Discovering just who I am

Okay, as I start this one I thought I would warn you that before you start reading it may be worth grabbing a coffee and making yourself extremely comfortable, you’ll be here some time for this one!

I recently read an interesting article on “How To Get More Design Clients with an Effective Marketing Message” and it really started to make me think about who I am, what I’m currently doing and more importantly, what I’ve done in the past.

To quote the article, “The production work you do is creating a logo, web design, or other graphic. But is that what you’re really doing for customers? They can get that work anywhere, for cheap……..” and that in itself really got me thinking about some of the companies I’ve worked with, where they were when I started, where they are now, and I guess to a worse extent, what I have gained from it as a result of my previous efforts, so the followings are a reflection on my life so far and what I’ve realised based on the past six to twenty years.

A little background into my graphic designers past

When I first started working in the graphic design trade per say I not only started out working for a company who placed little value on the work I did, but one that also had very little value in me or my skills. Prior to taking the job I had already booked a holiday so I advised my employer of this and they said that it was fine, however few days later whilst talking to one of the other staff members, they informed me that my boss had turned to them and said “if he thinks he’ll have a job to come back to if he takes this holiday he’s got another thing coming”. Needless to say this put the immediate fear in my mind for my job security and as such I cancelled my holiday and put all my efforts into my work.

Fortunately, through their horrible attitude and bad management the company didn’t last much longer than a couple of years and I was fortunate enough to find another job before they eventually went under.

During my employment with my new employer, the staff member I mentioned before from the previous company had left prior to me leaving to start his own business and although in hindsight it could have been construed as a competitor, they were aiming at a different market and in a different area, so helping this guy out on a night time and weekends didn’t seem to me to be that much of a problem and after rising to the ranks of deputy studio manager with my current employer while I was effectively working two jobs, on occasions the time in the second job was spent doing work for my primary employer, but on one occasion I ended up having to take a little time out to quickly put together something for the other company and needless to say the boss found out thanks to someone sticking the knife in and I was promptly ejected from the building without any opportunity to defend myself or to point out just how much of my free time I had put in to getting their work done. Something my EX employer later informed me was a mistake when I bumped into him some years on as it had become apparent just how much work I had actually done there.

And so my part time night job became my full time day job, helping the guy I’d previously helped build up an in house design studio that he was previously lacking. Starting as a small three man, one woman team I put in many unpaid hours working alongside the owner, in the ridiculous belief that in some way one day it would pay off so that I too would reap the benefits of all my hard work. However, being from a different background to me, my employer having a more print orientated background while also being a bit of a technophobe, he regularly sought advice from me on various areas that could save money while increasing productivity, then chose to completely ignore my advice and take on board the advice of someone else who didn’t really know what they were advising on, which more often than not lead to more costly mistakes that he ultimately paid for in the months and years to come, while all along he dangled various virtual carrots in front of me that somehow never contained any substance and ultimately proved to be complete rubbish, but at the same time, I had (or felt that I had) the secure position where if everything went wrong I would be one of the last men standing.

Then one day it hit me.

For all I had spent many years designing work for a vast array of clients, 9 times out of 10 it wasn’t so much the client that I was designing for but the employer, with them taking a somewhat blinkered approach to selling the client something that they didn’t necessarily want based on various criteria (most commonly a bulk load of cheap paper and a one track mind as to what could be created) and so one day I got the typical design job for a new client where the brief was “A4 folded to 1/3rd A4, 6 panel leaflet on 130 gloss”.

The client’s colours were grey and rhodamine red, yet somehow we were going to get the same effect and appearance by using white paper and rhodamine red ink. The actual content that I was supplied with would stretch at best to 3 panels, 4 at a push if I simply placed the address on the back, so trying to get the content to stretch to the typical 6 panel design was a virtual impossibility. I then looked at one of the supplied items the client had previously had printed elsewhere. They had a particularly striking monotone photo on grey board with the name running down the side, so I took it upon myself to have a rake through the various paper racks in the print room to see what obscure stock we had that may be similar.

