Daily Brad, the blog

So what happens when your client is late in paying you? What do you do to handle this? Biting the hand that feeds you is no way to get more to eat. (Or more design work in this case.)

I recently had a contract client that was late in paying their invoice, and I thought that this would be a good post for feedback through my blog. Having expressed in advance that I was a stickler for payment on time to each of my clients as I sign them, most of them have always been prompt in payment. Typically most companies ask “terms” with each of their vendors, with 30-45 wait periods until payment. But as a freelancer (NOT a vendor), I’ve found that even with the deposit before a job begins, there’s no way that I can give them these kind of terms. I make it clear up front that a check must be cut on completion of the project, and if they won’t agree these terms, I walk away.

Standard terms for my invoices are 30% down and the rest due on delivery. (When the final project is delivered by email or CD/DVD) It is noted right on my invoice that after 10 days the invoice will be overdue (late) and a late fee will be incurred. My clients appreciate this “grace” period, and most of the time it has not been necessary to add a late fee. But once-in-a-while I’ll be working with someone new who doesn’t know the internal processes of their company, or doesn’t have a good working relationship with their accounting department and things get stopped-up. How do you politely handle this?

Here’s how I went about it this last time: The day the grace period ended (Day 10), I sent an email inquiring about the status of the check, and asked if I needed to submit a new invoice with a late fee included. There were no threats, no “warnings”, I just politely asked if they needed more time by telling them that this “time” would appear as a line-item on a new invoice. The check was ready the following day. I didn’t even have in mind what kind of late fee to charge - a standard amount or a percentage of the total?

As a freelance or contract designer, we get to handle accounting, new business, account management and all those things that are normally handled by another person in a agency environment. I don’t like dealing with the money, I don’t like change orders, and most of all - collection is the bane of my freelance existence. How do you make this a smooth process? What kind of terms you provide your clients and how about late fees? Do you have them?

So I was thinking about the concept of “taking pride in your design” the other day while sitting at IHOP. I was staring up at a sign hanging from the ceiling that was advertising their latest and greatest (mostly sweet) combination of breakfast foods and the thought came to my mind - I wonder if the person that designed that sign is proud of it? I wonder if they see it hanging in their local IHOP and say “I designed that!”.

It got me thinking of the first few things I designed that were actually not school work, and people actually spent money to have them printed. Since my internship was for Salt Lake Magazine (Salt Lake City Magazine at the time), one of my first designs was for a postage paid reply card. You know what these are, those annoying bits of cardstock that are constantly falling out when you’re flipping through a magazine in an airport waiting for your flight. But something to be proud of? Not exactly. But as it was one of the first few things that were actually printed of mine, I glowed when it came out in the magazine, and put a copy in my portfolio.

Now that I’ve designed literally thousands of things, I think back and wonder - am I proud of everything I’ve designed? How about you? Do you glow at every design you see in the world that originated in your head?

I think I’m most proud of the things I’ve designed that are most true to my original concept, and weren’t clouded by excessive client micromanagement. Concepts that seemed to match the clients needs exactly, and resonated with the client as such.

As I’ve been doing some contract work for Omniture lately, I’ve had the opportunity to see first hand how one of my brands has been carried beyond my original creation. After working there nearly 5 years and creating their brand from scratch, it was hard to let it go and send it out into the world. But with talented people, and a CEO who cares about the brand, it’s maintained itself and even grown into an amazing presence. I’m proud of that.

What are you thoughts on this topic?

It seems that my post about IKEA, including the Okland construction logo was quite popular with the search engines, and many of you come across it by typing “IKEA Utah” into Google. So I just wanted to share in the excitement about being the first state in the Mountain West to get one, by linking to their press release on it’s opening date (less than a month away). Here’s a snippit:

DRAPER, UT, March 6, 2007 – IKEA, the world’s leading home furnishings retailer, today announced that its future Draper, UT store will open at 9:00 AM on Wednesday, May 23, 2007. IKEA Draper will be the Swedish company’s first store and restaurant destination in the Mountain West and 30th in the U.S. (In the meantime, customers can shop online at www.IKEA-USA.com, or at stores in Tempe, AZ; Covina, CA and West Sacramento, CA.)
“Due to the progress made during the fall and the snowy winter, we are confident the remaining construction milestones and interior build-up process will be complete by late May,” noted Paul Janzen, store manager of the future IKEA Draper. Janzen added, “now our primary objective is to continue hiring and training the nearly 350 Utahns who will be joining the IKEA coworker family before we open.”

