of anyone that requests cheap or free design work in exchange for that most elusive of things, exposure, and of course more work as a result of it! What are your thoughts?

A while ago I re watched one of my favourite films, ‘The Usual Suspects,’ it’s a very quotable film and memorable in many ways. However one line has stuck in my head.
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
I’ve been mulling it over and I wonder if Kaiser Soze was, in fact, a graphic designer?

I apologise now if you haven’t seen the film I’m referring to, if that’s the case give it a watch!
Basically, the character of Kaiser Soze is a master criminal who is utterly ruthless and without conscience, but he is also very cunning. He completes his work through tricks and shadow games, so much so that the world does not believe he actually exists.
If Kaiser Soze does his job properly nobody notices him. I think that good design can sometimes suffer the same fate.

First I should probably define what I believe “good” design is.
The aesthetics of design are subjective, like art. The way something looks can be interpreted by different people in different ways.
I define “good” design by how effectively it communicates with the people it is targeted at. Unlike art, there is always a proper reason for the aesthetics in a design. They may still be subjective, but they will be focused into the message that is trying to be sent.

The best form of communication does not always result in the most pleasing aesthetics.

Which brings me to my point…

“Good” design can sometimes slip beneath everyone’s radar. The world is saturated by a huge amount of design literature, all shouting at us at once, vying for our attention, but we simply don’t notice it anymore. This onslaught of communication is considered the ‘norm’ and most of us simply ignore it.

It now takes something exceptionally good to be noticed amongst the white noise of graphic design, or something exceptionally bad.
For designers, bad design sticks out like a sore thumb, but for most people (clients included) it is all just part of the background noise.

Perhaps my definition of “good” design is no longer sufficient? Maybe our work now needs to communicate effectively as well as shout above the crowds.
Unfortunately, I’ve never thought that people who feel the need to shout, have all that much to say.

Because of the amount of design the general public is exposed to, we all eventually become desensitized to it. Just like a teenager that watches too many action films stops worrying about the levels of violence. The violence almost becomes expected.
The level of the graphic design that surrounds our daily lives has also become expected.

Which brings me back to my main point… If we do a good job at designing something, making sure that it communicates it’s message properly, our actions as designers, the design decisions we’ve made will go unnoticed.
It’s a bit like that old saying concerning secret government organizations. Their successes are never noticed but their failures are always exposed.

If a design is only as good as it’s brief, and the design fulfills its brief perfectly, then it does exactly what is expected of it. If “good” design (as per my definition) meets its set expectation, how can designers make their work stand out? How do you excel beyond set expectations if doing so spoils the effectiveness of a design’s communication?

This article is simply a thought experiment, I have no answers, but I think the questions I have posed are worthy of discussion, so I hope you’ll add your own thoughts to mine.

Do you think it’s difficult to get your designs to stand out from the crowd? Is “good” design ignored? Should a designer be invisible in their work?

Just you wait kid. I’m gonna make you a star!
I wonder how many bright eyed young starlets were lured into the clutches of an unscrupulous agent with those very words?
I also wonder how many young designers have undertaken unpaid work with the promise of that great design myth ‘exposure?’

The idea of exposure is the design equivalent of a unicorn.
To assume that you will do some work for a company free of charge, and it will be so well received that you are bound to get more work from it is fanciful, and not based in reality.

Having said this you will still get people say that’s it’s happened to them. Perhaps it has? In fact I’m sure there are cases where free work has resulted in a wider audience or new custom, but that just goes to prove the unicorn analogy.
Even the best of us can be fooled by a horse, a horn and a crafty bloke with animal friendly glue.

If unicorns existed, everyone would have seen one! If the exposure promise worked, we would all have benefited from it.

The reality is this…

Companies approach groups of designers. Sometimes it’s online on forums & websites, occasionally it’s even at college or university. They set a brief or run a competition. Sometimes they offer some good prizes sometimes they don’t. One thing they are guaranteed to offer is good exposure for you and your skills.

Did I just see a unicorn trot by?

