Loughborough Design School Experience

The students were asked to highlight elements of the Loughborough Design School education that they found particularly beneficial and describe why students considering a course of study in design should choose Loughborough.

Example Projects at New Designers

Here are some of the products Loughborough students have created for their final year projects that have been taken to the Business Design Centre to display to other students, potential employers and other Universities. It is a great opportunity to see the very latest and best design talent leaving education establishments in the UK.

Photographs from New Designers

Find out more about Loughborough Design School

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Initial Questions

When considering setting up a business start by asking these questions:

What skills and experience can I offer a potential client?

Personally I can offer a variety of skills and abilities to a potential client – these include web design, print design, photography, creative brainstorming and ideas development as well as video and audio production. Each of these skills is honed in a way that allows me to offer competitive products and rates without trying to become an expert at everything – see wide but focused skill-sets for further explanation.

What is the market like for my area of expertise?

It is often quite difficult to know how many people will offer you work unless you have been building up a list of contacts who are talking money and offering you paid work. However, the trick in many cases is to find guaranteed work that will bring in a guaranteed income whilst you experiment with your network and cast your net out for new jobs. This may be in the form of temporary work in a call centre, coffee shop or just simply asking the boss if you can go part time. With the last option – I always find it best to be honest about your position in that, an explanation to the boss of your intentions is fair to the employer and sets a precedent of open, honest deal-making even in difficult situations.

To a degree your research for understanding the market will come from an evaluation of the following:

- How many companies perform similar tasks in your area? Search Google and type in your company’s activity and the name of your city for examples of local companies. Expand your search as appropriate.
- What are their clients like? similar to your your desired clients?
- Do you think you can compete with similar companies in quality and price? Could they be a business partner?
- Can you identify companies you would like to target? Are they open to you discussing freelance work with them? [ie some companies may have in-house skills and never look externally]

Are you able to pitch an idea to a potential client?

The ability to network or pitch ideas to potential clients is one of the most crucial things as person starting a company -especially in the field of freelance design. An understanding of the industry, the motivation of clients and methods for negotiating and dealing with costs confidently will make or break a deal. Clients want a clear understanding of two things – benefits and cost.

Organise and Manage

One of the key skills for someone starting a company is to be able to organise and manage time. Sounds obvious but there are several factors to consider all at once when you are running a business day to day:

• Energetic, vibrant and creative application of your skills and abilities to stand out from the crowd of other companies who want the same business
• Keeping up to date with the latest information, technology and activity within your sector to ensure your knowledge and understanding of the sector is up to date. Finding quality sources for this information is vital as there is pressure on your time to maximise understanding with minimal effort.
• Sourcing new work is an ongoing effort for the freelance designer or other sole trader. Every event attended, simple conversation on the train or most importantly, your last piece of work, is a stepping stone to a potentially new and exciting project or lead which must be exploited in a careful and considered manner. There is nothing more off-putting to a new lead than conversation with an entirely selfish “I need more work and money” agenda – business is a two way thing – the benefits you the client and the benefits to you or your company.
• In amongst all this intensive activity you need to be developing your skills and maintaining your edge to ensure that you are able to deliver what is expected.
• Ability to remain calm and professional under pressure is vital. There are many pressures on a company including client expectations, non-payment of fees, staffing issues and projects not going according to plan that all require patience and the ability to separate the personal from the professional
• Finally, but not least – a healthy balance of work and inspiring play is vital to anyone running a business and in fact, it can aid in your creative, dynamic edge in any sector. Whether you are a sports enthusiast, arts fan or musician – giving yourself time to indulge in a way that compliments your business can reduce the possibility of burn out or a lack of enthusiasm for your direction.

The Business of Business

To use a classic line of business-speak – “the business of business is business” which essentially refers to the fact that the world revolves [ideally] through the fair exchange of skills, abilities and money. In the world of business we are constantly looking to produce quality work and be paid for this. Simple as that.

