Tip to graphic designers: consultants wanted

It just so happens.....

One bit of clarification...

I've had the priviledge of working with some talented graphic artists and I've met plenty more who I simply can't bring work to as I already have too many artists in my rolodex.

And I appreciate and absolutely VALUE the service they have provided for me. Their work has been great and often, well beyond their prices.

Furthermore, I can appreciate that with the often dirt-cheap rates, most graphic artists simply can't invest the time to properly research the leading sites, keep learning what makes a site's design effective, build an extensive swap file and be able to fully consult for a client. For the low rates, it does NOT make sense.

So I get it.

All I'm suggesting is that while grahic artists are GREAT, I'm ready to partner with a graphic DESIGNER. In fact, even if THEIR only role is to suggest and create the design (and then pass the work to an artist), that job in itself is an important one.

There are video game designers making a lot of money without touching a line of code. They think up the concept. Pitch it to their company. And then proceed to design (or work with a team to design) the elements of the game. The programmers and the artists then bring it to life.

So either / or works for me... I'm just finding it hard to find someone who can do more than just draw out what I give to them. I need someone who can just on the phone, have Swap files and ideas ready and CONSULT me on what my page themes should look like, what my buttons should look like, what other "scruffys" and non-cookie cutter elements I can bring in... etc.

But, to clarify, I do NOT want to discredit the importance of artists... I just know that some businesses are ready for more than just an artist. And YOU should think about filling that gap.

Rob,

I have a feeling you are aiming this at me a little...

If I can use our dealings to illustrate what happened. You emailed me with a 10 minute video specifically stating what you wanted. With clients like that its almost pointless to try to suggest anything as they have it deep set into their minds what they want.

Nowhere during our dealings were I ever given an opportunity to express my ideas for your project. I have many clients who I brainstorm their projects with them, I could name names, big launches that did really well. A current client (product not yet released) changed his entire theme after one of our 3 hour uncharged brainstorming sessions.

If you havent found any designers who dont offer this service you have been VERY unlucky and you perhaps have to look at how you give the specs to the designers.

Out of say 300 minisites we have created I would say no more than 10 designs have been laid out for us by the client.

I understand you are a professional and know what you want, but if you would have perseveered a little longer with me you would have had EXACTLY the service you are looking for.

Thanks

Rob,

You know what...being given creative freedom is the kind of project I *dream* of. I love clients who can give me some short specs, a kind of idea they want and then let me have at it. The more unique and interesting the niche, the better.

Not that I'm tired of doing internet marketing sites, but everyone wants the same "fancy car + flying money + nice houses". I don't mind it, but it's been done. Now, your Buy Now Wizard site on the other hand, is an excellent example. That was a fun mascot to do and I think it really got people's attention.

The reason I havent offered the service before is because I don't want clients to think that their suggestions are worthless. Some people have to have absolute control over every little detail. The end result is that you get a green background with pink text and wonder why your sales are suffering.

Please...let me help you (= all of you). This is seriously the kind of thing I live for. Creative projects with total artistic freedom are what fires me up and reminds me of why I started my business!

Rob, I don't know you, and have never worked with you, so there's nothing personal here.

My own experience shows that 75% of SOHO's and small businesses customers don't know exactly what they want but... they give detailed instructions. "Blue text here, large font here, dark background, etc." Or they comment the work done saying "this is not good, I want this instead". Why? They feel it like that. No special reason.

They don't know design, but they give their opinion like they were pros...

And they want the work done yesterday, and most importantly VERY CHEAP.
Not all of them, again, but most of them.

Before working, I always give my point of view, do a lot of research, do market research, ask questions, etc., but most of the time customers don't listen to me. They say "yes, why not, but try my idea first". Yes, a blue text against a red background is a VERY GOOD idea!

And when I do the design according to their specifications, which most invariably is ugly and doesn't serve its purpose, they say "hmmm... this is a 'strange' design" (they mean to say "you're not a good designer" - should I say "man, you're a bad customer"? )

Larger companies are easier to deal with, and they're not affraid to invest money. The bosses listen to their emloyees and freelancers they hire, and trust them, because they know these people know their stuff, otherwise they would fire them or would not hire them. They also know a good design that serves its purpose takes a lot of time to produce.

