BlogmyQuery – BMQ

“The need is constant. The gratification is instant.” That’s from the American Red Cross, and it was copy that I plugged into a poster for a blood drive at a comics convention. Sitting beside an image of the sexy and well-endowed Vampirella, the words took on a different meaning. Oops!

But I was struck by how these words are a perfect assessment of our society. We want it all, instantly and as cheap as possible. We are a Walmart culture. Fast and cheap have entered our every pore and changed our society, our lives and our livelihoods. Compounding our daily worries and pressures, we now fight to keep our industry professional and profitable. Clients want our blood for free, and the “hacks� are designing us out of existence.

Most people blame the laptop and easy-to-use software. Many blame art schools for favoring quantity over quality. Can any of these be blamed merely for doing business? If someone who has no idea what they’re doing wants to purchase a computer and a slew of graphics software and call themselves a designer, then they’re in business.

All you need is a computer, software and beard and you are an ARTIST!.. Right?

Should we call this “competing in the marketplace� or just “giving it away… and eroding respect for what we do in the process�?

Every freelancer who has dared to provide an actual estimate for their work has heard in reply, “I can get it done cheaper.â€� And the client can. The job, which requires thousands to be done properly, can be delivered for hundreds, and its horridness would never be noticed by the client. They will not notice the lack of a return on their investment or the consumers avoiding their service or the people making sport of their new logo online. And if they do — which would likely happen after they’ve gone out of business for making all the wrong, cheap decisions — they will blame graphic designers. All of us.

When a staff designer makes a blunder — even if only a perceived one — all designers need to have a watchful eye. We are the weird kids, the ones who drew pictures in math class while the kids who became marketing directors and account managers told on us. Yes, we need watching.

If you ever wondered how the practice of presenting several ideas in a meeting gained such a foothold in our business, just imagine some of the incompetents in the Floogelbinders Guild in the 7th century who really screwed up and codified the practice… before their heads were chopped off and their limbs burned. Ah, the good ol’ days, when they really knew how to maintain professionalism.

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What Exactly Is A “Hack�?

Let’s take a look at dictionaries. Hack: noun.

1. A horse used for riding or driving; a hackney.
2. A worn-out horse for hire; a jade.
3. One who undertakes unpleasant or distasteful tasks for money or reward; a hireling.
4. A writer hired to produce routine or commercial writing.
5. A carriage or hackney for hire.
6. A taxicab.

Those who responded to my query in social media had great insights and varied opinions on what is a ‘hack’.

Wrote one designer:

It is not as regulated as other professions, such as interior design and architecture or accounting for that matter. To call oneself a designer, there is no apprenticeship required, no test to pass, no certification to obtain. If you have access to the software, it’s open season.

One creative director wrote some very kind words:

I view hacks as part of the overall ecology of what drives business when it comes to design and branding. On the one hand, hack has a connotation as it relates to businesses that are starting up or struggling to survive or that simply don’t take design seriously — the kind of business-folk who just look for the lowest bidder. Then there are the sincerely talented designers who simply lack ambition, business savvy or both, and who do not get past five years in their careers. Either situation actually helps cultivate a wonderful ecology of design business, in my opinion.

Surprisingly, an editor-in-chief of a well-known news service responded with an outrageous number of typos and grammatical errors (corrected here):

Every industry has hacks, but most artists I have met (most, not all) really do strive to be original and to use their imaginations to come up with new ideas. Very few jaded ones will rehash old stuff or try to peddle work that is derivative. It is always “buyer bewareâ€� in this case. If the guy seems like a slick used-car salesman, find someone else with whom you can work. On the other hand, artists look out for people who don’t want to sign contracts, people who can’t tell good art from bad, people who can’t make up their minds after being presented with 20 different sketches, and people who will not pay an advance or a set-up fee.

A well-known writer, checking in as “misery-loves-company,� added:

There are hacks in every discipline. Try working as a professional writer. Anybody with a keyboard and the ability to type can claim this for a calling.

A gentleman with the title of “Business Development� added another view that creatives might not hear often:

I’ve thought about the definition of hack. It is conceivable that a person with no formal training or someone who did not do well in design school could rise to the top of their profession. They would have to be driven to succeed and committed to quality, I am sure.

But there is no guaranteed correlation between the eliteness of one’s education and the quality of their current work.

Is “CrowdSourcing” and “Fixed-Price” Online Shops the Future?

I was once invited to witness what crowdsourcing could do. I guess I was being lined up for the next firing squad and lured by free pizza. I honestly thought I was attending a gathering of designers at a promotional advertising company. Mmmmm, nope!

The owner described the projects, mostly logos, and showed what a source of 8 “designers” could design. Seems that was the unpaid part. The “best designer” would get paid for finishing the project, which might not be his/her logo but a mashup of every design the owner, who now also owned all of the unpaid designs, decided to create…because he was so creative. “That’s a win-win situation” he closed with. I could hear him from the supply room, where I was helping myself to my “out-of-court settlement” for having been dragged to this thing.

HOW Magazine’s July issue has an article on crowdsourcing. Quotes from two authors on the subject in that article say:

Perhaps, as Debbie Millman writes, this trend does devalue our services. Perhaps, as David Baker observes, it weeds out the low-level clients we shouldn’t be working with, anyway. Is crowdsourcing really “stealingâ€� work from professional designers — or has it simply replaced the quick-print guy and the executive assistants?

The editor adds:

One answer to that question may be: Let’s reinvent crowdsourcing so it works to the benefit, not the detriment, of both parties in the exchange. Maybe we could invent a way for a small group of designers, vetted for their expertise, to engage with a client, present their ideas, earn compensation for those ideas — and then the designer whose concept is chosen is further paid to fully develop and execute that idea. Talented creatives from all over the globe could participate in a project they would otherwise have no access to. Designers and clients have an opportunity to interact, so the solution isn’t derived in a vacuum (as is often the case with crowdsourcing). Clients can connect with a range of qualified creative thinkers to build their business. It doesn’t have to be cheap. Everyone gets paid. The client chooses the best solution.