The bad news is that I’ve been a bit of a slacker on posting to my blog, but the good news is that I have been very busy. (Always good news for me, never good news for clients that want to get on my schedule.) But there are a couple things I’d like to mention today.

New Designers Added
First of all, I’ve added a couple of links to the list of Utah Graphic Designers that are of note:

The Utah Graphic Artists Forum Launched
I received an email from Wade (mentioned above) telling me about the new Utah Graphic Artist Forum that was recently launched. Here’s an exerpt from the email: (I figured I couldn’t say it much better):

Now officially launched, I present a gathering place for local graphic artists. My purpose is to promote and support the development and expression of graphic arts and to facilitating and ecouraging conversations and interaction between graphic artists in Utah, in an environment free of dues or obligations. I hope to provide something of value to members involved in all forms of the graphic arts, including illustrators, photographers, graphic designers, typographers, user interface designers, and web developers.

Both working professionals and students are welcome and encouraged to participate, discussing current events and trends, historical topics, theory, techniques, technology, business, and/or employment.

Features include a forum, mailing lists, an IRC channel for chat, job announcements, RSS feeds, syndicated calendar events, and plans to meet periodically for socials and workshops. Membership is free and open to anyone interested.

Visit, participate in and support this worthy effort of uniting us creative professionals here in Utah. It looks like it already has over 40 members, and will continue to grow.

The other day I had a co-worker looking at my LinkedIn profile, and said “Wow, you have so many Recommendations”, and after explaining how they came to be there, I thought of blogging about it.

Early last year I had a friend who had just laid off send me a request to write him a Recommendation on LinkedIn. Knowing full-well his talent and the work that he did when we worked together, I was happy to. That was when I learned about LinkedIn’s built-in ability to request Recommendations.

At first I thought it silly to ask someone to say something nice about me in writing. But as I began to request Recommendations from a few of my former colleges and contract clients, I found it was an excellent way find out from others just how good a job I do/have done as well as let potential clients or employers know what it’s like to work with me. It was testimonial, or validation of my work.

The LinkedIn feature of Recommendations - and how you used these Recommendations in gaining new business or obtaining a job - can be just as valuable an asset to your portfolio as the designs you put in there. Sure, your design work is excellent, but how is it to work with you?

Here are a couple excerpts from the recommendations others have given me:

“Having hired and managed several large, national agencies when I worked on the Pizza Hut, Pepsi and Blockbuster brands, I was surprised (and impressed) that I was getting top agency results from a team of only one person, Brad McCall…”

“…He is extremely versatile, delivering best-in-class results for every project he took up…”

“…It’s hard to believe so much talent can fit in one person…”

“…I give Brad my highest recommendation and look forward to any project that I can collaborate together with him on again.”

“…The first version [of the product user-interface] started winning awards before it was even out of beta, and the feedback on the second major version has been every bit as positive, even though the degree of complexity was much higher. Excellent to work with, good business sense, and creative work that is second to none.”

“…He is easy to work with, insightful and very good at what he does. His knowledge of color, layout, and visual impact are incredible. Though his work speaks for itself, I gladly endorse Brad as well.”

“…Brad is a valuable asset to any project he is a part of.”

“…Brad has a built-in desire to add value to every project and company he is involved in…”

“Brad is the most effective person I have worked with at communicating through design…”

“…Brad has an amazing capacity to do it all, in copious amounts with consistency, quality and with a great attitude…”

“Brad’s work was some of the best I’ve seen. It was creative, artistic, and professional.”

I had a question that was posed of me in a potential client meeting recently that I found quite interesting, and wanted to pose it to my readers. (Sorry I’ve neglected you of late)

The question was - “What websites or blogs do you visit often to keep up on graphic design trends?”

So, how would you answer this question? Could you name a couple off the top of your head? WHO does have their hands on the edge of what’s next? Any ideas?

I check my lists of Utah Graphic Designers, Utah Graphic Design Firms, etc. on a regular basis to make sure that all the folks listed there are active links and still doing great design, and tonight I ran across something cool.

Though I don’t remember what EyeFX had on their page previously, what they have now is a lot of fun on a boring afternoon. The page loads up grey, and your mouse curser becomes a pen tool that allows you to create webs of designs that looks somewhat like a Jackson Pollock painting. Hovering the pen longer makes a thicker stroke, and moving quick keeps it light and thin. You’ll notice that the canvas area fits any size browser whether full screen, half screen or made tiney.