BINGO!

I found some almost identical board to what their other work had been printed on and decided to completely ignore my previous instructions and instead designed a 4 page card flyer that was more in keeping with their current style, which as far as I was concerned exceeded the expectations of the client from what they had being miss-sold.

Knowing full well that my boss would be less than impressed with my “executive decision” I waited until the last minute before presenting the proof to him to give to the client. To say that his face matched the pantone colour of the proof is an understatement and he was just about to tear shreds off me for ignoring the brief, wasting both my time and the client’s time in calling in to collect the proof and anything else he could throw at me when the client walked through the door. My boss started to stammer, trying to come up with some plausible excuse as to what I’d done when the client saw the proof on the desk.

His eyes lit up….. It was perfect! Much better than he was expecting and he couldn’t sing my boss’ praises enough.

and that was it, I was indeed designing for the wrong person!

Not only that, but being tucked away in the back office away from the clients that I should have been dealing with from the start, it also became apparent that praise that should have been aimed at me never quite got past the front office.

After spending an entire Christmas break working on a job for a big client in order to get it ready for the start of the new year, I was surprised to walk through reception a few weeks later and find gifts for the front end staff along with a card from that client. When I asked one of the receptionists who the gifts were from they told me who it was and commented that it was for some job that “the company” had done before the new year.

I didn’t even get double time for the hours I’d worked, instead I got regular overtime and heavily taxed on it to boot while everyone else was out enjoying their holiday time with family and friends.

Later again, after putting heart and soul into a publication for another regular client, you can imagine my extreme annoyance (for want of a better phrase) when it came to producing the artwork for the following publication and  I was given a newspaper clipping to include on one of the pages. In the photograph were the members of this company all proudly holding an award. Intrigued as to what they’d won an award for I read the caption underneath and realised that the award they were so proud of was in recognition of, yes, you guessed it, MY WORK! and was my name mentioned anywhere in the article? HELL NO!

Reading the caption and realising I’d actually won an award for something that I didn’t actually get, thinking about the presents and recognition the front end staff got for my previous Christmas sacrifice and efforts and the multitude of work I was designing for the wrong person I was reminded of a girl I’d worked with in the previous company. She had been poached from another company but ultimately after nearly a year decided to quit and go back to where she’d came from. Her reason? Because she was used to dealing direct with the end user and receiving and due thanks for her efforts.

Something that I myself had fallen foul of many many times over for many many years.

And so I decided it was time to Broaden my Horizons.

I had been working on web design for some years and I wanted to branch out into other areas. If you could think of a design, why should it be limited to a flyer or a stationery item. Why not a mousemat? Why not a mug? Why not a T-shirt? A Website? A 50ft banner draped across the side of a building?

At the end of the day it’s all design. It all starts from a creative spark,  it’s just the final medium that the design goes onto that determines its impact and its use.

So I decided to quit my job. To start on my own. To deal direct with the end user and give them what they wanted and wherever possible to advise them of a better way to get their image or their message across.

Am I doomed to repeat the same mistakes of my past?

Leaving my previous employer I found some clients jumping ship and coming to me, even my old employer sent me work that their own in house team couldn’t manage, sales representatives who were less than impressed with the work of the internal staff began to outsource to me and in some cases left the company to start their own businesses, taking with them their clients for whom I had produced the artwork.

So who am I?

I build brands. I help build and establish companies. I offer advice and give as good as any other company if not better, but ultimately at the end of it all, what have I got out of it?

On the plus side I’ve received direct praise from the client as a result of the work I’ve done. I’ve given extreme value for money, more often than not working above and beyond the call of duty for far less than I should charge, but when the chips are down, who has been the one to ultimately suffer?

Yup, you’ve guessed it…. ME!

Every year since I’ve started this business I have met, or worked with at least one company (sadly more often two or three at the same time) who I have helped to built up, raised their profile and then been screwed over at the first opportunity.