Aside from other glaring mistakes in the article on business practices, the editor is quite obviously fond of glowing rainbows and unicorns. Every creatives’ guild or organization is against this practice because companies use it to their best advantage financially and people continue to provide work. Those attending this cult-fest of design suggested the same thing the HOW editor outlined, to the crowdsourcing person who called us to the ill-fated meeting. Pay MORE money for the same work? It wasn’t going to happen in non-unicorn world. HOW? How MUCH, is more like it.

“Mommy, I hate designer’s guts!” “Shut up and eat!”

To their credit, they did mention the position of organizations, which they totally ignored when sprinkling pixie dust on the subject and presenting it to readers who want to know “HOW?”

Professional organizations must tread lightly in advocating against unpaid work, as AIGA discovered in the 1990s, when the Federal Trade Commission ruled that any statement or code of ethics that advised members not to work for free amounted to price-fixing. Its current position supports fair compensation for design work, and delineates between spec work (where a creative works for free in hopes of compensation) and unpaid work like pro-bono projects or internships (where services are willingly given away). The Graphic Artists Guild warns its members against competitions where the sponsoring organization retains all rights to all submissions, and helps creatives avoid unfavorable contracts.

Surprisingly, Forbes aired an article on crowdsourcing and of course, the self-appointed “capitalist tool,” seemed more impressed with it as a business model, rather than a threat to an industry. To be fair, they were balanced in exploring a few quotes echoed by other professionals in the field.

Mix crowdsourcing, the Internet and a huge pool of underemployed graphic designers, and the outcome is a company that’s grabbed a great deal of attention. In the two and a half years since it launched, Web startup 99designs out of Melbourne, Australia, boasts that it’s helped to broker 48,000 graphic design projects for big name clients like Adidas and DISH Network as well as for thousands of small businesses.

Personally, I’ll be sure to remember that when I need new sneakers or satellite TV service. Will other creatives?

Acting as a middleman between business owners and graphic designers, the 99designs site hosts contests in which clients post their needs — website design, logos, print packages — and designers compete to fill them. Instead of bidding for the job, designers submit finished work tailored to the client specifications in the contest listing. 99designs calls it a win-win scenario: Its clients gain access to the site’s pool of 73,000 active designers, while the designers are given a chance to compete for “upwards of $600,000 in awards paid out monthly.”

So, if my math is correct and every one of the 73,000 designers won just one competition a month, each would get $8.22. Sure not every one will win with the four to six entries they must submit to each contest…assignment…act of piracy on the high digital seas…whatever, so some designers will get $16.44 or maybe $32.88 per month? If I lived in Bali…and was stealing someone else’s electricity, I could live well. Well…live.

“99designs is something akin to a Walmart,” says Dan Ibarra, industry veteran and co-founder of Aesthetic Apparatus, a Minneapolis design studio. “It’s not necessarily dedicated to bringing you good work, but to bring you a lot of it. That’s not necessarily better.”

Ibarra’s thoughts echo the general response from designers to a 2009 article Forbes ran on a 99designs look-alike called Crowdspring.com. Many critics of Crowdspring’s business model directed readers to NO!SPEC.com, an online campaign dedicated to educating the public about the risks of speculative work — which is, as defined by NO!SPEC, work in which the designer “invests time and resources with no guarantee of payment,” a “huge gamble” for designers competing against thousands of others.

Other professionals I have spoken with on the subject feel it’s just not a threat to the “design experience” or the “personal touch.” Several feel it just separates the serious design clients from the casual small business.

You have to remember that everything is consumer driven. What I mean is that the consumer is the one that dictates how we set our prices. If a consumer is unwilling to spend $100.00 for an original work verses spending $50.00 for one located on-line…what can you really do?

I really hope that it’s not. I think (and hope) that there will always be a market for those of us who don’t have quite a structured pricing plan, and who are willing to pay more for quality instead of quantity.

I’m still waiting for the day graphic design is held in the same regard as auto mechanics and plumbers… you don’t get fixed rates with them, and they’ll laugh at you if you ask for it. There’s a price for parts and and an hourly rate for service, end of discussion. You can give a flat rate by estimating (to yourself) how many hours it will take and then padding that for how many revisions the client will ask for. If you fall short, remember that the next time, but don’t penalize the client. Keep good records of your time. And… you obviously can’t charge the same fee for logo design for a company on the scale of Coca Cola as you would for Joe’s Landscaping down the street. It’s a different value to each. Large corporations get much more use and ROI from a logo than a one man show. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

With regards to fixed vs hourly, we almost always do fixed. Even on big application development projects. Sure, there are concerns with client requestitis and scope creep but thats part of the consideration. With hourly you are always guaranteed to be punished for your efficiency and experience by getting paid less.

As for cheapo logos and web templates? Go for it I say. It’s nothing new. The clients that find that type of thing valuable are the ones I don’t have the time to educate on the real value of thoughtful design.

It’s the future for clients that have a “checkbox mentality”, where a logo, a brochure, a website, are just things on a list to check off, rather than key elements of their business strategy.

Those clients have never been good clients. They’ve never paid well, or been good to work for. For a brief time, as design exploded and became available to businesses that couldn’t afford it previously, they had to buy more than they wanted, and employ real designers. Now that the supply of “designers” has also exploded, these design-blind clients can buy what they actually want, which is a cheap template with their words and photos stuck in it.

They’ve never wanted real design, the market has evolved to give them what they want.