Give it a try at http://www.eyefx.com

After being an in-house Creative Director for two tech companies, I went independent (freelance) in late November 2006. Since then, three potential full-time job descriptions have been sent to me by former co-workers or friends in attempts to lure me back into the “official” working world. But what was curious to me, and prompted me to want to write this post, is that every single job was looking for a graphic designer who was well-versed in design AND who had was proficient in various programming languages.

Do these people exist?

I’ve always been under the notion that there is some basis for the whole right brain vs. left-brain thing. The theory states that left-brain dominant people are more logical and analytic, while those who are right brained dominant were more artistic, creative and spontaneous. It seems that most people are born with a hemisphere dominance that may or may not have anything to do with what hand they choose to write with. While I write primarily with my left hand (corresponding to the right brain), I am ambidextrous in many tasks perhaps if only by necessity.

When it comes to design, I consider myself a Graphic Design General Practitioner (to use a comparison to medicine). I’ve not specialized in anything in particular, but my skill-set crosses many different realms of design including those that move into the technical (ie. UI design) and the creative (ie. logo design). I make every effort to read and study about the latest trends in graphic design and further my skills as a graphic designer. I enhance this knowledge by picking up tid-bits from other professionals such as engineers, marketers and public relations professionals. I’m always scanning magazines, the web, television and pretty much everything for good ideas and ingenious methods of presenting messaging through pictures, colors and text. But somewhere along the way, it seems that most employers expected me to be proficient in PHP, ASP, MySQL, CSS controls and have experience in HTML, XML, Javascript and ActiveX. (Not to mention the extensive Flash knowledge that most job requirements seem to have.)

So what happened to being a really talented graphic designer?

Perhaps budgets are crunched, times are tight, and companies are seeking just “average” design from a do-it-all graphic designer. The “just get it done” approach has seemed to be pervasive in most web-based environments I’ve been a party to lately. But how much programming knowledge should a designer be expected to have? Can we get by in just understanding how to design for these mediums (programming languages) or do we need to know how to engineer them ourselves as well?

I’ve had several people over the years ask me if I did illustration. Most often I’ll say “I’m not an illustrator, but what do you need?” And several times I’ve been able to pitch in and contribute few illustrations to the cause on some projects. Since most of these never end up in my official portfolio, I thought I’d throw a few in my blog post.

Read the rest of this entry »

As this is the first day of the new year, I wanted to use it as a chance to send out a big thank-you to those who read my blog on a regular basis and take the time to comment. I also wanted to list the top 5 most read blog posts that I wrote in 2006 and a little snippet from the post:

Top 5 Posts of 2006 by Traffic

1. Website Pirates Strike Again - Park City Group
   I was looking at a list of public companies in Utah a couple days ago. One intrigued me, so I accessed their website. The Park City Group was founded by Randy Fields, the co-founder and former chairman of Mrs. Fields Cookies. Their customers include such well-known names as The Home Depot, Foot Locker, Inc., The Limited, Albertson’s, Schnuck Markets, Pacific Sunwear of California, Wawa, Busch Entertainment and Tesco Lotus. And guess what? Their website design is pirated.
2. Design Your Own Snowboard with Revolution
   The last time Jon and I were on the slopes (last month, can you believe it? With all the new snow, we’re planning on going this month as well) I looked around to get a sense for some of the snowboard designs that were out there. And you know what I realized? Most snowboard designs suck.
3. Utah Creatives - Designers, Agencies, Firms and More
   So there use to be this great site called ampUTate.org that would contain links to all the local Utah advertising agencies, graphic designers, photographers, illustrators, etc.
4. Pixel Patterns Wallpaper - New Graphic Design Trend?
   Here’s something I’ve been noticing a lot lately, haven’t you? I call it Pixel Wallpaper, while I think most of the web calls it “Pixel Patterns” (or even “Atari Style Wallpaper”). Forget that wallpaper of the past, you know those nasty repeated gifs cut out from a photo or grabbed from a 3D texture makers. These babies are cool. Use a pixel pattern for your blog background or website - here’s where to find some.
5. Is Social Bookmarking the Search Engine of the Future?
   So it wasn’t until a couple months ago, that I began to hear about the whole concept of “Social Bookmarking”. I’ve even mentioned it to a couple of my friends, and they always pose the question “what ARE you talking about?”

Good things are going to happen in 2007, so stay tuned to The Daily Brad for more changes.