The best way to begin analysis is to look at the nature and perceived value of different communication methods:

Email

• Can be trashed, unread or even lost. Make a note to respond and backup your emails.
• Can be misinterpreted or misquoted though does have the advantage of allowing media attachments and being a written records of discussion
• Recommended use: When familiar with those being sent the message eg track record of previous contact and non-essential, day-to-day discussion. Initial contact with potential clients could appear impersonal and spamming for business is not acceptable / illegal

Telephone

• Direct conversation allows for greater communication accuracy than email through tone of voice and emotion but is more convenient and less time consuming than a face to face meeting
• Communicates sincerity, trustworthiness more effectively than email but not as well as a face-to-face meeting
• Recommended use: For initial contact, discussing detailed complex issues where immediate feedback will drive a conversation or to finalise email discussion with clients

Meeting

• Communication through speech, body language and visual media can also include senses such as taste, touch etc for product evaluation
• Does require note taking where serious issues or matters that may be refered to later are discussed – can be difficult to do both at the same time so usually a secretarial role or dedicated notation tool is required
• Recommended use: When intensive discussion is required, for example, the start of a project or the completion of a phase of the project. Useful for providing a focus or pressure to ensure certain tasks are complete as it will be necessary to present them

Net Meeting

[Use of webcam and / or mic to communicate visually and audibly]

• This is a slight improvement on just using the phone but with broadband speeds occassionally dropping and limited scope of what can be achieved in front of the camera it does not make it much better than a telephone conversation
• Has certain visual benefits in terms of being able to share screens give demonstrations or present a lo-res version of the person at the other end of the line but not much more.
• Screensharing is a major benefit of a net meeting and online software such as Skype or www.acrobat.com does a good job of allowing others to view and control a remote computer.

So, lets say you’re working on a project, you have used email and phone methods for communicating and now there are team members and management personel brought together for a face-to-face meeting and assessment of progress. You need to focus on a variety of issues to ensure the smooth running of the meeting [or even just participation] and your own peace-of-mind when preparing

Goals

What is the ultimate outcome of the meeting? Usually if a meeting is called to look at a subject like the promotion of a product or service, as often occurs for clients I work with, there is a need to focus any preparation such as the creation of a document or sequence of slides – all of which should provide information that will always lead the viewer to an answer to the original reason for meeting. This could be described as FOCUSING on the objectives.

Participants

Who is involved in the meeting? Which staff will be making a contribution to the meeting. This is important for working out the sort of questions you will be asked and preparing answers for those. It is never possible to anticipate every question you may be asked but the intelligent approach is to ensure you cover yourself by preparing for the most likely and the most difficult questions. For example, you are a designer preparing for a meeting and there is a programmer present – he or she will always want to know the fine detail related to their part of the work and providing a suitable level of detail to give them enough confidence to back your idea as feasible is crucial. You are not trying to become a programmer, you are showing that you appreciate to a reasonable degree what is involved with their part of the work and get them on-board with your idea.

If the MD is present, then the questions will be different – what will the cost be? What is the timescale? Why is this idea, product or direction good for the company? Once one or two people are convinced that your idea is good then this builds momentum and can ultimately lead to an acknowledgment that you are able to command respect and lead innovation in one form or another.

Location

Where will the meeting be held? Environmental issues can help or hinder the progress of a meeting. If held in a designated meeting room then there is less likelihood of interruptions and the mentality of those involved with the meeting may encourage them to reduce the number of interruption by signifying time in their schedule, switching off their phone and dealing with important business before they attend. If you hold a meeting in a place where there is a thoroughfare or in a public place such as a cafe then your meeting focus may be distracted by unforeseen circumstances.  Location and environmental factors associated with this can make or break a focus and ultimately reduce progress.

