by Frank | Oct 12, 2012 | CIO Connect, graphic design, illustration
Here is Professor Brian Cox presenting at this year’s CIO Connect annual conference. He is stood in front of the conference branding, designed by yours truly. Hooray!
Picture credit goes to the fantastic Martin Burton
by Frank | Mar 28, 2012 | branding, CIO Connect, graphic design, illustration
CIO Connect has been a loyal client since 2003 and I’ve been designing the branding for their annual conference for top IT types for, hmm, three or four years now. Looking back on the way we came to this year’s final image, I thought it might be a great illustration of how I work together with my clients to create an image that works.
This October’s conference theme is “Embracing the Unexpected”; so late last year (they are organised types at CIO C) they asked me to come up with some ideas around the theme.
I came up with the following rough ideas:
CIO Connect said that they liked the Jackalope (being a ferocious antlered version of a rabbit) coming out of the magician’s hat, but they thought it might not be obvious enough. Perhaps something more overtly ferocious might work? So I created some rough inkings of crocodiles (text was to go across the black arm of the magician). At first I struggled with the idea of what the magician was to grasp, & so gave the croc some bunny ears. Then the jaw-holding idea came to me. I sent both ideas to the client, despite thinking the latter a lot stronger. Normally I wouldn’t do this (David Carson said once never to show the client something you don’t like as that’s what they’ll choose) but I trusted the people at CIO C to pick the better one – and also, sometimes great ideas are born from humble beginnings. Thus:
We like the second one, they said. Can you develop it?
Well, I redrew and I inked and I scanned and I coloured and dear reader, I made this, the final design, with lettering and brand colours:
The response: “I love it!! …thank you so much it’s fab and so different from our usual!”
by Frank | Apr 19, 2011 | branding, thoughts
Those of you who subscribe to my newsletter will know that I have recently been despairing at the way some companies communicate with their customers and prospective customers. I am saddened, and sometimes angered, by poor communication. I think of how much better it could have been if the sender had thought for a moment and reviewed what they were about to do.
This is a subject I’ve been considering a lot lately. I think the issue is authenticity.
I have learned the hard way over the years to be authentic. By that I mean to show clients who I am and what I stand for. I am not going to try to pretend to be someone else. The work I produce and my work ethos I take 100% seriously; the rest of life I do not. You’ll see from my Twitter feed that I swear a bit, rant a bit, talk in LOLcat sometimes, laugh a lot, and discuss and debate new ideas with people. That is who I am. I used to be afraid of showing myself – I used to think clients would want something else. Something more normal (whatever that means). Which is silly, because clients who want someone creative are expecting that person, that one who thinks along strange lines, to be – how shall we say? expressive.
If you are not trying to get to know your clients – if you just want to take their money from them – you will behave in strange ways
Thinking along these lines enables you to see your clients as not just clients. You encourage the authenticity in them too. This is important, because if they cannot show you who they are, you are not going to see them and be able to give them what they want, which in my case, is sort of to reveal – to enable the revealing – of the visual dimension of whatever they are trying to communicate.
Thus, talking in LOLcat once in a while makes me a better designer. QED.
But seriously (SRSLY), let’s take this step one further. If you are not trying to get to know your clients, if you are not interested in their authenticity, if you just want to take their money from them, you will behave in strange ways. You might sign them up to your newsletter or marketing crap without calling and asking first (this is illegal in the UK, by the way), in the assumption that they actually care about what you’re selling. No, they won’t care, they’ll think you rude, and they may well report you to the Information Commissioner’s Office for spamming. You might treat them badly because they’re leaving your services. You might forget that word-of-mouth is probably the most important marketing tool you have, and that your reputation is possibly your greatest asset, and that annoying the fuck out of people damages both of these.