Design consulting won't work with small companies, because most of them want very cheap designs done in no time, and are not ready to listen the advices designers give; there's no or little freedom.

Also, they change their mind all the time. One day they want a blue background, 3 days later they want green, 2 weeks later they want yellow, oh no grey is better.

All that is annoying, frustrating, and time consumming.

That's ok when you have 1 or 2 customers like that from time to time. But when it comes to a level where it happens most of the time for years, that's very depressing.

Again, that's my own experience as a freelancer, in the country I live, France - the french might be "special" for that, I'm not sure.

Best,

Didier

Just a side note. On the other hand, when I work with someone who knows design, that's 700% ok to produce exactly what he or she wants.

Didier

To Rob original poster,

Designers are just the same as any other professionals.

So...

...any good designer or art director is actually out there producing great work, in the public eye, winning awards or at least vying for or dreaming of them. There is no comparable feeling of professional pride for a decent designer than the fondling of a printers proof of your work, shortly followed by actually seeing it on a shelf, on an adshel, in a magazine, up on a hoarding or on TV Websites just don't carry the same kudos. Period.

In fact, the reality is that those that have even a modicum of talent would not touch "IM design" with a bargepole for more reasons than I can list. But a few of these would include the absence of any aesthetic merit. A very crude, gaudy and distasteful typographic treatment of hilariously ridiculous attempts at copywriting, coupled with despicably trite visual imagery offers absolutely no real creative satisfaction to people who are essentially artistically driven.

(On the subject of copywriting. I'm sick and tired of hearing alleged copywriting gurus calling themselves the "10 million dollar copywriter" or the "number one copywriter in the world" just because they wrote a headline and some body copy for a launch! Christ, I have launched everything from Mercedez Benz Cars to Coors Beers. I guess if I added up every sale that every company that I have ever been a part of advertising a product for over the years from junior art director to creative director to strategic planner to marketing consultant I should be calling MYSELF the 100 billion dollar creative. I mean obviously as I wrote the headlines for or art directed or planned all those ads I am surely personally and solely responsible for all of those sales. Haha. Muppets.)

Any way back to the point, another reason is the fact that the rates are a joke. Even when I was a junior art director in the late eighties I was paid over $100 an hour in London ad agencies, but IM types expect the moon on a stick for a tuppence!

For a designer the real kicks come from branding. The IM world does not even know what branding is yet. It really is still stuck the wild west..IM is what we can call "peddling wares" as opposed to marketing them. Branding is not "mavenship" or sticking your ugly mug on everything and using the same colour now and again, regardless of what alleged IM gurus think. I mean what do they know? Where did they study design or marketing? (Before you ask I studied at Goldsmith's College London and the Royal College!)

Believe me when I say that the future success of IM is held tightly in the grip of real branding. The closest I have seen to real branding so far is Stompernet's recent launch, but even this was still based in the ridiculously amateur marketing TACTICS that you should all know by now, as opposed to a marketing STRATEGY. By way of analogy, when have you ever seen a TV ad for, say, a Mercedes SLK where the voice over says, hurry only 27 cars left and if you purchase this vehicle during this once in a lifetime fire sale you can get this car worth 50,000 dollars for just $10,000, plus we'll throw in a Rolls Royce AND a Bentley worth $500,000. See what I mean. IM is still at the peddling stage, like those hooch sellers in their wagons on the plains in the 1900s.

Possibly the most hardened marketing Guru around is Mike Filsaime, I have a lot of respect for him, but when real marketers where working with say, Hyundai in their worldwide launch, or even just US launch strategy, he was on the forecourt or lot trying to peddle the actual cars one at a time or even just a little gas You see the difference?

Selling a million dollars worth of useless ebooks doesn't make these guys experts in all areas or any areas related to conducting business on or offline. You know if you got out of the house, away from your computer and spent an hour in a library reading a real book on design or marketing you'd learn so much more REAL AND USEFUL stuff about marketing than in a couple of thousand dollars worth of ebooks.

I mean how many people will have queued up for another crappy, buggy, thrown together, must have script today just because of the hype?

Or how many have done this for the last three big launches? What did you learn? Did you implement any of it? Did you feel like you got value for money? Did it make you rich? What else could you do with $1500 or $2000 dollars?

