James and I are still pretty new to the concept of getting ourselves out there, pitching for work, and delivering complete projects. We've yet to come across the difficulties experienced by established agencies/free-lancers. But being a two man band does come with it's own set of challenges, especially when it comes to slotting this work around the day job. Today I thought I'd share some things that I've learnt so far, and also open the floor for anyone to pitch in with type of their own.
Sound good? Ok let's do this.
Beginning// I start any project with a totally open mind, regardless of brief. I don't discount any ideas whatsoever because there may be potential to borrow from it at a later stage in the project. I hate to admit this, but Pinterest is also my best friend at this stage.
I like to grab a sketchbook, scribble myself into oblivion, then compliment it with the odd cheeky pin now and again. I find that often Pinterest narrows down options for me, allows me to check what has been done to death and also opens my eyes to inspiration from sources I wouldn't usually have come across.
Even though as a general rule, I do most of the actual printed work (identities etc) James will still get involved at this point - we share thoughts and ideas about where we'd like the project to go and then head ourselves in that direction.
This is also the point where we'd have an initial meeting with our client, nail down a solid brief, and share with them our first thoughts - we're dipping our toes in, seeing if our vision matches theirs. If it does, awesome! Full steam ahead! If not, back to the drawing board we go and a compromise is on the cards.
As part of this briefing session, it's a good idea to get out of the client up front what they want from you. As in, what are the exact deliverables of the project. You don't want to be doing a ton of additional work at your own cost when all they wanted was a basic website right? I thought not. This is the point where you have that conversation too…you know what one I mean…the one about your fee...
Middle// So once we have brief in hand, we agree a time frame then work work work to meet it. A series of mid-point meeting will be arranged with the clients to check you're still on course and that they're happy with the direction you're taking their brief.
I'll probably mock-up a few carefully selected options to show to the client. I wouldn't be putting too much work into any one of these yet, that will happen once there's a clear winner. Both of us will start looking at logistics/pricing up printers etc so that we can present a decent idea of what the client can expect from production costs too. (Side Note: I know this probably isn't how a larger agency would function - because we are just two, we find it easier to establish a basic price for the job, then agree that the client will pick up print costs additionally, we do give them a fairly accurate idea of what this will be though. By doing things this way we're making sure that we can actually deliver what we say we can.)
If everything goes to plan, our lovely client will be signing one pathway off then it's all systems go for us two to get it designed and delivered by deadline day.
End// Hurrah! We've reached final sign off. Before anything (and I mean anything) goes to print/goes live, we get a sign off from the client. This is a definitive "Yes I am happy with this work". You should also summarise the sign off in an email asking the specific question 'are you happy for us to send this work to print?' prompting them to answer 'yes.'. This way you have a solid, dated copy of the agreement, so that things can't be back-tracked on later. You've got to cover yourselves people! (This rule also applies for the cost of the job, get it in writing! On that note it's also invoice time!)
And you're done! Everyone's a winner! One extra thing to bare in mind:
Before sign off, we'd usually give clients one round of amends in with the original price before we'd need to start charging for our time. We're happy to do as many amends as necessary to make our clients happy, but we do still need to eat, and good design isn't quick or cheap.
This is our journey thus far, we're still getting into our groove, but things are working out. We currently do all our work around our day jobs, so there do tend to be late nights/weekends involved, but as long as tasks are well planned and time is used and managed effectively, it works out alright for us.
I hope this has been vaguely helpful, if anyone has any tips they'd like to share then feel free!
Svea xo
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