Be yourself, and communicate from yourself, not from some made-up droid you think your clients want (because those are not the droids they’re looking for). And don’t treat them like droids either. Sure, create a logo and a brand which reflects the market position you’d like to occupy. Be aspirational. But make sure it’s still you, albeit a dead fancy and successful you. Because, well, I probably don’t know you, but I’m pretty sure you’re just fine the way you are.
by Frank | Jan 6, 2011 | branding, graphic design, illustration, thoughts
I’ve held back posting this story in the dim hope that the matter would be resolved. I’m one of those bouncy eternal-optimist types who believes that every story has a happy ending, etc etc. But it looks like I’m never going to get paid for this job, and as the client is apparently broke, I don’t have the heart to go down the legal route. And I’m so proud of this logo I can’t just leave it on the shelf, gathering dust. I want you to see it!
A woman called me up and asked me to meet her to discuss a possible branding job for a little coffee van she’d bought at great expense. Twas a cute little thing which she could drive around to festivals and markets and what-not, and instead of an urn and a large bucket of Nescafé, within the van was housed a proper Italian coffee maker. She was a dramatic type of person and loved burlesque and the circus, and wanted a fun, family-friendly logo that reflected all this. She’d asked a few designers and agencies to come up with ideas before choosing who to go with, as she didn’t want to get messed around (oh, the irony, huh?
I was confident I could give her a good idea, but didn’t want to waste too much time on something that I wasn’t going to get paid for (ha ha) so I sketched her the rough below and sent her a description of how the final would look in my head.
She loved it, it was exactly what she wanted, and so she commissioned me to go ahead with my idea. She had a lot of fantastic ideas about what she’d also want from me – business cards that would look like a Tarot card, a whole Moulin Rouge-themed coffee shop branding, a chain of coffee shops – and, if I’m honest, alarm bells started to go off. The people who get too far ahead of themselves and are not focused on the very next step they need to take are often the dreamers. It’s one thing to think about the big picture and have an aim, but you can often tell by the way someone talks how grounded their dreams are in reality.
Anyway, I re-drew and firmed up the pencil sketch to her requirements and started to create the illustrator document you see at the top of this blog which would form the outlines of the logo. About the time this stage was coming to completion (the lettering still needs a touch of work), I started to get signs from her that all was not going well financially. I’d invoiced her 50% of the total when the pencil sketch was approved and this was becoming late, despite her repeated assurances that she would pay me “tomorrow”. I felt sorry for her as she was obviously going through a rough time emotionally, but said to her I was concerned I wasn’t going to get paid at all, so invoiced the full amount, which she said she was fine with. I said I would complete the logo as soon as I’d been paid. That was in November 2009. In March 2010, with end of tax year in mind, I emailed her and said if she didn’t pay me by the end of the month I would write off the invoice as a bad debt. She begged for an extension and promised to pay me in July, the time of many outdoor festivals where her van could potentially earn her money. Suffice it to say I never heard from her again.
So here is the logo as imagine it would have looked. The van was painted crimson red, and we planned to have the hand-drawn lettering in gold. It’s a sad story as it’s probably my favourite of all the logos I’ve done, and I was looking forward to seeing it on the side of her little van. Such is life.
The lessons I learned from this experience are thus:
- – I now ask for 30-50% up front from all new clients, depending on the size of the job. All of my regular clients get the usual 30 days’ credit. If someone is serious about me pouring my heart and soul into something for them, they won’t resent this.
- – Proceed with caution when dealing with dreamers. If their heads are in the clouds, check their feet are on the ground, too.
- – If clients start to dawdle and keep delaying the completion of the work, they may well be attempting to delay your invoice.
I’ve been too bloody nice about things in the past, and I suppose it’s a testament to luck that I’ve only been messed around two other times like this in the seven years I’ve been doing this. If I’d been a bit more business-like from the start at least I would have got paid for half of the job. It’s a difficult balance – you don’t want to be seen as too hard-nosed, but on the other hand clients have got to understand I’m not in this job for the benefit of my health, and that I expect them to take the effort I put into their work seriously.
I’d love to hear about how other designers have handled similar situations. Do you insist on money up front? Have you had lawyers draw up a contract for you, or have you had to use them to get money you’ve earned? Feedback welcome!