Management

How will you conduct the meeting as a leader or participant? Will you take the lead or are you expecting another to lead the meeting. If so, are they aware of their responsibility. Are you prepared enough to take the lead should the meeting stall because of a lack of contribution from others? Have you got relevant, direct and appropriate questions in mind that will assist you to make progress with your part of the work? Are these questions appropriate and positive in nature? Being prepared is the key and management of a meeting can confidently be executed by being aware of the potential wide range of agendas and experience in the group meeting and ensuring that concerns related to these can be sufficiently tackled.

Negativity

How will you deal with negative comments from participants or people who are unhappy with the direction taken or the methods used for making decisions? My approach would be to ensure that all the positive reasons are available for discussion in detail and any anticipated negative comments are received with careful consideration and never taken personally whether they are intended as such or not.

It is never possible to please everyone but it is possible to ensure you deal with others with honesty, integrity and respect. I usually find that if I am ensuring I put the needs of a team first and aim to work effectively to ensure that a project is successful irrespective of personal agendas then  it is usually a difference of opinion on direction and philosophy that creates the more intensive discussion rather than anything personal. Also, when  I am asked to manage a project and provide instructions for others to follow, I tend to find I get more respect from people who I ask to do certain tasks when I have already completed the background work for them with appropriate detail and accuracy.

Equipment

Are you aware of what equipment is available – for example, if you needed to use a projector or have examples to pass around the room are these booked or prepared. What if the power supply fails? Have you got some printed notes to work from? All of these sort of things provide confidence that you have got circumstances covered adequately – it can certainly save you some embarrassment and allow your presentation to continue, what ever other factors may disrupt it.

Output

Are you going to record the meeting via a set of notes or even an audio recording or is it an informal discussion? By making a record of the meeting then it is possible to hold people to account and timescales can be applied to the notes made for delivery to all participants. This encourages a level of accountability.

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Please Note

To a degree this list could look like it is just stating the obvious – “yes, we know we generally need a PC or Apple Mac to create design work in this modern digital age”. In addition to the obvious, the listings should also be viewed as a set of priorities or levels of importance – the first on the list being the items that the freelance designer should consider as most important and a bench mark for functioning as a business. I hope that this provides some guidance or inspiration if you are currently designing or thinking of starting your own freelance design business.

TOP 5 BASIC ITEMS FOR FREELANCE DESIGNERS

1. Laptop PC or Mac [and desktop if possible] with broadband access
2. Mobile phone with email capability – Smartphone, iPhone, Blackberry
3. Website with portfolio examples + webspace + custom email + good domain
4. Contact list + maintained address book eg Outlook
5. Office space at home + favourite cafe or social space

TOP 5 COMMUNICATION TOOLS

1. Mobile and desk phone with inclusive minutes – make sure you can contact clients anytime
2. Email account personalised to company name eg design@simcoe.co.uk
3. Screenshare + voice capability from www.skype.com to collaborate with other remote users
4. www.yousendit.com account for sending large files [up to 1Gb]
5. www.adobe.com account for using communities, Kuler and other services

TOP 5 RESEARCH WEBSITES FOR DESIGNERS

1. www.mashable.com
2. www.designfloat.com
3. www.quickonlinetips.com
4. www.computerarts.co.uk
5. www.bbc.co.uk/click/

TOP 5 DISTRACTIONS

1. Non-work related emails or websites
2. Administrative activities such as new equipment
3. Television such as film / news / daytime terrible TV
4. Poorly managed projects and unhappy clients
5. Telephone calls

TOP 5 WAYS TO IMPRESS

1. Immediately responde to queries, errors, problems or corrections with plans
2. Show persistance and an understanding of how both parties may benefit from the work
3. Show respect to the hierachy of a company as well as the boss
4. Contact a company / organisation / client after its all finish and paid
5. Show creativity in conjunction with the ability to deliver + discuss pitfalls

TOP 5 WAYS TO DEPRESS

1. Do not respond to emails in an acceptable timescale eg within 2-5 hours in most cases
2. Show a lack of understanding / inflated sense of your importance in relation to the client
3. Assume that you know better than others and make unreasonable demands
4. Do not make the project advantages and limitations clear to the client
5. Allow a project to spin out of control either in time or functionality