It is possible to be friends with your clients but the primary connection with a person should never mix with the friendship side – they are expected to pay you and you are expected to return that agreement with the best work you can produce. However, I personally work with some great people with whom I can have direct business conversations with but then as a separate issue I can have a good chat with about business, life and the world in general….I just need to remember our initial agreement at all times and enjoy the business relationship with that in mind.

Wide But Focused Skill-set

As a designer I am always keen to make myself available for as much work in the design industry as possible. Targeting a narrow area of web design in your daily activity can render some highly paid specialised jobs but it may be that your specialism is only sold to a client 3 or 4 times a year and unless your fame spreads far and wide there is a chance that you may exhaust your leads very quickly. On the other end of the scale is the ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ where skills are so thinly spread that there is little opportunity to refine your offering to industry and therefore clients lose interest because there are more capable companies or individuals. This is where a ‘wide but focused’ skill-set comes into play:

• I focus on producing websites using the highly capable WordPress platform which enables me to produce a reasonably wide variety of website types without needing to learn HTML, PHP or CSS in very fine detail [I do need to understand it to a reasonable level] whilst maintaining industry standards.
• I focus on design for print for manufacturing companies, businesses requiring information design and banners for exhibitions. By understanding the typical needs of these sort of clients I can offer a quality service and reach effective design decisions swiftly.
• My video is focused upon documentary making in relation to projects or business activity and uses a very similar series of probing questions to really maximise the benefits of including an interview as part of a presentation DVD, website link or other application.
• I do offer Flash design on a limited basis but have a reduced rate for this service as I have less experience in this area of design and production. This allows me to develop Flash skills whilst producing the quality of projects a client would expect for the money spent.

Should I Ever Turn Work Down?

What happens if you are asked to complete a project outside of your usual skills base or do not feel the usual level of confidence in the specification? There are two options.

1. Make a judgment on the complexity of the project in relation to your previous experience and if it is a calculated risk that will push your skills then it is worth pursuing for the benefits to both you and your client. The end result has the potential to be a compliment and asset to your progression as a company or freelancer.
2. If the project is reasonably far displaced from your usual line of work then it maybe unfair to the client, yourself and your companies reputation to undertake the job.

In the second instance, all is not lost – a client will respect you for explaining where your skills are focused and if you make a recommendation to another company or freelancer then it may be that you will get a phone call from the same potential client when they have a project that is within your ability to complete professionally.

Do I Need To Buy The Latest Equipment?

As a designer I need to own a suitable computer system, internet connection, mobile phone and other means to complete my work – see Designer Top 5 Tips for an overview of my own personal priorities on equipment and other resources for designers.

My personal opinion is that when the hardware is appropriate for the type and style of work you are doing then an upgrade should only really be occurring every 3 years on average. For example, upgrading Adobe Software costs me around £700.00 each time, a suitable desktop – around £800 for the base unit and a laptop is £1000.00. On a year by year basis this is unnecessary to complete quality design work but the purchase of new equipment can open up some new channels of design and production and increase efficiency…..so there is a balance to be had.

How Much Should I Charge?

This is a tricky one but I would suggest that the formula for setting your pricing would involve three factors:

• Regional and national cost comparison eg what do others charge?
• Evaluation of your skills / experience
• Overheads and outlay for equipment, transportation and materials

Should I Ever Work For Free?

The old chestnut of speculative projects or competitions has been covered by Design-Design previously in the article Speculative Design and You where the topic is explored in all its cynical glory. This is a tricky area which applies to many areas of industry and whilst they should not be completely discounted, should be approached very cautiously.

Quoting

Quoting is one of those time consuming business facts-of-life that may or may not lead to business but really has to be done as part of the process. For those in business and generating quotes they will know that quotes are expensive to produce if you consider time as money. The only advice I can give is that quotations should respect the client in quoting fairly and accurately by stating any reservations or limitations of the project to ensure a happy outcome.