I raised the image and profile of a videographer, improving the quality of the video to dvd conversions he sold on to his clients as well as the presentation of the final items they received, only for him to spend the money he was given by his clients for the work I was doing and leave me waiting months before I got paid before finally threatening legal action against me for damages I could cause his business if I didn’t return his client’s tapes (even though my solicitor advised me that I was well within my rights to withhold them until he had paid for the work I had done in full). He eventually vanished, taking with him the deposits of many unfortunate families who had booked him to record their weddings.

I wrote reports for many websites for a company who were dealing with Business Link, spending days and weeks visiting their clients to discuss their requirements onto to never see a single penny of any job they were doing. I later found out that they were submitting my reports, getting the money but not actually doing the work!

Prior to ending up in hospital I pushed forward development of a website on a sub contractual level to take the heat away from my employer who had failed to produce the logo design and stationery that the client was pressing them for, only to be informed that they had lost the work to some other company. I later found out that they had stolen the website from my server and that some other company had put the finishing touches to it and received payment for my work.

I created a brand identity and style for a student magazine, spending many unpaid hours on the phone practically every day giving the publisher valid business advice which, if he actually took notice of could have helped him keep his business. Being the helpful idiot that I am and despite him still owing in full for the previous issue, I produced the artwork for the final issue based on the strength that it contained a lot of advertising which I thought would help him settle his debt with me and get himself back into a more stable position. Sadly he didn’t pay and after months of failed negotiations and a failed attempt at getting a collection agency to recover the monies owed he tried to get one of the most expensive law firms in Newcastle to bully me into supplying him with all the original artwork that he hadn’t paid for. Eventually we settled and I have no idea what he’s up to now but I know that his previous venture didn’t get anywhere.

I helped a small family run company create a recognised identity for themselves, introducing them to many people who I knew could not only give them work but also recommend them to others. Producing brochures and leaflets at prices below cost price and being hounded practically 24 hours a day 7 days a week to do work for them while all the time being accused of “ripping them off” if I tried to charge them extra for spending two hours on the phone with them on a Sunday night and producing leaflets for the following day. I believe they’re still going but it’s not only nice to see that their website and the quality of the promotional work they’re now using reflects their horrible personalities, but it was also nice to hear the company who had helped fund them refer to the owner as being both Jeckle and Hyde and who was always the victim regardless of how much help you gave her, then also informed me that the reason that they were stuck handling her business was because the previous advisor had a nervous breakdown because of the owner.

I helped a t-shirt printing company Broaden their Horizons and expand into new territory, raised the quality of the work they produced for their clients whilst also added new facilities and target markets to their repertoire but in return for the thousands of pounds of work I did for them, they let me print a T-shirt and a banner using their materials, assumed that we were doing favours for each other and that the £30 worth of materials they’d let me use balanced out the £3000+ work I had done for them. As it happens the owner also owed and never paid a large number of other companies and was stupid enough to take a computer back to the shop in which he owed the money to for it as it needed an upgrade adding to it. Needless to say he never saw that computer again and last I heard he did go under but who knows what he’s up to now.

I helped an artist get his work out onto more than just paper, producing many jobs for next to nothing while he charged the earth for his work and after letting him down once during a bereavement in my family he decided to end his relationship with me and cancelled the payment for his web hosting. Of course I was less than impressed when I later got sued by him for following his instructions to stop hosting his web but in the end I got paid and I can now see that he’s getting the value for money that he rightfully deserves.

The list goes on. Designing brands, giving clients an identity, raising their profile to a level that I can attain but thankfully others have yet to match and then watching them steadily decline when they decide to screw me over.

I guess a comment I made in a previous post when I quoted the line from Savage Garden’s Affirmation “I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned” does indeed hold some truth to it.

So where do I go from here?

I now know who I am and what I am capable of, I just need to find a new and somewhat different audience to the ones I’ve been involved with in the past, an audience that I can work with, that appreciates what I can do for them, what they will get as a result and preferably who knows a fair price when they see it and who don’t try to screw me down to the point where my business suffers as a result as I ultimately end up spending more time doing things that have a negative effect on me and my ability to provide them with the services they need.

to be continued…..