Don’t accept a project without discussing what is expected on both sides. Make sure you understand what your client wants you to do, how much time they are giving you to do it, and to what extent they expect you to include them in the process. If you think their expectations are unrealistic, discuss alternative timelines or adjustments to the project. It’s a good idea to give each client a written copy of your process, including milestones where you’ll expect payments. This will keep them from calling you to ask about the next step, and it may prevent payment delays.

Discuss what is expected on both sides

There are many reasons that the details of a project may change, so you must plan for that when drafting your contract and discussing your work process. You should cover the steps a client may take when requesting changes to the original design plan, and this includes adjustments to the timeline and budget. Many clients don’t realize how much work is involved for changes that they consider simple. When setting milestone dates and deadlines, give yourself some room for unexpected delays.

Plan ahead for changes and delays

Don’t give a price quote until you’ve thoroughly discussed the needs of the client.There are some things that justify an increase in your rate, but you may not know that those things apply until you’ve thoroughly discussed the project. If they expect you to put other projects aside and rush their order, then they should expect to pay a bit more. They should also expect to pay for added elements or more complex designs, so hear the client out before you give them a number.

Price quotas

Offer clients a first and second phase to control unrealistic expectations and nonstop additions.Clients come to you because they don’t have the knowledge needed to take the vision in their heads and turn it into a functional product. This is why many successful designers create a two-phase project. The first phase will include essential features which make the product functional. The second phase will include features that are more elevated but which aren’t necessarily needed. In many cases, the first phase product is exactly what the client needs.

Avoiding unrealistic expectations

Stay in the design business long enough, and you’ll run into at least a few clients that are on fire for their projects at the beginning but drop out of sight somewhere along the way. These are often clients with big dreams and a shortage of ambition or funds. As long as you’ve given the client a timeline for payments and are firm in collecting before you proceed to the next milestone, you won’t lose out financially. You just have to accept that there may come a point when your messages go unanswered and you have to set the project aside.

Accept that some projects are destined to die

Tips to help you become an effective and self-reliant graphic designer

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Business

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

career

Career

Being a Graphic Designer in the Modern World

product

Product & Design

5 Tips to Deal with Graphic Design Clients – Graphic Design Degree Hub

Questions we ask ourselves when we're about to enter the world of work or start a business.<ul><li>How do I make myself employable?</li><li>How will I find my dream job?</li><li>What skills am I lacking?</li><li>How should I deal with clients?</li><li>What are people more interested in - my technical ability, or how I think?</li></ul> The mindset you need to start a creative business and keep it going is the same you need to tackle any new creative challenge.

The mindset required to start a creative business

If you intend to start your own studio, don't. Not yet. First benefit from other's who have done it before you. Find out about their successes and failures. Learn from their mistakes.<ul><li>Get a job. Gain experience from being around other professionals. Make yourself indispensable by showing how you add value to the company. Think about how to improve processes, add services and find new areas of revenue.</li><li>Be a thinker. Think about the writing, user experience, and the project's overall impact.</li><li>Be a sponge, not a Hoover. Ask questions, listen to the answers, and put them into practice.</li></ul>

Prepare yourself (You don't know everything just yet)

When the time is right, start small. This will allow you to take risks and learn what works. <ul><li>Do your homework. Write a thorough business plan. It is a valuable guide that forces you to think about where your work will come from. Make an effort to understand a profit & loss sheet, planning pipeline and cashflow forecast.</li><li>Plan to grow. Write an operation's manual to detail who does what and how often. Plan all the roles a bigger agency will need, then do them all yourselves.</li><li>Find 'your way'. Establish what your studio's vision is.</li></ul>

Start small, but plan for growth

<ul><li>Hire the best you can. People are your most valuable resource. When the time arrives, hire the best people you can afford. Each recruit should fit your values and bring something new with them. If there are people you admire but they're not a good fit for your team, find ways to collaborate with them.</li><li>Create a new normal. Always push boundaries and then adjust to the new normal.</li><li>Never (ever) stop learning. Don't assume things will always stay the same. Actively push change and be curious and experimental in your approach.</li></ul>

Embrace change

Discover the world of business and economics.