The other side to this is that if you ask for a quote from a supplier or project partner then you should respect the use of their time and limit the efforts they need to go to by stating clearly what you are requesting and giving them an estimated percentage chance of the quote being used. There are many people who have asked for quotations or meetings in my own history who have no respect for your time, expense or effort you put into just getting to see them and prepare for them – this in a way is an interview regarding their attitude and whether you respect them professionally. In my opinion, those who a careful with you and your business are the clients to seek and those others – well, they set the rules in their approach to you shall we say.

The Mac vs PC Thing

People often make the statement that ‘designers should use Macs’. Not necessarily true – the software is identical on both platforms and performs equally well. The issue is mainly about price and preference differences, though it has to be said that the quality of Windows driven PC machines vary considerably more. Macs are on average about 30% more expensive than the equivalent PCs, though salespersons and Mac fans will always qualify the difference in speed and efficiency. They may be right to a certain degree but not to the extent that they do believe in their own hype……and to be fair, the speed of design style and creativity is independent of the Mac / PC platform .

Some Practicalities

Down to the basics. On a practical level, here are a few bits of advice related to the physical aspects of your company:

• Have you decided whether you will work from home? If so, is there a suitable location where you feel comfortable working? What will happen when you need to get away from the potential isolation – can you work in other locations?
• If you require a building for machinery or offices, have you investigated the cost of doing this considering the business rates, rental costs and cleaning of the building?
• Are you looking to recruit staff? Have you considered the appropriate employment law surrounding employment? Have you considered how you will select your candidates and how you will ensure that a fair and efficient process is applied to managing staff and the respective expectations of working conditions?
• Do you know how you will resolve disputes with clients or staff? Have you got a process for recovering payment from late payers? Are you aware of the legal implications of your actions related to clients and staff?
• Do you have a list of terms and conditions for your products or services? See Business Links example terms and conditions.
• Have you got a suitable bank account? For example, HSBC will provide ‘Free’ business accounts for those with limited cheques or payments each month which is perfect for many freelancers.
• Are you aware of pension schemes for you and your staff? If you are not part of a scheme, have you got a savings strategy appropriate for both now and the future.
• Do you require indemnity insurance to cover legal costs in the event of liability?

Alot of these issues are covered on the Business Link website which provides a useful starting point when considering the legal and management side of you business. If you’re interested in the latest business and technology news then online sources such as Mashable and BBC Click. My suggestion is that you use Google Reader to build a collection of RSS Feeds that you can briefly glance through each day to check for new and relevant information.

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Designer’s Playtime, Artist’s Fulltime

If you are reading this and you are a designer, multimedia producer or quite frankly anyone who has to make ends meet, it is quite possible that you won’t have to look too hard in your local town or city to find examples of publicly funded arts projects that make you question whether the artist or group of artists have any knowledge or skill in the areas they are effectively ‘dabbling’ in and whether there is any insight, message, concept or idea beyond your own understanding to be gained. There are simply too many arts projects that end up as amateurish explorations of technology or inadequately developed ideas.

The current individual artist funding structure does make allowance for artists to dabble with technology and present this as a concept or series of ideas with a level of justification widely open to interpretation whereas other sectors must prove themselves to a much greater level both technically and financially. My opinion is that this method of funding individual artists is not only unfair to the tax payer but should not be allowed to continue, especially, to coin an annoying phrase, ‘in a time of austerity’ where public funding is tight.

You could argue that there are very limited examples in the following paragraphs compared to the wealth of arts activities across the country, but do remember that this is more about individual artists than organisations. Regarding the significant proportion of poor arts projects examples around it would be fairly easy to find someone in the area of interest such as design, fashion or multimedia who has done something similar – but technically and artistically stronger without direct funding for that specific activity.

Importance of Individual Expression

Let’s be clear here – individual expression is very important and is what makes us human. Everyone has the right to expression and should actively be encouraged to be expressive. I just want to see the artist’s agenda to be part of a project but kept in check. When I say ‘kept in check’ I am refering to ensuring more strictly that creative content is balanced with appropriate planning, management and delivery of an idea. Value for the funder, and for society, must be further ensured by careful control of the scope and quality of the creative exploration than it currently is.