The market for clients that do want real design is still there, and still very profitable for designers with the right skills and talents. But the bar for that market is very high, and people that can’t reach it are stuck in a no man’s land between the heights of success and the pits of mass-produced junk design.

Since clients have variable needs and budgets, there is definitely room in the marketplace to offer low-cost design services online. The clients who use these online design resources may not be a good fit for those of us who are answering this question, but they have a need with a tight budget and online creative services seem to fulfill that need.

Traditionally, junior designers and recent graduates have had access to the low budget projects more experienced individuals have passed on. I think the online sites provide a similar outlet. Students may benefit from putting their hat in an online ring to get experience – especially when they will (most likely) be charging similar low rates. Established creatives and businesses probably have other methods of finding work (the Internet is a great tool for getting business, but does not replace all other traditional marketing/networking/prospecting) so I do not think fixed-price online creative sites will completely ruin our ability to maintain a viable business.

Does Art School Make You A Professional?

Being an art school drop-out myself (12 credits shy, and going back over a decade later to get them) and having much success without a degree, I naturally understand this point about art school. Many echoed this sentiment: that creativity has nothing to do with a degree. I was teaching at Parson’s School of Design long before I went back to take the four art history classes I needed to graduate. My work for major corporations did, however, require a four-year degree. Guess the “accomplishment level” can mean something. Ah! but is it art?

“HA! As the sole surviving creative, I can charge $50 for a logo!” (it’ll still be argued down to $20).

It is a popular major, though, as one designer noted:

I asked nearly the same question to the owner of the art college I eventually graduated from: “Do you think similar two-year programs are flooding the market with graphic designers?� His answer was a resounding “No,� and he followed that with, “Talented artists will always find work when untalented artists don’t.� With the designers I’ve met or worked with and the ones I’ve read about, I’d have to I agree.

Naturally, sticks and stones were thrown:

From what I understand from meeting other students, the quality of education is lacking. Apparently, many educators simply like to take home a pay check for doing the least amount of work. A lot of the students suffer from not having any mentorship from a qualified teacher. However, the top students always find their way through the educational maze to get the cheese.

Should art schools teach online fixed-price business to students? Most people say, “no!” Shouldn’t an art school prepare a student to enter the field from day one with all the material and professional skills needed to enter the field as a peer and not a “hack” who lowers the bar for fees and professional demeanor?

Mediocrity runs rampant in today’s society. I don’t think design schools should teach the principles of online stores but make their students aware of what is out there and what they will come up against in the real world. Unfortunately many will go that way. But a true designer is worth their weight in gold, and will always cost more than Walmart pricing.

I’m sorry but I’m still laughing too hard at keeping a straight face while typing about art schools training students to enter the field. Pile on the insults as you will but I rarely see graduating portfolio shows that aren’t frightful, not due to the talent, but to their ideas on what they expect once they graduate. Several months ago I received a request for an essay of 2,500-5,000 words a dean at a Chicago art school wanted to “relay” to students. Naturally he was shocked I wanted to be paid. Guess those students stepped into a world of do-do. As a student commented on the question of fixed-price:

There are some pros and cons for hourly and fixed. However really as a designer you might benefit more from fixed pricing. Example: You design a logo at $20 an hour. Let’s say for the first time you do this logo it takes you 5 hours.

The next time you do the logo, you get it done in half the time. 2.5 hours. You just cut your profit in half.  Now the designers that are charging $50, should wake up and realize there offering a service that is worth WAY more than what they are charging.

In the beginning of starting my own design business I charge fairly cheap as well. I wanted to build a portfolio and clientele list. Once I had references and a portfolio to show, my rate can go up, because I can prove I’m worth it.

Yes, $20 an hour and $50 logos will shore up the prices she was going to command one day. No, it will set the bar with anyone you quote those prices to while I’m trying to charge a fair market rate. You have lowered that fair rate. Thanks for learning how to run a business within an unlicensed industry that relies on a standard of practice not being taught anywhere. AAAAAAAH! I’m still wondering what kind of logo is created in 2.5 hours. Oh, a “hack” one!

A Solution To Reconcile These Views?

Would a guild or union distinguish between an apprentice, a tradesperson and a master craftsperson? Some have tried. Years ago, I was a member of the board of the Graphic Artists Guild, along with several legal rights groups for artists. The prospect of unionizing was a constant buzz. Every meeting, time was set aside for the subject. There was discussion of joining established unions if no plan could be found to successfully create a union hierarchy and stop those who do not belong dead in their tracks. Neither plan would ever work.

Unions on the whole no longer have the clout or power they once commanded. The removal of organized crime really hurt them. The mob knew how to get things done. Now politicians try to do the same but without any efficiency. No union would take on the cause of an entire industry with so many holes as ours. No organization could ever stop the incursion of single-person home studios and $99 logos… or the equivalent on the Internet.

“Billy tried unionizing his art class in school. The other kids were heavily punished. I hope they learned a lesson, too!”

In an effort to establish standards and set pay levels for professional positions and freelance projects, the Graphic Artists Guild publishes a annual book entitled The Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. I highly recommend it to those starting out. It’s loaded with contracts, pricing, rights and considerations we must all apply to every job, so that both parties come out of a project eager to work together on the next one.

We are an unregulated business — anyone can join. I believe had we adopted the tactics of organized crime, we would be living the life of Las Vegas celebrities, and I get to be Elvis! Family heads, lieutenants, enforcers — face it, the mob gets things done. Can you imagine an enforcer negotiating with a client? Many years ago I tried pitching a comic feature to design magazines about a mob boss in the witness protection program, set up in a secret identity as an illustrator’s representative. “Zip Atoné & the Bull Pen Boys” was Goodfellas meets the publishing/advertising world.

Client: “I don’t sign contracts!”

Zip Atoné: “Well, that’s too bad because either your signature or brains is gonna be on that contract when I leave!”