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Economics

startup

Startups

How to start a design studio – a beginner’s guide

Graphic design is a critical visual communication tool marketers use to convey key messages about a brand that resonates with target audiences. It’s all about producing visual assets that are eye-catching, on-brand and aligned with specific messaging.The graphic design process, then, is what a designer follows to bring design ideas to life while serving a client’s end goals.As a creative process, designing graphics involves equal parts of “creative” and “process.”

The graphic design process

Also called a design brief, this document will capture all of your client’s wants and needs and other key project specifications.Your creative brief should address:<ul><li>Company information (e.g., mission, offerings, unique value proposition).</li><li>Brand guidelines.</li><li>Target audience.</li><li>Asset type (e.g., logo design, UX design, eBook design).</li><li>Purpose of the asset and how it fits into the overarching marketing campaign.</li><li>Initial design concept or creative direction.</li><li>Production-related design specifications.</li><li>Delivery format and file type.</li><li>Project timeline, with key milestones.</li><li>Budget or cost of the design work.</li></ul>

Build out the creative brief

During the research stage, spend time:<ul><li>Understanding the specific product or service you’re representing.</li><li>Examining competitors’ design work.</li><li>Assessing your brand’s market positioning and differentiating qualities.</li><li>Exploring other visual content your target audience consumes, beyond your niche.</li><li>Considering how you might apply color theory and design trends.</li><li>Gathering inspiration images and building out a moodboard.</li></ul>You’ll use your findings to inspire original ideas, solidify the overall design approach with other stakeholders and back up the design decisions you make later on.

Research the design ecosystem

Depending on what you’re working on, the concept development and refinement stage may involve sketching out thumbnails, mockups or graphic elements. Regardless of the scale of your project, it’s important to present your initial concepts to the rest of the team. A good graphic design rule of thumb is to pitch 3 ideas:<ul><li>Provide exactly what the client asked for.</li><li>Offer your interpretation of what you think they’ll like, based on everything you know.</li><li>Pitch a new concept or idea that could still meet the brief.</li></ul>Have your client or colleagues pick one of the three, and continue refining it.

Develop and refine the graphic design concept

Once all stakeholders are in agreement and you have all that you need to proceed with the design, it’s time to execute the project.During the design stage, a graphic designer will be expected to implement best practices related to the use of color, typography, the hierarchy of information and positive and negative space. They’ll also put technical skills to the test, using the right software and other design tools to get the job done in the most efficient way possible.

Create the design

Depending on what type of team you’re working with, this part of the graphic design process may look something like this:<ul><li>Submit the design work for internal review.</li><li>Make any requested changes.</li><li>Present the updated design to your client or other decision-makers.</li><li>Explain how your design decisions align with the creative brief and the direction you agreed on.</li><li>Gather feedback from all stakeholders.</li><li>Confirm your next steps.</li><li>Make the requested changes.</li><li>Present this new version to the rest of the team.</li></ul>

Collect and implement feedback

Now that you’ve gotten final approval from all stakeholders, you’re ready to deliver the assets in the appropriate formats. <ul><li>Package them up so they’re ready for production and can be easily implemented into whatever digital or print format your recipients need.</li><li>Your creative brief should articulate what deliverables you should share. You should make sure to send the asset in the correct file types and sizes so no changes are needed later on. Helping your recipients avoid the hassle of modifying the files or asking for further support can make for a better experience for everyone involved.</li></ul>

Finalize and deliver the design assets

Graphic design and marketing go hand in hand — and generating marketing results isn’t easy without a solid strategy in place for communicating across teams and producing visual assets that meet your specificationsOnce your creative brief is approved, this serves as both your instruction manual as well as your contract for this particular project. It’s a tool you as the designer can use to keep your efforts on track. If you ever feel stumped, you can turn to this resource.

How following a graphic design process drives results

Here’s how to turn a concept into a compelling visual communication tool through the graphic design process, from the creative brief to the finished product.

This 6-Step Graphic Design Process Drives Results | Brafton

To become a graphic designer, you don’t necessarily need an undergraduate education. Often, the quality of work in your portfolio and the caliber of the clients you’ve worked with will speak louder than the degrees in graphic design you’ve received. However, many people do choose to obtain bachelor’s degrees in graphic design, or in related fields such as industrial design, animation, or fine arts. In fact, some graphic design jobs require a bachelor’s degree in order to apply. There are also associates degree programs focusing on graphic design.