TOP 5 USEFUL ACTIVITIES

1. Create a design blog and discuss your experience of designing in helpful articles
2. Experiment with other not-for-profit projects to gain experience and exposure
3. Visit relevant exhibitions and galleries to inspire and understand art and design further
4. Completely change your day with some exercise eg running, sport, music
5. Meet with other people in similar circumstances eg freelance, design, other creative

TOP 5 MOTIVATIONAL GOALS

1. Create excellent design projects that create a sense of professional satisfaction
2. Expose yourself to unique experiences through creative activity eg travel photos
3. Community and connection through the production of successful projects
4. Fund your food and shelter needs by doing something you have chosen and enjoy
5. Help fulfill your own desires and material goals by helping others to achieve theirs

TOP 5 STOCK RESOURCES

1. www.istockphoto.com – great for finding design elements or images for your work
2. www.themeforest.net – great for finding themes for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal etc
3. www.activeden.net – Adobe Flash and multimedia elements for your websites
4. www.audiojungle.net – low cost audio soundtracks for your videos or podcasting
5. www.shutterstock.com – alternative backup to iStockphoto.com

TOP 5 SOCIAL SITES

1. www.youtube.com – promote your video production or podcasts
2. www.linkedin.com – display your academic and professional achievements
3. www.flickr.com – online photo sharing site with great supporting tools
4. www.twitter.com – create a list of useful links and designerly comments
5. www.facebook.com – establish a brand and connect with your clients




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One particular place that stands out as a place of interest both visually and culturally is Cuba. Cuba, and in particular, Havana, is a rich source of interesting visual imagery including the famous classic American cars, weathered Hispanic architecture and people going about their daily business in a very unique political and economic environment. If you want the real Cuba – visit Havana on your own – not with your partner or your mates – ON YOUR OWN, ALONE.  Forget all that you have read, seen and heard – absorb the atmosphere, ponder and make your own mind up as to what Cuba is really about.

Jim Anderson, owner of Gesso & Bole said:

I was really impressed by Pete’s work and the effort he had gone to to capture the vibrance and visual flavour of Cuba. We love work like this in our gallery as it allows us opportunity to push our own creativity as framemakers and show off our own frame designs. Pete is also a great artist to work with in terms of considering both our business needs and the need for integrity and quality in the process.

I was recently contacted by Jim Anderson at Gesso & Bole in Derby, asking me if I would like to exhibit some photographs from Cuba in his gallery on The Strand in the city centre. Last night was the opening night of the exhibition and a great opportunity to see ten of the images I took in Cuba displayed in hand crafted picture frames with a custom weathered and distressed effect – one of the custom styles Jim is promoting in his gallery. The images are mostly from Havana and took considerable time wandering “off the beaten track” to find them. It is interesting to see which images people are drawn to a why – my favourite is not necessarily theirs and the reasons for a purchasing decision, entirely different. Jim Anderson, director and owner of Gesso & Bole, said:

Ultimately, travel is about the experience and adventure and whilst carrying your camera equipment around can slow you down a little or make you stand out when you would rather be inconspicuous, it is an important opportunity that reasonably low fares and varied routes affords modern life. Making photography part of the overall experience is an important part of my adventure and finding ‘that’ photo to explain the feelings and emotions of the moment or simply a beautiful scene that you want to share with others.

Other links:

Overview of the photographs in Simcoemedia portfolio »

Review of the gallery opening night »

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Ubiquitous Internet Access

Whilst iPad users and other media techies would love to live in a world with ubiquitous internet connection and immediate updates where ever they may be, we are still a way off this due to cost and technical capability – which makes a journey on the London Underground feel like a retro flashback to those pre 90′s days when mobile phones either did not exist or could only be found in cars. So, why are we still using print and not investing in creating a free, universal internet connection for all to download and consume content? Well, in short – it is still difficult to replace the trusty, versatile, battery-less, relatively low cost book, magazine or journal with an electronic equivalent with such desirable tactile and convenient features, though modern internet browsing products such as Smartphones, iPhones, Kindle and the Netbook are becoming less expensive, lighter and thinner. Advertising, printing photographs or creating physical bound books will continue to be a viable option for many businesses or authors for the foreseeable future.