Wouldn’t that be great!? Back to reality…

Design Contests Erode The Industry

The Graphic Artists Guild, along with every other professional creative organization, is against “contests,� in which the creative submits a design, illustration or photo (which become the property of the contest runner) in the hope of winning some measly prize that is not even worth the fee their work would have earned in the open market. But these contests get floods of entries. Who are the people who enter them? AIGA has a form letter on its website encouraging people to post when contests come up. A noble effort.

These contests are not advertised on cereal boxes. They appear in the inboxes of creatives. They are advertised on design blogs and websites. They are run by the same corporations that earn millions by selling us burgers and sodas every day. So, winning an iPod seems like a fair trade-off… in Bizzarro World! Getting our money and putting toxins in our bodies just isn’t enough for them.

Your “prize” is equal to what this costs…a stroke and your eternal soul!

In the end, we are the regulators of our own unregulated industry. If business is this cut-throat, then are we being lax by not making the removal of hacks and crowdsourcers from the industry our primary concern, or have they been doing the same to us, successfully, and we didn’t see it until it was too late? Does it just provide a cheap alternative for customers who don’t know quality, branding, marketing, customer appeal and retention? If, as mentioned in the article on Forbes, big companies are now getting into crowdsourcing, is there to be any leverage for freelancers or design and development firms?

We will never be unified by a union or organization but we can listen to our peers either through networking or organizations like AIGA and the GAG for some semblance of order. The experienced creatives need to mentor those entering the field. Art schools need to focus on business and professional practices as much as technique and other creative skills. There will continue to be clients that want it for nothing and will get what they don’t pay for. There will be plenty who understand the need for quality and that it costs a fair wage, sort of. Please, just keep the previous from calling me!

(al)

© Speider Schneider for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: designers, hacks, professionalism

Smashing Editorial: Please notice that the language in some parts of this article may be very informal. If you think you might be offended, please stop reading this article now.

I hate the division represented in this title. It’s the major stumbling block in modern business. Power struggle is never constructive, and it at least doubles workforce effort at a time when streamlined is crucial for a positive ROI. You can spell “team” from the word “marketing,” but I’ve yet to see a sense of it in marketing. What can one spell from “creative”? “Reactive”? I’ve seen plenty of that, and for good reason.

Don’t get me wrong: I love marketing as a practice! Relatively speaking, marketing is a fairly new practice (marketing in the sense of “public”, broad mass marketing, applied to products in the modern age — ed.), and one that has to evolve each day to keep up with consumerism and technology. As a designer, coming up with marketing ideas is orgasmic. Guerilla, sabotage and viral marketing are the work of genius, which is why we don’t see them very often. But you are probably thinking horrid thoughts about marketing practitioners right now, so let’s rethink for a second.

I have known a handful of great marketing people in my career, and they were smart enough to form their own companies. They always managed to do the delicate dance to create something that was effective and not just popular with anyone who might, oddly enough, have an opinion. And then there are the people you see every dreadful day.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that we are publishing a Smashing eBook Series? The brand new eBook #3 is Mastering Photoshop For Web Design, written by our Photoshop-expert Thomas Giannattasio.]

It’s A Diverse Crowd Out There

I have a ton of marketing stories, but my favorite one comes from when I was art directing and designing a major push for a new licensed character across all marketing channels. The staff and I worked like crazy to get the lines done in time for approval. It took months — that’s how many lines there were.

After our submission for approval from the licensor, a member of the marketing staff, lower level, came to me, telling me the changes that were needed. First off, don’t tell someone the changes: write them down so that there’s no misunderstanding. Luckily, I was taking notes. One of the changes called for major surgery on the main character to remove markings on their face. It made no sense to me, and I questioned it, but he stood fast and insisted that that’s what the licensor wanted. I asked to see the email from the licensor.

“No.”

I asked that he email the licensor to ask for clarification.

“No.”

The most infuriating thing was that this over-sized man with a cherubic face, looked like Baby Huey from the old Harvey Comics. Sounded a bit like him, too. It was hard to speak with him without laughing. As his new nickname circulated through several departments, a contest started among the staff to try to deal with Baby Huey without laughing.

I knew trouble was brewing, and so, like any smart person who would make file copies or turn off layers, the art staff and I stated cutting the image and placing everything the licensor wanted removed on a hidden layer. We did this to hundreds of pieces. A month later, we submitted the changes, and then (surprise, surprise) the licensor ripped marketing a new one for removing the marking, so essential to the character. An impromptu witch-hunt was held right outside the art department, next to the marketing offices. The president personally led it.

Without wasting any more column space than is needed to state the obvious, Baby Huey was spanked… and I believe the president actually asked him, “What is your major malfunction, Baby Huey!?”

The best part was when I was asked how long it would take to fix it. Explaining to the lay person that I would simply turn on some layers in Photoshop took longer than actually turning them on, but I scored big points with the president, while my “marketing step-brother” was sent to military school.

This doesn’t happen enough. But it does and can happen! At another corporation, marketing was publicly spanked for taking eleven-and-a-half weeks to work on an initiative that had only twelve weeks in total — giving creative, copy and design three or four days to execute lines for hundreds of products. Creative would always get it done, so action to stop it took a while, but the grumbling and angry staff meetings got some relief in the form of at least six weeks.

Are We Or They The Strange Ones?

What do creatives look like to non-creatives? Obviously, everyone thinks they can design an ad or logo in Microsoft Word, so immediately we become snooty, whining snobs. A great marketing person I worked with wrote a recommendation for me and said, “…great designs without a lot of creative baggage!”

“Creative baggage.” What could that mean? For anyone who has wrangled creatives, whether staff or freelance, we can be intolerable freaks. It’s hard to remember the last creative who actually followed my art direction without an argument or apology. We are also weak and lack the social skills to deal with corporate power. We often give up our power in an effort to be seen as “flexible” or “a team player.”