Degrees Needed

<ul><li>Find the samples that best show your and skill as a graphic designer. </li><li>For each sample you chose to showcase, write some words on why you chose it, what it was created for, and the process of its creation. Mention if you worked on it with any other people.</li><li>Choose your website. Popular platforms include PortfolioBox, Adobe Portfolio, Cargo, and Behance. If you’re an avid web designer, you can also choose to design your own website.</li><li>Get your work on social – a great added component to a web portfolio is a social media account where you showcase your work as a graphic designer. </li></ul>

Graphic Design Portfolio

<ul><li>Freelance: As a freelancer, you’ll typically stitch together an income through contracting with multiple clients. Before you send out freelance applications, make sure you know how much you’re comfortable with charging for your work, so you have a metric to enter negotiations with.</li><li>Full-Time: Many companies and independent design firms are constantly hiring full-time in-house graphic designers. Typically you’ll submit a resume, your portfolio, and in some cases, a cover letter. After that, you may be invited back for an in-person interview, and you may have to showcase your skills.</li></ul>

Graphic Designer Hiring Process

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 266,300 graphic designers employed in the United States in 2016. The rate of employment growth for graphic designers until 2026 is 4 percent. However, these statistics account only for the United States market, and because graphic designers can complete assignments from their computers, freelance employment opportunities are often open to graphic designers across borders.

Graphic Designer Job Market: The US

If you’re invited to an in-person interview, it’s important to prepare all your materials ahead of time. Here are a few tips to nail your graphic design interview:<ul><li>Bring a paper copy of your resume, and if you can, paper copies of some of your design material.</li><li>Consider bringing a flash drive with files of your work, as well as bringing a tablet or computer you can show your work on.</li><li>Dress sharp: Your clothes can project the vibe you wish to give off as a future employee, such as edgy, laid-back, or put-together, depending on what you wear.</li><li>Research the company – learn what you can about it.</li></ul>

Graphic Designer Interview Tips

Here’s everything you need to know about becoming a graphic designer and how to get hired as a graphic designer.

How to Get a Job as a Graphic Designer | Glassdoor

The only thing that has really helped to bridge the virtual gap between employees and managers is communication. However, both over-communicating and under-communicating — the extreme ends of optimal communication — come with their downsides. If there’s poor communication from the manager, there’s a risk of a wide gap in meeting team goals, delays in project completion, and duplication of work. On the other hand, if a manager is over-communicating, they risk wasting time, demotivating their team, and micromanaging their direct reports to the point of burnout

Finding Balance In Your Communication Frequency

1-on-1 meetings are a great opportunity for managers to talk candidly with their direct reports. They are also opportunities for managers to grow as leaders of a remote team, to reflect on their own mentoring skills, their ability to give feedback and listen to constructive criticism. Some questions that managers can ask during these meetings:<ul><li>What’s on your mind this week?</li><li>Last time we spoke, you said X was a challenge for you. How is that going?</li><li>What are your plans and priorities for this week?</li><li>How aligned do you feel with where the company is going?</li><li>What feedback do you have for me?</li></ul>

Host Frequent 1:1 Meetings And Be Open To Feedback 

It’s really important for remote leaders to set rules around how, when, and which communication tools to use when working in virtual teams. When to use Slack? Which situations call for an email? Under what circumstances should an ad-hoc meeting be scheduled? Set up project collaboration tools to track project updates. If a project would benefit from creative and energetic exchange of ideas, then schedule a call for clarity. Complement video calls with traditional emails for company-wide communication.

Set Up Communication Guidelines

Micromanagement can be a costly management style that can lead to low employee morale, high staff turnover, reduction of productivity, and overall dissatisfaction. Avoid constantly asking for status updates as this can come across as having a lack of trust in the team to do their work, and that’s a slippery slope no manager wants to be on.Micromanagement can lead to impostor syndrome, and also lead to disappointment and lack of motivation for certain employees, so watch out for those common signals that managers may need to take a step back.