Unless you are obsessed by design, like most designers and others that work within the creative industry, you do not walk around looking at all of the great design that surrounds you and wonder who created it.

When was the last time you looked at a great advert, t-shirt or business card and made the effort to find out who designed it?

If the answer is a long time, perhaps never, consider the minuscule chances that someone who might pay you for your services would make those sort of inquiries?

There’s that unicorn again!

There is a small chance I’m being overly cynical (A chance I rarely take, I know!) but I’m beginning to tire of the empty promises that are made to the design community that result from a lack of respect in what we do.
I wonder if the same people ask their local plumber if they would come and unblock their drains for free so their neighbours can get a good look at his van, obviously, resulting in more work?

Exposure isn’t a good enough promise. The only realistic way you can get more work from a job well done is if the client passes on your details to others. Referrals & recommendations are the best sort of promotion, and the only way that you can get those is to do a great job for a client that appreciates the value of what you have done for them. In other words a paying client.
What is the point in someone who has got free work out of you referring you to others? Any further clients resulting from a freebie will expect the same rates.

There is a place for free work in the design industry and that’s at the beginning of a career. When you are still learning your trade and feel you cannot rightfully charge someone for what you do, these kind of competitions and offers are perfect to use as learning projects. They are equally useful as portfolio builders.

Who knows? I might be wrong, perhaps you’ll rope that unicorn and ride it all the way to the top of the design world?

I want to hear what you think. Do you still do free work? Have you ever benefited from an ‘exposure’ project? What are the most bizarre promises you’ve been made in an effort to get freebies?

When it comes to social networking I’m not what you’d call a trendsetter. I’m not the first to try something new and plough the furrow for others to follow. I hang back to see if something works well for others before jumping in myself.

This might seem cowardly, but it makes perfect sense to me. I like to know what I’m getting myself into before deciding whether I can commit to it or not. After much deliberation I’ve finally decided to set up a facebook page for my little freelance business.

You may ask why I had to think about it? This is quite simple. I’m quite a busy person, so before I decide to commit slices of my time to something I need to assess if it will be beneficial to me or if it will offer something different to my readers & clients.

Generally, a facebook page will repeat a lot of the content I have on my website, and any updates and notifications I would usually make can be handled by twitter, so what’s the point?

1. Repetition isn’t a bad thing as long as you don’t overdo it.

2. Repetition isn’t a bad thing as long as you don’t overdo it.

3. As unusual as it may seem, not everyone in the world uses twitter. There are plenty of people I know on facebook that don’t, so it’s important to give them an easier way to keep up to date with what I’m up to if they choose to ‘like’ my page.
Not everyone uses the internet in the same way, so it’s important to give people multiple methods of interacting with me online.

4. I can link my facebook page to twitter and streamline how I interact with my online network.

5. A facebook page adds a new element to how I can interact with my readers. At the moment I have a short dialogue with my readers via the comments section. My facebook page has a discussions forum that is open to anyone to start a conversation with me and anyone else that is interested in the page. I like the fact that one of my favourite things about running my blog, interacting with readers, can be taken a step further via facebook.

There are plenty of other reasons why running a facebook page for your business just makes good sense!

1. Facebook is a massive database! If one of your friends likes your page, this is shown to their friends and their friends, friends etc Your page is part of a vast worldwide network that includes people that might never visit your actual website but there is a chance they will find out about it via FB.

2. Facebook pages are public and accessible to search engines. It’s a useful extra front in your online promotion.

3. You target your updates to the people that are interested. Each update you post on your facebook page appears in the news feed of those that have registered an interest. It’s not blind promotion.

4. It’s free! You can invest money in facebook advertising, but for now setting up a page is free, so why not set one up?

The only concerns I have are making sure that I keep the page lively and interesting. I’m running it on a trial basis for now to see if it’s a useful new front for my online marketing.

I hope you’ll take the time to give it a look and ‘like’ the page. Hopefully it will become a new and interesting aspect of my online presence.

Do you have a facebook page for your business? What were the reasons for starting one? Do you find it useful/complimentary to your other online activities?