Personally, I do not invest a huge amount of time and effort into print design as it does not fit with the business model I have for creating new leads or promoting projects. However, I do have 2 business card designs for different situations – one with a focus on my primary design business and the other with a focus on the network of portfolio, blogs and social networking sites I use such as YouTube and Flickr. I also designed a printed brochure to promote my business back in 2007 which I still use and refer to for some of my previous work.

Greenbarnes Ltd, a client of mine, uses a variety of promotional formats including a large amount of printed advertising and so I asked director Mike Barnes a few questions about his perspective on print – with particular focus on promotion of a business or product.

Effect of your work

One thing that is more difficult with printed promotional material is the ability to gauge the effectiveness. How many people saw your article, promotional photography or call to action and directly made a move? How many people even read the page the article was on? This is where internet technologies are much more useful – a writer or advertiser will have access to information related to who saw the page the information was on? what browser they used? the city they were in? what pages they came from and how many people moved on to other pages and after how much time?

Another client of mine, picture framing company Gesso and Bole Ltd, use print in a slightly different way – print is part of the complete product rather than the means to selling or advertising. I caught up with Jim Anderson and asked him a few questions

Smelly Internet?

Another factor is the limited interactivity or media that paper will allow – though it does allow olfactory senses such as perfume samples, the smell of a quality paper or where the internet does not. Internet advertising allows for animation, audio, video and the ability to be tucked away, to suprise or to provide sequential information within a small space.

The basics

OK, taking this to an intellectual low – can you roll up an electronic ‘Guitarist Magazine’ digital subscription and place it in your back pocket like the paper equivalent – ready to read later on a lazy Saturday afternoon by the river? Not really, though some might like to try it. If you find that annoying fly sitting on the window [the one that's been buzzing around all afternoon] – do you hit it with the iPad, Smartphone, or the paper newspaper?!

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“Spec” has become the short form for any work done on a speculative basis. In other words, any requested work for which a fair and reasonable fee has not been agreed upon, preferably in writing.

This practice has become popular because many companies erroneously view it as a quick and easy way to get the best ideas from designers. Unfortunately, requesting speculative design is a poor business decision because it caters to the lowest common denominator of design. It also forces designers to engage in the poor design practice of making snap decisions.
- no-spec.com

The Business of Business

I would agree to a certain point with the no-spec team view on this but not entirely, and there is more to add. The problem with this method is that the energy, experience and time that is required to come up with even a reasonably professional design needs some kind of reward equivalent to the energy put in, after all, the business of business is business as they say.

The no-spec team imply that snap decisions automatically lead to poor design – not always! Any level of professional visual input is valid and useful even if it explains to the client what they don’t want or their reaction is that a design is inappropriate. Also, a client may use elements of a design either consciously or subconsciously that contribute to the final solution by providing influence – this may of course not be directly obvious or attributable to the originator of the idea. This is the fundamental problem – ideas from even fairly lightweight designers have some value and may even subconsciously steer the company’s identity, product or website in a way that leads to massive success that would never have been there without that freebie!

To be honest, sometimes the only way to learn is the hard way and over 8 years of self employment this has only really happened significantly once with a company who will remain nameless. A large project looking at online document storage put out a challenge to several designers and selected the best from a group. Not only did this take 3-4 hours of my time to produce ideas with clarity and reason, I also attended an hour long meeting with a 3 hour round trip. This was all getting a bit much before i knew it and a simple concept had now turned into a full days work with no pay. Lesson learned.