Community and Competition

As a designer I must develop and play with new design tools and technology to present ideas, develop new talents and simply play in my own ‘playtime’. Personally my own creative pursuits include drawing, painting, experimenting with colours, video, using social networks and photography. I love this aspect of the work I do and it directly improves my commercial output. For many other creative individuals they must also fund their own ‘play’ and communities such as Deviant Art amongst others stand out as examples of designers in differing disciplines experimenting and coming together to inspire each other as well as show off! For me, my artistic exploration of other audio and visual media in my own projects are designed to add credibility to me as an ‘artist’ as well as inspire clients and provide points for discussion.

Fairness

Design success is measured both financially and through criticism with personal expression kept in check by a client led agenda. I strongly believe that a ‘client led agenda’ should be part of funding individuals in the arts to reduce the amount of poor decisions made by poor judgment on the part of funders, weak applicants, inexperience on the part of practitioners or just poor artistic literacy generally. Individual artists will point to the Arts Council website guidelines [9.2.5 of the latest edition in particular] which do try protect the public against poor project results but in my experience there are many projects that fall way short of these demands. Too much so-called art practice is amateurish exploration of a field where far greater superiority already exists – particularly technical superiority. This is wasteful and undermines art practice.

Typical Offenders

Examples that really stand out in my mind would be:

A poorly executed 3D animation from an ‘artist’ based in the East Midlands that was his own exploration of the media but communicated relatively little – yet had a grand opening in London, which required public money to enable it to be free. The designer would experiment with 3D software in this way just to prove a point to a client that they could produce finely crafted ideas in this medium and the standard would need to be high to compete. In a way, if the artist provided funding for a competent 3D artist to create the work then this would make sense from a public purse perspective – local talent is being paid to do a first class job based upon the concept provided by the artist.

VJing and other video based projects, usually relatively low budget in nature, due to the lack of technical competency in execution, become crimes against the tax payer when an artist should seek out those digital craftsmen and women who can produce quality. Of course, this means the artist is very like to have to find other income streams which makes this a hard option for anyone and one that the artist does not have to commit to. The examples I have seen in and around a popular arts cinema in Nottingham as a particular example are mostly nothing more than people would experiment with on their own home computers or people put together for fun on YouTube. It is important to remember that the most typical examples are on the lower end of the budget scale and maybe this is part of the problem – this money is not seen as ‘serious’ and so does not get treated seriously. It adds up to serious waste.

Squeezing the Concept

If artists have got this far in the article without closing the browser then they would probably be quite annoyed at my suggestion that they should use a similar model of keeping the agenda in check. Entitlement is a word that no-one in the arts would dare to use but many project a sense of entitlement – that they have the right to fulfill their own creative desires through the projects they are given and who are we to question them. We would all like to do this but creatives outside of arts funding circles must employ intense creativity and a sense of responsibility to the client. Please note that, for those designers with a ‘know-it-all’ attitude [I'm sure you know at least one] – this is often their downfall as people won’t tolerate this as readily as they will in the arts. Its all about responsibility to those paying the bill and I m calling for artists to share this responsibility so we can improve upon the dross we experience more and more in local galleries and exhibitions.

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Please Note:

Due to a lack of interest in the Designers Forum [What? There are no designers in Chester? ], the Meetup.com group has been closed. However, I have left the article on Design-Design as it outlines the ideas and aspirations behind the group.

The aims and objectives of Designers’ Forum are to encourage artists, designers and musicians to meet, share information and potentially collaborate on design projects on a formal or informal basis. My experience of Business Link, On Course Innovation and E-Business Events in the East Midlands [2003 - 2009] were generally positive and it would be great to bring these positive experiences to a group of people in creative industries in and around Chester.