An art director who was firmly a puppet on the hand of the company she worked for gave me this recommendation: “He usually hits strategy, but if some adjustments need to be made, he is very open to suggestion and direction. [Speider] has worked with our team for a long time and understands our process.”

The process was that I went into meeting all smiles, told a few jokes and did exactly what I was told to do. The pay check helped me live with myself.

In most cases, that means doing what you’re told by anyone bold enough to speak their opinion about the creative process and not be questioned. I have had to pull marketing co-workers aside and remind them that we were both reporting to the same person and that no one ever told me anything about reporting to them. I’m not “being difficult”: I’m taking control of my work for my department so that I don’t have to take the fall for failed initiatives and low sales down the road that result from someone else’s design decisions. I never get angry or aggressive, although people who have worked with me say that my sarcasm could be deadly at times. Baby Huey’s ghost haunts me.

Be Different, But Expect The Same

Just the other day, a client showed me a product catalog that I thought was from 1972. It was their 2010 catalog, and the creative department’s directors asked me to bring one of their paper products into the present (or future) and do “something different.” I love when they say that.

I did some of the finest work of my career… some good work. The creatives were really on board, and revisions were almost non-existent. Imagine basically having free reign to design some fun and impressive paper products and having the full support of your clients? Well, no good effort goes unpunished, and I was informed that the marketing department rejected the work in favor of a catalog that looked like a sequel to the one from 1972.

What has the fear in business done to our ability to make fast, hard decisions in the marketplace? Safe and take-a-step-back has gotten us into the mess we’re in right now. How do we get out of it? I include this passage from someone who would refer to himself only as a “suit.”

I have to have the confidence that the design solution is meeting the needs of the client and is achieving strategic/tactical goals. Because of that, if there are elements of your design that I’m uncomfortable with, I will call them out and, in some cases, will nix them. Similarly for the client, they have to be comfortable about how their own brand is being presented, how their market will react, even how their own staff will react.

“How their market will react.” That should be the only concern. And how did this “suit” become the tip of the approval funnel? The truth is that people can’t let go without second- and third-guessing what will be successful. It’s not a question of whether, say, a good marketing plan based on researched demographics would improve a creative brief that professional designers and writers could use to create a cohesive package. The reality is more like, “Just design, and I’ll make changes until I see what I like.” That always makes for a great waste of time and resources.

Business is tight for many reasons, but just one wrong move could cost you big time. My question is, if the marketing plan is sound and the sales staff is competent, then why would those simple little changes that are requested to please people truly affect the product?

”You know, Bob, I was about to buy that package of Fluggelbinders that I wanted, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

“Too expensive?”

“No. The color of the package turned me off.”

Happens like that every day, doesn’t it?! I used that exchange in a committee meeting in which the background color of an exclusive product was discussed and sampled for a week. The marketing manager turned to me and said that I had negated marketing’s input. I thought marketing’s responsibility was to figure out the target audience, their habits, income and so on and how to best reach them through media and other advertising venues — not how blue or green the product should be? Silly me! Maybe it’s a marketing secret that can’t be shared with creative. They’re spies for… something.

Do You Want To Get Involved In Office Politics?

What can one say when sitting in a committee meeting and subjective suggestions are flying around, usually contradicting each other, and people are echoing previous requests but adding “More red” or “Bigger logo” or “I’ll know when I see it”? I sit and listen, take notes and then turn to my contact (if it’s a freelance job) and ask what he or she would like me to implement. To be sickeningly submissive, I say, “Some great insights here, but some are counter to the creative brief and some other directions suggested here.”

I turn to the art director, boss, marketing person or whoever hired me and ask them to go over what they think will be needed. Usually, they tell me just to follow what I was told in the committee meeting. This is when I’m thankful for hourly rates, because the Frankenstein created by the committee is usually too monstrous to please anyone. It goes around and around as long as more than one person has a final say on the project. Imagine what would happen if too many cooks worked on a dish. The chefs I know are insane and would stab and de-bone each other.

When freelancing, you are removed from the eternal struggle between creative and marketing. You are only a tool used by creative and a bludgeon used by marketing to wield its power over creative. Just ignore it and let the creative department deal with it.

But what happens when you are the art director or designer on staff? If you are, then prepare for office politics. The struggle between creative and marketing has nothing to do with design or marketing: it is the good old human impulse to assert one’s power over others, to be the alpha dog.

Whatever your position or department, everyone in it is jockeying for some measure of power over others, from the frowning minimum-wage guard at the front desk who tells you to sign in (as you’re doing it) to the mail deliverer who won’t give you your mail away from your desk to the co-worker who tries to convince you that part of their job is now your job or that part of your authority is now theirs.

Humans usually spend a lot of effort blending in with the herd and shying away from confrontation. Confrontational people know this and use it. When the person taking your order asks if you want to super-size it, do you say “Sure” or “No”? You say yes because your brain and protective nature tell you to go the easy route and say yes. Less aggravation. Why do good girls like bad boys? Because we… I mean they go against the herd, they break with convention, and they’re confrontational.

So, it stands to reason, while you’re in the workplace — where you face the pressure of HR rules, progress reports and the ever-present cliques of workers and executives — that you would feel alone and stay away from confrontational co-workers. But you can bet that they will at least size you up from day one, if not start stealing your authority and setting a standard that will follow you throughout your career at that firm.

You must start a new job with basic knowledge of your rights as an employee. Listen, and be bold, compassionate and assured. Show no fear, and show that being flexible is not the same as being a wimp. Any business book will tell you that the weak die. You have to set your own boundaries when starting a job. If you “wait and see,” then standards will be set for you as you adjust to the learning curve. If you relinquish any territory, you will not be able to get it back. You will open yourself to charges like, “That’s the way it’s always been done, and you said nothing last time.”