Don’t Frighten Them Away

The way to avoid this image of the obnoxious designer is not necessarily by badging-up your site with a NO-SPEC “brightly coloured alarm-bells ringing” badge or agressively demanding a signature on a contract before you will even speak to them, but almost to side-step the issue of speculative design altogether by discussing design work with potential clients in a general sense when you meet them. Examine their reaction to you and do not be afraid to ask for a limited budget to prove your worth to them in a bite sized mini-project from which they are given a set of quality ideas and continue working with you without having initially commited all of their budget to an unknown creative type. If you sense they are looking for speculative work or something for nothing then they are to be avoided or at the very least test their reaction to your reasoning as to why they should pay for your time even on a trial basis. Personally, I always request between 6-10 hours work with a client for my bite size trial period which to be fair is slightly easier job with my portfolio in existence.

Limited Portfolio?

If your problem is that you need to get on the design ladder to get your portfolio moving and you are starting in your design career then you may be tempted by speculative work, “design competitions” [often an alternative way of describing 'freebies from designers'] or freebies! Occasionally these may bring success but more often they bring frustration to both parties. Here are a few thoughts that may help:

• Consider consulting your previous educational establishment at what ever level this may be and see what sort of companies they may have contact with.
• Try to establish a trade off between the real-world skills you have to offer and the rewards you may receive – even if this is simply working for a well known respectable organisation for a few days in return for a slice of their reputation and experience [though caution is required here as work experience on a basis of more than a couple of weeks is a minefield also!]. I would normally recommend this very early on in a design career – school or university level but not much beyond that.
• Sometimes your payback is exposure and promotion – but do ensure that you will receive this to the extent that you expect it by clearly establishing with the client what is reasonable to expect and getting a copy or photograph of the end product! Personally, I only reserve this type of payment for situations where I was informally involved in visual creativity. For example, I recently took some photos of my friend’s kid’s karting race at a local circuit for fun and something to give my friend to remember the day. A magazine called me to ask me if they could use a couple of them in an article they were publishing about the event – I was happy to do this as selling these images on something like iStock would be difficult because of the many privacy and corporate laws that exist for selling an image [eg no logos, no people without model release forms etc]. So, the agreement was that they must include my website in the photo credit which could generate traffic and potentially have a monetary value.
• Be clear on what you can offer and honest about your skills along with a willingness to have your client or work experience at the centre of your world – ie want to succeed.

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The way I deal with my tax obligation is, I believe, an optimum, no fuss way to ensure accuracy in my record keeping whilst reducing my accounting fees to a minimum each year. Here’s how I go about it:

Find the right accountant

I work with an individual Chartered Accountant specialising in Small to Medium Enterprises [SME's] as he has an understanding of running his own business as well as dealing with companies of my size. He is honest and follows guidelines for keeping books strictly which is important for ‘peace-of-mind’ when submitting a tax return – if the books are audited then there is no need for concern that there may be hidden penalties or drawn out negotiation with the Inland Revenue.

What is particularly good about the guy is the fact that he will go through my accounts with me – demonstrating where he has corrected  minor mistakes but also giving me a different tutorial year-by-year as to how the presentation of my monthly spreadsheets could be improved. He is also very helpful during the rest of the year when I [very occasionally] call him if there is a  calculation or record I am not sure about.

OK, enough of the discount friendly compliments to my accountant.

Create your own spreadsheets

Essentially I have two options – pay for an accountant to sort out all of my receipts and records then calculate tax or supply the books with spreadsheets and receipts completely ready to be checked and submitted as a final estimate. I have chosen the option to create my own spreadsheets and log my own expenses which has a few benefits:

1. Learning and practicing good book keeping skills
2. Greater monitoring in detail of monthly income and expenditure
3. Reduction in accountants fees

As a Sole Trading Freelance Designer it is easy to create, maintain and submit accounts as there are no staffing considerations [except payment to other freelance programmers or designers who must then account for this in their own records]. There is also non of the extra maintenance that comes with owning a Ltd or Plc company. It’s all very easy to maintain and manage.