Meetup.com was chosen as the vehicle for encouraging this activity because it seems to strike the right balance between professional and personal interests, has a large following, is an acceptable price to start your own Meetup.com group and has a reasonably intuitive interface. This is the write up for the Designers’ Forum:

This group is for designers, film makers, graphic artists and animators in the Chester area. The focus is on creating a support network made up of freelancers and company employees who enjoy meeting other people with a similar interest in designerly activity of different sorts.

The next meetup on 12 September at Telfords Warehouse [2pm] is all about how we use the web as professionals and for personal inspiration:

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Simcoemedia: I love playing with my new giant rotating tag-cloud. I’m happy when its tag-cloudy http://www.design-design.co.uk/the-cloud/

Simcoemedia: The Drawing Research Network is officially live and we need to keep up the momentum on new members http://drawing-research-network.org.uk

Simcoemedia: Here’s a useful piece of free web-based software for creating a wiki – http://www.tiddlywiki.com/

Simcoemedia: It’s been two years since I got this little gem from Havana in Cuba – http://bit.ly/cCmYyf – definitely a favourite.

Simcoemedia: [ThemeForest] Dany’s Blossomsoft WP theme looks great for a wide range of design and corporates. Thanks for letting me know about that one.

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Firstly, it is worth pointing out that, unlike a mathematical problem, the design problem is one that cannot necessarily be resolved to perfection but must be resolved perfectly for the circumstances under which it exists. As I often mention to my clients, if you throw enough money at a solution – you can have any solution you like. The designer’s challenge is to fulfill the needs and desires of the client within parameters that will range from budget to client needs / desires to media type.

Ensuring Client Satisfaction

In addition to a quality piece of design work, a client must be completely satisfied with the job and feel that the financial sacrifice they have made has been rewarded with a product, advert, website or DVD that will work for them as a company, educational establishment, photographer or restaurant to further their cause or increase income.

There are several ways to do this but the one that works for me the most is to clearly analyse the design process with the client prior to the job commencing. From the point at which a fee is being negotiated to the conclusion of a project, the process should be explained at appropriate points to a client in easy-to-understand bite sizes. At what point should this discussion take place? The most common guides to this discussion are the points at which a piece of design work will be assessed by the client – the test phases if you like. The emphasis is upon the designer to advise the client as to when a discussion will be necessary and so as not to annoy or take up too much time – anticpating the required information and evaluation periods is paramount.

Design Brief

In my experience a design brief can arrive in the in-tray or inbox in a variety of formats:

1. The client contacts the designer by telephone for a brief discussion. During this conversation the client is looking for signs that the designer will respond intelligently to a given brief and so the designer must be prepared to react quickly and appropriately to statements made by the client whilst making notes regarding the requirements. These notes form the basis of the brief.

2. A client or client representative requests a meeting and gives a little information about what the project may be. This can be more vague than the telephone conversation as there is little or no time for questions – the designer must respond to questions at a meeting.

3. A client sends a brief out to tender. This means the designer has the opportunity to outline how they would approach the project and some initial designs may be required here. This leads onto the subject of speculative working which will be covered in another article, another time – in the meantime, check out these two links related to spec. design:

Why Speculative Design is Wrong
What is Speculative Design Work? – the video is worth listening to after the first 30 seconds

Types of Brief

The most common types of design brief are OPEN and CLOSED. An open brief is where the designer is allowed to experiment and develop a solution to a design problem with no initial guidance on what the end solution might be. A closed brief is where the solution is given [eg a device that performs task x and fits into box y] but is unclear how the design will look.

There are often grey areas in these design briefs – a typical example being that a designer has freedom to design a solution but must follow the corporate colours or must use a logo or identifying mark on the product, website or advert.

A designer should use his or her experience to make suggestions as to the benefits of changing the design brief where appropriate. This may result in the reduction of financial expenditure [for example, where a designer sees that part of the brief may require more creative freedom to allow other parts of the brief to flow and conclude more effectively]. If a client is completely opposed to making changes to the brief then the designer must carefully consider how the process will work within these constraints and take appropriate action.

Next time

In part 2 we will look at the design process and a live project example.

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