(By the way, a comeback to that last line is, “It may have been done that way in the past, but part of my job is to streamline the process to get the best results, faster and more efficiently. I’m sure you’ll love what my system will do for the workflow and product.”)

As with any situation, your gut will tell you what’s right and wrong, as will your job description. To whom do you report? To whom do others report? If a marketing person reports to the same person as you or is lower on the corporate ladder, why would you let them dictate anything if you were not told to follow their lead? Sometimes, someone may be assigned to oversee all aspects of a project. In that case, they are the boss, and that’s that… but that role ends when the project ends.

If a colleague of yours on the same rung of the corporate ladder makes a poor suggestion in a committee meeting, it’s best to nod and just not execute it. Either you’ll never hear a word about it or the colleague will approach you about it — in which case you shouldn’t respond that you don’t have to take their suggestion, which could be labeled as “confrontational” (it’s always the people who defend themselves who are “confrontational”), but rather that their idea, after much consideration, was found to have no merit. Simple and easy. It deflates their ego and could lead to sexual performance problems down the line. How can you argue with that?

“I thought my suggestions were good!”

“Sorry, but I didn’t think so, and no one else echoed your concerns.”

(This cuts the person off from others by setting a line that people would rather not cross. You are showing strength as the alpha dog. The pack will fall on your side.)

A more direct and devastating attack would be to ask, “Why do you think I’m incapable of doing my job?” This is a heart-stopper because it cannot be answered. They may argue that you lack team vision or that they’re protecting the client’s interests. Again, ask why they think you haven’t fulfilled the team’s vision, drawn from the creative briefs, and why they see you as acting against the client’s interests.

It’s like a fistfight. It lasts only a few seconds before the herd breaks it up… Yes, this is confrontation. Even confrontational people are taken aback when confronted, unless they are psychotic — in which case, pray that HR rules keep them from turning violent. And if they do become violent, taking a knuckle sandwich from your lunchbox is a small price to pay to see the aggressor fired and spend a night or two in county jail awaiting a bail hearing, opening the way for you for a civil lawsuit. A win-win situation!

On the other hand, you might encounter a “squeaky wheel,” who runs to the boss demanding “respect” and a title over you. Often, in the interest of a quick resolution, the boss lets the squealer have their way. You’re only hope is to calmly state your case, note your accomplishments without the squealer’s input, and add that it’s a business office and not a therapist’s office for people to work out their personal problems by laying them on others. Firm, direct and sound.

If Squeaky gets their way, then you’re doomed. But then, you don’t really want to work in a place like that anyway. If the boss would so easily knock you down the ladder, then you need a new boss. If you get your way, others will fear confronting you. I think coining the name for Baby Huey may have frightened my colleagues into avoiding my displeasure and gaining a nickname of their own.

The Enemy Within?

Once you establish that you are not a push-over, most people will respect your boundaries, and the natural order will be restored… with an occasional bump as a stray member of the herd probes your weak spots. Those weak spots, as some will discover, are your department colleagues: lowly designers and writers who will surely tremor when someone storms into the office and demands the changes that “I called for in the meeting.” Now you, as that lowly worker, have another problem. You have just given up your power to a stranger and put your creative director in a tough spot. Your actions affect how your supervisor controls the department and your job.

The proper thing to do is to tell the intruder that you are just a designer or writer and that they really need to speak to the creative director so that they can assign the proper revisions and work. Then smile and point to the creative director’s office. If your colleagues are on their toes, one of them will summon the creative director to come into the department and protect his or her minions from intruders. I’ve done it a gazillion times.

Summon your righteous indignation, flair your nostrils and imitate the tiger. When the interloper leaves, send an email gently reminding them that they must come to you for any requests, because only you know everyone’s schedule, and all changes must be signed off by you, as department head. Don’t assume that HR will intercede to stop this; they believe that the process should be flexible enough to keep work flowing. And as long as the bloody wound isn’t squirting arterial red like a fountain, HR likes as few problems as possible.

Points to Remember

1. You were around. In fact, aside from occasional bathroom breaks and meetings, you’re around 12 hours a day on average.
2. You are responsible for everything that comes out of your department and will be held accountable for it.
3. People want their way and will try anything to get it.
4. Don’t allow people under your authority to sabotage your power or security.
5. Prepare a response to an objection or make a list of responses for when a ridiculous argument is used to attack you.
6. HR wants the easiest path to peace and calm. Present all squealers as troublemakers and not team players. Use corporate-speak to your advantage.
7. Sometimes you will lose the battle. Sometimes you will also lose the war. Form as many strong allies in the company as you can. The higher the executive level, the better!
8. Does someone want to comment on a design in a conference meeting? Make some well-educated comments yourself. Perhaps you see a hole in the marketing plan, or the project doesn’t have enough creative time, or the sales material is a week past deadline. Bring it up gently and kindly. I believe that’s called passive-aggressive. Use it!
9. Grab power, and don’t wait for it to be offered. Take on an extra project; start an initiative yourself; or earn a few million dollars for the company. They’ll sit up and take notice.

Power grabs are often made by people too incompetent to do their own work, and public displays of “directing” are thought to mask that incompetence. They often are. But handled correctly, they aren’t, because they won’t get the chance.

Every Relationship Has Good And Bad Times

When I worked at one large corporation, I was closing up my office and the art department at 7:00 pm on a Friday night when a young woman from the marketing department caught me in the hallway and asked to step into my now locked office. She immediately went into an act about how “her” project was so important and how I had to do it by Monday and email it to her because she would be away for the weekend.

