Invent A Fake Company For Me!
I'm in Ann Arbor and my meeting at MetaSpring is over, so I'm doing a quick blog post before going to gaming at Clark Rodeffer's.
The business partners I met at MetaSpring with are about ten years younger than me. They said my portfolio was weak, and gave me some samples of stuff they've done to show what they're looking for. Frankly, I think the stuff they showed me is weak. I'd have a sample if I ever had a client wealthy enough to spring for brochures, or direct mailers, or billboards ... or for that matter, anything in full color. I told them I could reproduce those pieces from scratch in no time. They said if I could come up with a color trifold brochure, direct mailer, and/or billboard of some made-up company and email them as a PDF, they'd consider giving me a contract job or two as a trial, maybe.
Why not? I've got nothing better to do with my time, and I'd like to show off. So, gentle readers, challenge me. Here is your chance to pretend you're in charge of a company looking for graphic design work. Make up a product or service and write some promotional copy about it. Sketch out an idea that you need me to get across in a diagram, scan the miserable napkin you scrawled it on (make sure it's miserable enough for authenticity), and email it to me. Your made-up company will appear here in all the glory of PDF, in a week, with your name.
You will then get the opportunity to argue with me because you secretly wanted to make all the design decisions yourself. Then you'll ask for revisions but expect me to do them for free. We'll get to re-enact all the joy of freelancing! Yay! On second thought, skip this last paragraph. ;)
Comments
tlatoani on (None)
tammylc on (None)
users on (None)
matt-arnold on (None)
stormgren on Feb. 2, 2008 5:45 AM
I will point out that graphic design work for my company was something that I'd asked you about in an email over a year ago. Was looking for a logo design and some layout ideas.
You never wrote me back.
It would have been in your portfolio today.
You would have also had the money I would have paid you for that work.
Just food for thought.
matt-arnold on Feb. 2, 2008 2:42 PM
I'm sorry that I didn't respond. I seriously wonder whether any friend can pay what I'm actually worth, and ultimately the fighting over such a project cann turn a friendship very messy. Freelance work is really ugly and bad.
tlatoani on Feb. 2, 2008 3:42 PM
Come on, Matt. Many people -- including some of us on your friends list -- have done a lot of freelance work successfully. The key is to talk things out with your client beforehand so they understand (1) what the project is likely to cost, (2) how long it's likely to take, and (3) that these are estimates. Alternatively, you can take a project on fixed bid, which eliminates bad surprises for your client, but puts you at risk if it turns out to be more complex than you thought. This isn't a mystical secret; good communication and documentation of understandings is a basic business principle of freelance or consulting work.
I'm amazed that you're sitting here writing "Freelance work is really ugly and bad" when I've met literally hundreds of freelancers -- programmers, technical writers, graphic designers, writers -- who enjoy their jobs and have reasonable working relationships with their clients. I ran my own consulting business for years, and I've lived off freelance technical writing and policy work in the past. I think the problem is that nobody's ever sat you down and explained how to do it, and you've been assuming that you knew how and that it just sucked.
While I'm at it, not only are you assuming your friends are broke and can't keep business commitments, you're also probably undervaluing your time. I'm not sure what the going rate for graphic design is, but I would have expected to pay several hundred dollars for a good trifold brochure design, and a lot more if you're designing corporate identity. Your rates are lower than anything I ever accepted when I was a technical writer, and I haven't done straight technical writing in years.
Might make a good panel at Penguicon if there isn't already one.
matt-arnold on Feb. 2, 2008 5:26 PM
I've done that process, but had some clients with some interesting personality problems.
amanda_lodden on Feb. 2, 2008 4:06 PM
Only if you let it be, and only if you start from the assumption that there will be fighting and you will not be paid what you're worth.
And, to be blunt, you're terrible at asking for what you're worth. You designed a logo for me, and I set the maximum price (before you put any effort in, so that we would not have the "oh my god, you want HOW much?" conversation afterward). What you actually charged me was far, far less than that. I'm not complaining about you not taking the top limit as a given for how much you'd get (I *hate* when people do that), but you could have easily doubled the price you charged and I wouldn't have blinked. More importantly, I would have considered the final product to be totally worth the price.
You've commented that you need to charge X to make it worth your time. What you have NOT said is that X is still less than what a decent, competent graphic designer is worth in a competitive market.
Leave a Comment