Make An Effort To Not Micromanage

<ul><li>Synchronous communication includes every form of communication that happens in real-time, and there’s an immediate response.</li><li>Asynchronous communication includes every form of communication that doesn’t happen in real-time, and responses can occur intermittently. Asynchronous communication is impactful for teams that work across time zones, as there’s no expectation of an immediate response.</li></ul>It’s down to the managers on how and what tools they want to implement with the team.

Asynchronous and Synchronous communication.

Discover how to strike the balance between over-communicating and under-communicating as the manager of a remote team. 

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Remote Work

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Communication

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Leadership & Management

4 Ways To Balance Under And Over-Communication As A Remote Work Manager

Reverse mentoring describes a situation in which a younger or early career professional mentors a senior colleague. While the overarching goal mirrors that of a traditional mentorship — advancing the professional growth of the mentee — because the roles are reversed, this model shows everyone that experiential learning is just as valuable regardless of your age or expertise.Junior employees gain more access to social networks and build their leadership skills. Senior employees gain a fresh perspective and expand their knowledge around new trends or technologies. Everyone becomes more engaged.

The Case for Reverse Mentoring

Mentoring is most successful when you take the time to think about what you are qualified to teach, what other people in your organization may be interested in learning from you, and how it overlaps with your company’s business objectives. Before pursuing a reverse mentorship, think about:<ul><li>What lessons are you willing to share?</li><li>What challenges is the company facing that you might have insights, information, or expertise on?</li><li>How can you communicate your knowledge to someone else without overwhelming them or making it about yourself?</li></ul>

Figure out what you have to offer

During your next one-on-one meeting with your boss, you could say something like, “I have learned a great deal from the senior colleagues in our organization, and in return, I’d like to take the opportunity to share some of my skills within the organization.”When it comes to sharing your idea with colleagues and peers, your best bet is to reach out to like-minded, curious individuals who may be interested in collaborating or taking you up on the offer.

Voice your desire

How you actually begin a mentoring relationship will largely depend on who you collaborate with. Make your intentions and expectations clear from the start. Together, you should discuss:<ul><li>What’s the objective of this mentorship? Is it to help them build a new skill or to learn more about a different generation?</li><li>How will the mentoring be implemented? Should it be a one-time activity, last a few weeks, or be a long-term commitment?</li><li>How will you measure your success? Is there a goal they are aiming to reach? How often will check in on progress?</li></ul>

Set clear expectations

Recognize that reverse mentoring may be uncomfortable for some people, especially those in positions of power who are not used to being in the passenger’s seat. If you find a senior leader struggling to lean into their vulnerabilities, guide them with empathy. Ensure them that your conversations will be confidential and that you understand this may be hard for them. Reiterate that the goal of the mentorship is to learn from each other without judgment. Essentially, model the behavior you want to see from your mentee.

Be patient and humble

Mentoring is always a two-way street, whether it is reverse mentorship or the traditional kind. While you’re mentoring a senior colleague, use the opportunity to learn more about how things get done on their team, gain new perspectives on how decisions are made and build your credibility as a young professional. Place them in your shoes by asking how they might handle the various challenges you face. Know that this isn’t about showing off but a genuine intent on both ends to share what you have learned and benefit the other person.

Treat mentoring like a continuous learning opportunity

Reverse mentorship is when younger or early-career employees share their skills with their more seasoned colleagues.

Mentorship Is Not a One-Way Street

No matter what job or industry you pursue, you’ll need to learn how to be adaptable and navigate these experiences gracefully to grow in your career. Mindset, above all else, will have a major impact on whether you succeed.Unfortunately, too many of us have the mindset that “change is temporary.” And when we see something as temporary, we tend to cope with it instead of accepting it — and if we don’t learn how to accept, embrace, and work through our discomfort in unfamiliar situations, we will inevitably find it difficult to progress in the rapidly evolving world of work.