So again back to the original thread, any designer with any real talent is too busy participating in the real world of design or advertising or even web design than to join the bottom feeders scrabbling about trying to convince IM newbies to pay 100 bucks for a complete website!

Also if you want a decent graphic designer to work with you why are you looking here? Surely you should be looking where the graphic designers hang out...not where those desperate to make a meager crust from IM design hang out...as the saying goes, pay peanuts get monkeys...or should that be pay 100 bucks get a gawdy header, a footer, an ebook cover and some other useless crap. If you want branding with longevity and real purpose then look elsewhere, my friend.

Ever wondered why ALL IM stuff looks the same? Well now you know...

Thomas

P.S. don't get me started on the devaluation of the art of photography in marketing and advertising!

Appreciate the replies. Couldn't make it through the whole post Thomas but I caught this:

>> Ever wondered why ALL IM stuff looks the same? Well now you know...

Hardly the case. My Swap file is proof of that. "IM stuff" is no different then "dog training stuff" or "professional puddle jumping stuff". And, in fact, I'd assume (and I'm sure I'm right) that most artists work in a long list of niches ... which means they can easily bring their experience of layouts and design from a different niche and make an "IM" page pop more.

Remember... the objective here is not to make a page or related graphic look "pretty" or win awards with it. It's to generate sales which means it must convey a message and grab the attention of the visitor. And when it helps to pull in a half-million dollar product launch, THAT is the real award an artist can take pride in.

Rob,

Funny how the last website I planned and oversaw the design of contributes fundamentally to the bottom line of a billion dollar company, recruits customers, creates advocates and doesn't even attempt to make a single sale of their product. This is the power of real design and branding.

Your thinking is too small. We paid more than half a million pounds not dollars for some widgets and games for the site. This is the difference between designers who work in real world branding and advertising, and those armed with a few photoshop actions, freeware typefaces and a one way ticket to istockphotoville who *call themselves* designers

If you think that a real designer is more interested in making a paltry half a million dollars for his client than being publicly recognised by his peers as a great designer by winning awards you are sorely naive and disillusioned.

Also if in future you choose to take issue with my posts in such a self aggrandisingly dismissive fashion, at least have the courtesy to actually read them.

And for the record, the website is

carling.com

and yes it did win some awards.

Since around Christmas last year I have taken time off to work unpaid with the launch of a charitable organisation, but the last real creative planning contract I had was for Chanel's J'adore...next time your wife drags you into a department store and you drool over some large POS images of a semi-naked Charlize Theron, or you are stopped in your tracks by the TV ads, you have me to thank...and yes of course I was at the shoot

Why am I here at the WF? Because I make almost five times my disgustingly exhorbitant rates as a creative and strategic consultant through affiliate marketing on the side and I still learn a little something almost every time I visit this forum by paying attention to what others write, rather than focussing on making myself sound like I know it all.

Take note.

I love what I do in the advertising and design world. It is my life. But my skills in that world mean I can use them online to clean up with almost no real effort to the tune of much more than a laughable half a million dollars...2 dollars to every GBPound you know

This allows me to pick and choose the creative jobs I do and work with the clients I choose to. In effect, my affiliate marketing efforts, or rather the guys carrying out my affiliate marketing efforts on my behalf have created a life for me of complete freedom. Yes of course I pay them, but I am eternally grateful for everything they do and they know it

Many successful people frequent this site. Many with much more knowledge and insight than you or I. You would do well to maybe stop and listen to what they have to say before you jump in and insult them. I say this as I have in the past been as guilty of this as anyone...

Thomas

I think why Tom and other designers and copywriters might be frustrated with this forum in general is because people are accustomed to getting things cheaper here. A *lot* cheaper. And for a lot of people just starting out (like I did with my copywriting), you start out small and work your way up - in terms of pricing, clients you attract, and even the quality of your work.

As for ebook covers. I think sometime back in 1995, someone said it was a good idea to design everything with red text on a blue background in the Impact font. So now everybody wants it that way because it "stands out".

If a client suggests a design idea to me, I'll do my best to incorporate those things. I do have one standard though, and that's to make the book cover look as close as possible to something on a bookshelf. The more realistic, the better.

I have yet to see a blue book with red letters in the Impact font...