I looked at her in silence. I asked who she reported to and learned it was one of my subordinates (if you went by the order on the corporate masthead). I told her I would talk to her boss on Monday to find out why she would have the utter nerve to hope that I would be in the office at 7:00 pm on a Friday night and then expect me to work all weekend on something that was not important enough for such a tight deadline. She stormed off.

I don’t remember why I was late on Monday, but as I walked down the hall, people were shouting for me to check my email. There was an email from the young lady I spoke with on Friday evening. She must have gone back to her office and written a very angry message, courtesy copying the entire corporate division, about how unwilling I was to work on her project, and how she was cancelling it, and how I was costing the company millions of dollars and immortal souls, and hail Satan, hail Satan, and so on.

In walks her boss, one of those fine marketing people who I mentioned do exist. The young lady had the project for three weeks (grabbing it as her first project and naturally wanting to make a big splash), and as I suspected, it wasn’t time sensitive… Mind you, she sat on it for the previous three weeks, and it did have to be at the printer the very next day. Being of sound minds, the head of marketing and I were able to come up with a solution, work hard together and make the deadline. Creative and marketing did it… together, with no arguments or stepping on each other’s toes or egos, and we both shared in the glow of accomplishment. It can happen. Maybe we just need guns to our heads at the time?

(al)

© Speider Schneider for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
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You’ve met with the client, done the creative brief and gotten some kind of written agreement or contract. Work has been creative and progressing nicely. The joy and hope for life slowly return as the scent of money looms. So, with an overdose of sleeping pills no longer your retirement plan, you start to delete your suicide note and dispose of the envelopes containing instructions on terminating your accounts on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Then, someone crunches some numbers and realizes that you can’t be paid what was agreed on. Suddenly, your contract becomes either a weapon in a brutal fight or a token to keep the job going in the hope of some pay and a return client.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has one of the most influential and popular Twitter accounts? Join our discussions and get updates about useful tools and resources — follow us on Twitter!]

The Hard Part Is Behind You

Many people start an assignment only after a percentage of the job has been paid. 50% is nice, but convincing the big clients that they are not your bank is becoming harder and harder, and the promise of payment in 30 days does not give you a warm feeling inside.

I am currently awaiting word from a client who has to evaluate some concepts and inform me of which to invoice (per piece). I am now in my sixth week of waiting, and then I have to wait 30 days beyond that to receive payment. I’ll be paid faster than the waiting period for approval for a large corporation. If you have the deposit fee, walking away is an option, but if you don’t, then you’re in a tough spot.

For hourly jobs, I always include a summary in each email of my hours spent. Sometimes, they actually pay attention and step on the brakes so hard that you can hear the job screeching to a halt. I have never worked on a project that didn’t go around and around and rack up the hours. Clients rarely connect the hours spent on committee decisions to the many extra hours they eat up. When they do and the budget is dried up, who do they turn to to make the project fit the budget?

When this happens, the strongest contract is worthless if you’re trying to finish the project, educate the client and show them a better method of coming in under budget while getting exactly what they want. The alternative is a collection agency or small-claims court (check your local laws for limits on small claims and civil claims); I prefer collection agencies, but you still may never see the money.

My Story Of Horror Averted… For Now

This story involves a website for a mid-sized company. Because the boss’ son knew my wife, his cousin asked for the “family discount.” The discount wasn’t enough to sting, so I agreed on an hourly rate and began. I was to work with the boss’ secretary as my contact person. A couple of weeks rolled by, with changes and odd requests coming in. The requests were implemented, and more requests came in, sometimes reverting the project to a previous version. This went on for a while until I got a call from the boss one weekend. He was angry that I wasn’t following his directions and wanted to know what my problem was.

I sent him several emails showing the instructions for the changes. There was some silence on the phone before he muttered, “Oh… my… God.”

He said he’d get back to me and hung up. Monday afternoon he calls to relate a story that is unfortunately not entirely unfamiliar. His secretary, it seems, has always wanted to be an art director. She had no formal training but apparently loved the idea of having the power to hold meetings and tell designers what to do, because apparently that was her impression of what art directors did. That and drink a lot of gourmet coffee.

She ignored what the boss wanted so that she could run the project and present it to him as her “art direction.” When I told him that she had wracked up about $2,000 in changes, he hit the roof.

“You can’t expect me to pay that!?” he boomed.

“I did everything I was told to do by the point person you assigned to me,” I answered softly, hoping my tone would bring him down a little. I knew he was furious and wasn’t about to part with another $2,000 (family discount included).

“I can’t afford another $2,000 in the budget.”

“I can’t afford to walk away from $2,000 of work I did, forsaking other work, so the money can’t be replaced or forgotten.”

“You’re going to have to work with us on this,” said the client, a little more down to earth, but obviously worried I hadn’t given in right away and cut my bill.

“May I suggest you take it out of your secretary’s pay?” I gently suggested. “I’m sure she’s worried about losing her job right now, and she’d probably prefer to pay out of pocket than just be fired.”

“I’ll get back to you,” said the boss before hanging up. His tone indicated that he hadn’t decided whose head would roll.

After about a week, he called back and informed me that I would be working directly with him. He told me what he had asked for before the secretary (whose name he never brought up again) messed with his directions. We completed the whole thing in a week. I don’t know what ever happened internally. Later on, they called a couple of times to revise a page or two on the website, but eventually they stopped calling and later redid the website with someone else very cheaply — probably in cost and certainly in look.

I did get paid the entire amount, minus the family discount, and it led to more work. I never renegotiated, but I would have to save the client. My gamble may or may not have paid off because the relationship went on for a brief period, but I was prepared to renegotiate to keep this client with the “dysfunctional family discount.”

I’m Often Asked to Renegotiate

Sometimes renegotiating gives you a better deal. Sometimes you just have to take a lower fee and hope it leads to something better down the road. And sometimes you have to cut your losses, take some money and learn a lesson. I wish I knew what that lesson was. I think it’s to say, “Yes.”