Coping with Change

Signs you’re a “receiver”:<ul><li>You wait for direction from others before moving forward.</li><li>You escalate decisions, assuming they’re “above my pay grade.”</li><li>You accept decisions (even when you don’t think they will work) to avoid questioning your boss.</li></ul>Shift toward a change-ready mindset:<ul><li>Figure out an action you can take that is consistent with the change and valuable in the short term.</li><li>Generate possible solutions before you take any problem to your boss.</li><li>Back up any reservations you have about a decision with data or perspectives that might not have been known or included during the original discussion.</li></ul>

Change-Averse Mindsets: The Receivers

Signs you’re a “resistor”:<ul><li>You bring up reasons that something cannot be done based on precedent or history.</li><li>You agree to a stated commitment, and then find reasons not to execute on it later.</li><li>You poke holes in plans as a means of avoiding or stalling action.</li></ul>Shift toward a change-ready mindset:<ul><li>Explore how the solution is different from what happened in the past. Be informed by the past — but not captured by it.</li><li>Raise your reservations at the appropriate time. Participate in the debate to get to a better solution.</li><li>Ask questions that improve and encourage the solution rather than shut it down. </li></ul>

Change-Averse Mindsets: Resistors

Signs you’re a “controller”:<ul><li>You seek information that supports your own views or reservations.</li><li>You prefer getting detailed instructions on what to do instead of inquiring about what has been tried already and generating a brand new plan. </li><li>You discount obstacles raised by others to stick to the plan.</li></ul>Shift toward a change-ready mindset:<ul><li>Discuss your idea or solution with a diverse group of colleagues to gain perspective and improve on the idea.</li><li>Rather than just sharing your expertise or what you would do in the situation, ask what is been already tried. </li></ul>

Change-Averse Mindsets: Controllers

Almost everyone has a predominant relationship to change that will drive their thoughts and actions, but different situations also bring out different responses. ​​Change-ready people look at changes both big and small as opportunities for personal development, and “failed” experiments as a rich source of learning and growth. Similarly, they look for ways to break out of old ways of thinking, stay curious, and challenge the status quo.

Moving to a Change-Ready Mindset

Overcome these three (very common) change-averse mindsets.

productivity

Productivity

problemsolving

Problem Solving

How to Become More Comfortable with Change

Self awareness is how clearly we see ourselves and understand how others see us too.

What Is Self Awareness

What did I get frustrated by during the day?In what situations did I do my best work?

Ask The What Questions

Get feedback from "critics who care".

Spend Time With A Feedback Friend

Pay attention to your mistakes and learn from it.

Become A Mistake Monitor

And reframe your thinking traps into positive prompts.

Spot Your Thinking Traps

Answer this yourself.Ask for feedback on this.Compare how you see yourself vs how others see you. Is there a gap?

You At Your Best Vs You At Your Worst

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

How to accelerate your self-awareness | Amazing If

Our capacity for learning is becoming the currency we trade on in our careers. Where we once went to work to learn to do a job, learning now is the job. Adaptive and proactive learners are highly prized assets for organizations, and when we invest in our learning, we create long-term dividends for our career development.

Capacity For Learning 

Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, shared that when assessing founders of potential investments, he looks for individuals who have an “infinite learning curve”: someone who is constantly learning, and quickly.

Infinite Learning Curve

“The learn-it-all will always do better than the know-it all.”

Since we spend so much of our time, energy, and efforts at our day jobs, they provide the most significant opportunities for learning. The challenge is that we don’t invest intentionally in everyday development — we’re so busy with tasks and getting the job done that there’s no space left for anything else.

Learning At Work 

Deprioritizing our development is a risky career strategy because it reduces our resilience and ability to respond to the changes happening around us. Here are three ways to take ownership of your learning at work.

Deprioritizing our development

The people you spend time with are a significant source of knowledge. Creating a diverse learning community will offer you new perspectives and reduce the risk that you’ll end up in an echo chamber. Set a goal of having one curiosity coffee each month, virtually or in person, with someone you haven’t met before.

Learn From Others 

Experiments help you test, learn, and adapt along the way. There are endless ways you can experiment at work — for example, using different tools to increase the interactivity of your virtual presentations, exploring the impact of camera-on versus camera-off meetings, switching from video to phone calls, or even trying out new negotiation tactics.

Experiment 

In a squiggly career, everyone’s a learner and everyone’s a teacher. As a team, consider how you can create a collective curriculum where you’re learning from and with each other. We’ve seen organizations effectively use skills swaps where individuals share one skill they’re happy to help other people learn.

Create a collective curriculum

Unlearning means letting go of the safe and familiar and replacing it with something new and unknown. Skills and behaviors that helped you get to where you are can actually hold you back from getting to where you want to be. For example, a leader might need to unlearn their default of always being the person who speaks first in meetings. Or a new manager might need to unlearn always saying “yes” as their workload increases.