Pay promptly

Hate late payers? So do I and accountants definitely are even less impressed. Iusually  respond to any invoices that are sent to me within 48 hours and at the most within 1 week whether there are 28 day terms or not. My advice would be to pay your accountant within 1 week of receiving your bill – just to impress them with your reliability – this has rewards in that your accountant will know he can rely on your commitment to him and therefore he or she will [usually] commit time and advice in return.

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The fact is, I’ve just written about Joe Biden and his health reform – I’m not the only one by a long way and there are many t-shirt designs to prove my point – also, David Cameron and his comments about Twitter and Joy Division’s re-released single. These apparent faux pas may be genuine but maybe not. Remembering that these people have reached the top of their game and experience many different types of public presentation – verbal and written to the mass media audience, it SHOULD come as a surprise that these mistakes are made. After all, these people will have PR and marketing people working for them 24 hours a day and sometimes the only way to get yourself noticed is to behave outrageously or out of character because this is the sort of news that people are interested in – serious public figures acting in fallible or indiscreet ways.

Nothing happens by mistake?

The question is – were these actions planned or not? In most cases I would suggest that nothing happens by mistake and that these mistakes are carefully orchestrated to keep the agenda afloat or at least keep the web talking about it and therefore raising the online profile of the subject matter via YouTube, Twitter or other social media. There can be an associated monetary or political value to this raised profile in obvious ways.

So, how should this apply to you as a company director, academic or even designer? Well, I would suggest that you don’t immediately publish your own agenda, promotional advertising or university paper with a raft of strategically placed foul language, ‘in jokes’ or deliberate mistakes to shock your reader but see these as examples of curious events that lead to wider coverage because of their unconventional nature. That is all. It is all about the wider coverage and [potentially] the way some of these examples may or may not have been carefully orchestrated.

If a blogger wants to get noticed within their subject area then the challenge is to write something about a subject that goes against or intelligently challenges the understood norm. The key here is writing on a very sophisticated or intelligent level and yet presenting an argument clearly and accurately but then bringing the reader round to another agenda or point of view in more subtle ways – which may simply be by allowing user comments to reflect the other part of an arguement. A YouTube video that recently went viral is Mental Designers Graphic Designer Vs Client video that represented comments that every designer had heard from potential clients at some point in their career – this is not so much following the apparent mistake examples already given but is a clever way of shocking people to get the message across – a message that contains many levels of angst and truth.

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My print colours do not match the screen

Understand that the colours you see on the screen are not necessarily completely accurate in terms of what you will get at the end of the print design process. This is mainly down to the difference between the way colour is created on screen and the way colour is created on paper: on CRT or LCD monitors, the monitor combines Red, Green and Blue light [RGB] to produce colour using very small pixels and any tiny, barely visible gaps between the pixel elements are black whereas the common process of printing with Cyan Yellow Magenta and Black [or Key as it is sometimes known] [CMYK] uses a combination of inks printed at various angles to give the impression of colour tone – all space between the distributed ink is white. Different input and output devices dealing with colour all have a different gamut – ie the range of colours a device can display or print, and the effect of the material or technology used to present this colour also has an effect.

Screen vs print

A screen’s gamut is usually much bigger than the printer’s gamut and this must be accounted for when dealing with images for print. The human eye has a much larger gamut of colours that can be viewed – monitors and printed material can only ever represent a reasonably small proportion of the colour available to us in the natural world.

Adobe users have the opportunity to set their colour spaces for local [eg US, European or Asian] printer technologies in the settings for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign providing a reasonably accurate environment for the images to be imported, processed and saved in suitable colour spaces – though Adobe’s colour engine requires considerable calibration and testing.

I am not the designer. What can I do?

Calibration Hardware

Buy yourself a piece of hardware for calibrating your monitor [and if you can stretch to the expense, your printer too]. See the Design-Design article Why Bother Calibrating? This will give you a fairly accurate starting point though personally my X-black Sony VAIO seems to overcompensate black and therefore shadows are slightly heavier than they should be – watch out for this sort of inaccuracy.