A good client of mine, a huge corporate entity, assigned me the challenge of coming up with innovative initiatives. I could submit up to three, and each idea accepted would pay me enough to buy all the fast food lunches I wanted for the rest of the hour. I submitted three, but the point person felt that one of them wasn’t quite there and so would pay me a fifth of the agreed-upon slave wages. What kind of candy bar would I buy with that money?

“I could never, in good conscience, invoice you for something that you are not 100% happy with and will not invoice you for that initiative,” I wrote. “I must also state that this negates our contract for ownership on this piece only.”

He agreed and was obviously happy with the renegotiation because he has since sent me better-paying work, and I was happy to retain the rights to the initiative, which I shopped elsewhere.

What if he had insisted on paying less for ownership of the third idea? I would have given in. The client was too important, and all that would happen is my pride would be hurt and the client might have made a huge windfall from the idea and looked forward to cheating me again… well, you know what I mean. They would see my value, and obviously I’m willing to be “flexible.”

Being “flexible,” in my experience with work and life, means inconveniencing myself because someone else screwed up. I use different words, but never in mixed company.

In negotiating a contract with another client, the partners agreed that I should include “… and anything else we deem necessary.” (People who have heard this story love it.) Obviously, entering the slave creative trade wasn’t acceptable to me, and so they told me they needed to work with someone “more flexible.”

My guess is that either they never found someone to launch their business or some poor soul is owed many thousands of dollars.

What To Do When Asked For a “Flexibility” Mid-Project?

There are many schools of thought on what to do when you’re asked to be “flexible” with your work and invoice right in the middle of a project, ranging from quiet acceptance to violent government overthrow. Let’s explore the middle road.

When you’re asked out of the blue to reduce an invoice or provide extra unpaid work, the first thing you have to do is think. It’s okay to sit on your response overnight, depending on the deadline. If it comes via a phone call, then you can say to the client, “I understand your dilemma. I’ll need to crunch some numbers and come up with an option or two that will make us both happy and allow us to finish the project on time. Let me call you tomorrow with some great solutions.”

They may press for an answer right away. You’ll feel the pressure. Explain that a lot is at stake, and you want to be sure that everyone walks away from the renegotiation happy.

If they press further still, well then, think quickly and engage them in a negotiation. Here are some possible responses you can give:

— The first thought off the top of my head is to cut the number of changes by having one point person draw together the requests and decide what is necessary. That would cut the number of hours. Does that help you out?

— I can’t really reduce the invoice because it’s time that I can’t make up with other projects. What if I stretch out the payments over six months so that the overage falls into another budget period?

— I’ll give you a discounted rate on the next assignment to even it out.
[Wouldn't it be something to use that line on a client for a change?]

— If you can get me two dozen items of the product, I could easily agree to changing the monetary part of our agreement.

— You carry some products that we could use to barter.

— You have a service I could use, so let’s barter.

(Check your local laws on the value of bartered goods for taxation purposes, and always barter at the wholesale cost, not the retail cost.)

There are several ways to get paid while remaining “flexible.” When asked to renegotiate, think of what you want. Do you want the client to be a regular client? Do they give you enough work to even be regular? Has working with them been a positive experience? Is the fee structure good? What are you really giving up? Do you have another project waiting? Will a few unpaid hours dent your income from other clients? Is the client the type that would appreciate your sacrifice? Will you get referrals from this client? Does the 50% deposit cover your output so far, and could you just walk away now and leave them to find another freelancer?

Big Lies About Being “Flexible”

I became very close with many ad agency art buyers, and when they would get liquored up, I could easily get them to spill the industry lingo. They would laugh as they spat out slogans that had no meaning to anyone. I think back to the many times I heard those slogans thrown my way and how the laughs must have mounted at my expense as I left.

If you hear this:
“We’ll remember that you did us this favor…”

Insert the following:
“… and avoid you like the plague because of it.”

If you hear this:
“We ran over budget on this project, but you can add it to the next invoice…”

Insert the following:
“… which will never be happen because we’ll never run out of freelancers to screw.”

If you hear this:
“It will take you 10 minutes to do this…”

Insert the following:
“… But it will take you six weeks to listen to me say ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ and to listen to all my stories about my vacation to Fiji and my new Maserati.”

If you hear this:
“I just don’t understand how a design for one simple movie poster could cost more than $500?…”

Insert the following:
“… After all, it’ll only be used for the worldwide rights to all merchandise for this blockbuster film, and we expect the poster image will bring in only $485 million.”

(It’s long been the practice that illustrators, photographers and designers would charge more for work that would be licensed out. Licensing rights are just as important as the money earned from time spent on the actual work. The story of the Nike logo shows a happier ending.)

If you hear this:
“Oops! I typed $500 instead of $5,000 on my budget report. Could you give me a break here?…”

Insert the following:
“… so that I’m not fired when you show the contract to my boss.”

If you hear this:
“The client loves your work and wants to use you for further projects, but could you lower your fee as a kind of test?…”

Insert the following:
“… which you will fail, even if the work is great. Ha-ha! Satan wins again!”

It seems Satan has quite a following in advertising. As if we didn’t know that. How do you think agencies get work for the Super Bowl?

People will tell you all kinds of things to get what they want. We do it, too. The key is to know when to keep one’s mouth shut and when to negotiate one’s way to a happy solution, with as little of Satan’s influence as possible. You may not be cowering from him in subservient terror, but you’re stuck next to him on a cramped bus for the entire ride.

Related Posts

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• How To Spot A Sketchy Client (Plus A Contract Template)
• Web Design Criticism: A How-To
• Why Design-By-Committee Should Die
• Dealing With Clients Who Refuse To Pay

(al)

© Speider Schneider for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: contract, freelance, renegotiation