Unlearning 

We unlearn when we look at a problem or opportunity through a new lens. This is more likely to happen if we’re spending time with people who challenge us and think differently than we do. The purpose of connecting with challengers is not to agree or debate but to listen and consider: What can I learn from this person?

Connect With Challengers 

We all have habits that helped us get to where we are today. However, habits can create blind spots that stop us from seeing different ways of doing things or new approaches to try out. Our brains use habits to create mental shortcuts that might make us miss out on opportunities to reflect on and unlearn our automatic responses.

Identify habits and hold backs

Relearning is recognizing that how we apply our strengths is always changing and that our potential is always a work in progress. We need to regularly reassess our abilities and how they need to be adapted for our current context. For example, collaboration remains as important as ever, but maybe you’re relearning how to do it in a hybrid world of work. Or maybe you’ve made a career change and you’re relearning what it looks like to transfer your talents to a new setting.

Relearning 

Having a Growth Mindset allows you to always want to evolve, to keep learning, to keep transforming. The fun for me is in the process and not what I become, but the process of becoming. This article resonates so well with me. 

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

Make Learning a Part of Your Daily Routine

How vital is candidate experience to a company’s recruitment marketing strategy? Look no further than a Talent Board study that listed the top three reasons candidates end the application process: disrespect of time (37 percent), poor recruiter rapport (32 percent), and length of the hiring process (29 percent).The candidate's experience in recruiting should provide a picture of not only the duties and responsibilities of a role but also the culture, mission, and values of an organization. It should answer common questions: “What happens after I apply?” “When will I hear back?”

The Candidate Experience 

Besides telling candidates what to expect—both in the recruitment process and while on the job—consider incorporating educational content such as blog posts, infographics, and videos into your recruitment marketing strategy. A human-interest piece from an applicant’s perspective can also help pique the interest of potential hires and create a more marketable candidate experience.

Improve the Candidate Experience During Recruitment: Spotlight The Process In Diverse Ways

Let candidates currently in the queue know when to expect a response and consider communicating all pertinent information across different mediums. Email is an obvious choice, but you might also employ automated messaging, chatbots, and text messaging to be even more responsive while supporting the variety of communication preferences modern candidates have. Many companies now use automated communication platforms, 24/7 live chat support, and help desk ticketing systems to meet the urgency people often feel during the application process.

Keep Communication Consistent During The Process

As the world gets more automated, it’s easy to lose that human element in our day-to-day interactions. Even when talent prefers to handle everything digitally, there are still opportunities for warmth and humanity within the candidate experience during recruitment. Automation and other recruitment technology shouldn’t be reserved for only rare occasions, though. You can’t beat the speed and immediacy it affords your candidate engagement activities.

Humanize The Experience

People trust people more than brands. If employee testimonials aren’t already part of your recruitment marketing strategy, you’re missing an opportunity to connect with job seekers on a more impactful level. Share employee experiences with candidates, connect them with people on the floor, and never forget to capture feedback on the entire recruitment process to improve your candidate engagement strategies continually. You’ll never be able to spot any gaps if you fail to ask for this valuable feedback.

Leverage Testimonials

Candidates are consumers. Like consumers, they want customized experiences during the recruitment process.Make sure you have a solid candidate engagement platform. This allows you to tailor the experience to suit each person’s preferences. At the very least, choose recruitment technology that offers candidates a choice in the type and frequency of communication on job applications as well as career opportunities that fit specific criteria. The move will help in personalizing interactions and creating a positive candidate experience.

Customize The Candidate Journey

The candidate experience should be a window into the employee experience. If one falls short, you’re doing a disservice to all parties involved—including your business. Make sure talent truly experiences what it would be like to be an employee. We go as far as providing virtual reality job previews for many of our positions. This ensures candidates feel confident they know what to expect on day one. Conversely, make sure the employee experience matches all the pomp and circumstance of the candidate experience in the recruitment process.

Align The Candidate And Employee Experience

Improving the experience of the candidate

The overall candidate experience plays a significant role in hiring the right people. Here are ways to bolster your recruitment process.

humanresources

Human Resources

How Recruitment Marketing Strategy Can Improve Candidate Experience

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