Colour Management – the printed photo method

Unless you have been trained in Colour Management then the most appropriate course of action would be to calibrate using a special image from your printers – my current choice of printer provide a test image on their typical gloss and matt stock and request that people manually set the colour of their monitor or graphics card to match the printed image with an image on screen. In cases where you can use a test image then this is recommended because, if you can get a ball park colour value from using a calibration device, then adjust manually so that what you see on screen matches the lithographic print, you should never be disappointed [though may never see 100% perfection either! - but that's a very tall order]. Ensure that your colour management policies are set to off when you calibrate. For further information please see the Why bother calibrating? article.

Colour Management – the Adobe method

If you find that this process is not yielding the results you want [though if you constantly use the same printer then it is probably best to use the first method mentioned for increased accuracy], then try setting your Adobe software to the appropriate region settings for example in European countries choose EUROPE  GENERAL PURPOSE 2 and ensure that Preserve Embedded Profiles is set for RGB, CMYK and Greyscale. This is a catch all method for ensuring that files are reasonably accurate, though if you really want to improve colour accuracy then read this incredibly detailed document from Adobe if you dare!

Does the printer understand your design?

When I’ve finished designing and I am preparing the file for print, I usually create proof files in the form of low resolution JPEGs to send off accompanying the file – this helps to ensure that your vision of the document boundaries, colours and content is communicated clearly and that changes in the PDF between your computer and the print unit’s machine can be identified.

If you feel it is necessary to clarify the print job further then it would be recommended that a physical proof is sent to the printers. This may indicate how pages fit together, where perforations are located or where there may be problems in the PDF. These proofs should be annotated. Usually printers have received all sorts of documents containing all sorts of problems with vectors, bitmaps and colour models eg screen colours as opposed to print colours and so are often experts at identifying potential print issues – I just don’t rely on that knowledge as print is so expensive.

I recently completed a car sticker job for a client. The client was surprised at how much detail I wrote in the accompanying email as I made a list of assumptions of how the process would occur and asked important questions that needed consideration. Assumptions included the understanding that all text would be cut out of the stickers rather than another sticker placed over the top in white – the client did not know that the colour of the car body is white and that this will be expected to show through in text areas. Also, I was concerned that the 4-piece logo items would need some sort of template in the application of the sticker to ensure all parts were accurately spaced – the print guy told me that there was a special coating on the stickers to allow easy application of several elements in the right place. It is really worth getting into the fine detail before money / time / effort is spent.

Turnaround

Never underestimate the time that a printer requires to complete a job – printers run to a carefully planned and priced schedule and will not be able to deviate from this as it would affect their pricing model. In many cases the client can pay a premium to receive the printed material such as stationery within 2-3 days. For example, RCS, the print company I use, have an 11am deadline for the receipt of print and from that point, it is classed as day 1. Within day 1 payment must be made for the job to run within the time guidelines.

It is worth looking at the variety of print options available to the client – RCS offer an economy turnaround time which is twice the normal turnaround but can make savings on the overall cost of the job by 10% – 15%

Colour Proof

Printers can provide a proof of the artwork but this will come at a price. A chromalin or laser copy can be generated which will provide around 85% – 95% accurate representation. It is worth finding a local photocopy shop with industrial quality laser printers to speed up this process but do your research and testing first to ensure that the results are reasonably accurate.

Savings and Offers

Check to see if your printer has special offers and pass these savings on to your client. This always brings a cheery smile to the clients face and shows him or her that you are a loyal designer!

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Policy

Have a company policy, even as a sole trader, in the way that files are stored, backed up and deleted. Deleting your files can be a way of keeping your system healthy and running at optimum speed. There are many ways to reduce efficiency on your hard drive including letting temporary files build up, setting restore points too often, installing programs you will never use or simply clogging up the desktop with documents, shortcuts and other assorted items!

My own company policy is to install software onto my PC only and to use an external 320Gb Hard Disk Drive [HDD] for data and a copy of this drive on a portable HDD for working on the move as you never know when project information will be needed on the road. Every 6 months I backup the previous 6 months of data to DVD+R discs. This is one example of the frequency of backup to optical media and you may wish to backup sooner – it depends on your attitude to risk and your own hardware.

