How to be a Graphic Designer, without Losing Your Soul, Chapter 5 & 6
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"The secret to success in running a design company is treating the company employs like gods."
What a great way to start the chapter, sounds like something I could easily live as an employee. But this chapter unfortunately isn't about designers being hand-fed grapes and fanned with palm fronds; it's about running a studio, which is ok I guess because I don't like grapes. The point is though that design is not something that can be automated, only designers can do design and that makes them a very important part of a studio. One thing that stood out to me was the idea of hiring "people who are better than you." Since there's no real way to measure "better" when it comes to design, Shaughnessy goes on to say that this means seeking out people who have the skills and abilities that you do not. And of course you're going to want people that are good, good designers with a range of strengths can provide a strong base for a studio. There's one down side to this though, anyone who is good will most likely end up leaving. The positive side of this is opportunity to bring in fresh talent (perhaps someone who'll be graduating soon and will need a job). As a studio grows, it will eventually need non-design staff, people to do things like keeping books or working reception. By allowing designers to focus on design instead of other tasks, they'll generally be more productive and can offset the cost of additional staff. I can see how it would be nice when working not to have to worry about keeping books or answering the phone.
Chapter six is about winning new work, the never ending quest of designers. When a designer is hired, there's a great deal of subjectivity involved. Aside from cost, whoever is looking to hire you will have an opinion when it comes what kind of design they will like. This makes it that much more difficult because not only do you have to find work, you have to find someone who likes what you do enough to hire you and this can be tricky. Without the resources of a large firm, acquiring new jobs comes down to two main things; word of mouth or random encounters. Networking is also important. The result of networking should be a list of contacts, a list that should be constantly updated. The longer the list, the greater your chances of finding someone. It shouldn't be too hard to do, unless you're some kind of hermit. There are also a number of promotional tools you'll need, most importantly your work and the reputation it produces. A portfolio, a website, and printed literature are the main tools a designer or firm can use to communicate the kind of work they do.
Designing a Digital Portfolio, Chapter 3
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Even though your portfolio should reflect you and your personality, it helps if it can speak effectively to potential employers. Different employers are going to be looking for different things, but how do you know what those things are?
Research.
Well that's somewhat broad, what kind of research? First off, you need to know your target audience. Narrowing it down from "everybody" helps. Narrow it down to a certain type of target company. Figure out what kind of projects your target has worked on before and use this as a guide. The trick is then to create and narrow down a list of target firms, and then to do more research. There are a number of tools that you can use in this search. Besides the Internet or periodicals, there's good old fashioned networking, which means having contacts and using word of mouth. Gee, that sounds familiar, it's probably important.
And not really related to any of the reading this week, I found Grafikonstruct, the site of a designer from Brazil. He has a Flash interface for browsing his work that I liked.
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