Is Deleting Permanent?

Deleting your files with no backup can be remedied if the problem is identified relatively quickly and by relatively quickly we are talking about a couple of hours. Essentially there are a variety of programs that will allow the user to undelete or restore deleted files. I recently evaluated Piriform’s Recuva – a free download designed to perform the task of recovering ‘lost data’ and the results were that the program delivers a no-frills solution to recovering your data. It is worth considering some of the paid solutions to this problem for those people who need more guidance and assistance with separating their files into original folders as this is a function that Recuva will not perform. Other examples of data recovery files I have found from searching the net [and have not tested!] are:

• RecoverMyFiles
• PCTools
  

Storage Methods Overview

It is important to be aware that heat, dust, electromagnetic fields and other physical elements are out to ruin your data so be aware of the pro’s and con’s of storing your information on:

• Tape Drive where data is reasonably stable, stored in mass but can be damaged by magnetic fields and is very slow to retrieve. Many companies use this as a once-a-day process to backup the days work from all users in the office as it is a way to comprehensively collect massive amounts of data, usually in an automated process, for retrieval should any data from individual users be lost. Cost per Megabyte: low.
• Cloud Storage is becoming more popular. This is where your information is stored on the internet and can be retrieved by logging in to your server via a web browser. Typical examples would be www.acrobat.com from Adobe, Skydrive from MSN or Dropbox – all of whom offer free [or at least low cost], worldwide access to your data. Bandwidth speeds and hacking issues are the biggest concerns here and its not really an ideal way to store secret or confidential information – however, this is a useful tool for non-essential, low security class information when on the move.
• Internal Hard Disk Drive where data can be quickly retrieved and written to but can also be easily damaged by the HDD reader head crashing onto the disk if suddenly impacted eg in a laptop. Cost per Megabyte: medium. Most users use a HDD for local single user purposes only before backing up onto tape or other secure media. Hard Disk Drives now run into Terabytes of storage.
• External Hard Disk Drive has many of the features and problems of normal HDD’s but they need to be slightly more resilient to knocks, drops and loading. They are of course, still very fragile but provide users with a massive amount of storage in what is now a pocket sized item. Great for taking large video, audio or other media files on the road.
• Blu Ray and standard DVD+R or -R are very useful for creating additional backups of work on individual projects so that should tape or HDD fail, there is always another type of media that may have survived. I tend to find that I break down my file system to web, print and other document discs – I then refer to the recording date of the disc and find any information that relates to files created after that point.
• Pen Drive is a convenient way to transfer your files for projects or demonstrations with these small chip based devices providing on average around 16 or 32Gb of data storage in a keyring sized item
• Paper is the least favoured in the modern office. It would be great if we could truely generate the paperless office but we still need proofs, backups of accounts and other important document on yet another medium that will withstand different pressure from the elements.

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‘Very Special’ Effects

The video below demonstrates how Adobes Design software has been used to create some of the elements in the film including the use of Photoshop to create some of the textures seen on the creatures, Premier Pro used to piece together demonstration material [though they skirt around the fact that Avid systems will have been used for the final production] and Lightroom to preview and categorise the image libraries created for the film.

Review

Cameron has undoubtedly created a masterpiece of special effects that will lead a new era of film makers into the next decade. The story is unashamedly [by Cameron's own admission] a lame framework with which he can hang the story together and there are many subtexts – not only of war, destruction driven superpowers ploughing their way through indigenous populations – also a spiritual, new age theme of ‘mother-earth’ fighting back at the forces trying to destroy her. However, possibly unintentionally, there is another theme at work here and something that has been an ugly side to the internet for many years now…..that people online may not be what they seem. I wonder if all those abusive comments on YouTube and other social media would actually be said to people face-to-face in the physical world? In Avatar the power difference here is physical in that the user is a courageous [yet initially misguided] soldier injured and unable to walk.

Conclusion

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