I have shared my creative work for my client Ruddy Water and their product Blushed Pouch. My client and I have been working on updating their website (a little refresh) and some new marketing ideas. Here is a video that I put together for her to send out to prospective clients. (Note: music is most likely going to change).
You can also view it on her website: www.ruddywater.com
I don’t like to post complaints, but this seems to be a common occurrence with clients of mine. Why do clients expect you to design for them and they do not feel it is necessary to pay for the creative services? I am at my tipping point in frustration. With some things, say, for web hosting, if someone doesn’t pay, the site can get pulled. But for me, once I hand over creative files, I can’t get them back when they do not pay their bill. What to do…
I want to list all of the offenders here and black list them so that no one has to go through this with them in the future. But I am reluctant. Hmmm… I will have to think through this some more. In the mean time, know that my lessons learned are:
Get paid BEFORE you hand over any digital files.
I have great reservations about offering a product or service for “free”, especially if it is a new business. I had to deal with this conundrum a week ago. A client of mine wanted to offer a sample of their product for free to new “Fans” of their Facebook Fan Page. My instincts were screaming “DON”T DO IT!” But alas, she went ahead and made the offer.
The first day went really well, she received over 100 new “likes” and the fans were her exact target market.Then, Saturday happened!
What a nightmare. My poor client who was feeling good and felt like she was finding her market suddenly felt the sting of “Free” on Facebook. People such as Lovinlikeaboss were “Liking” her page and wanting their free product. These additional 100+ fans were NOT what she was looking for.
A coupon page on Facebook got a hold of my clients’ offer and posted it on their wall; and suddenly, everyone who wanted something for “free”, regardless of what the product was; wanted their free item.
Now for my job. Patching up the situation. I tried to paint this in a positive light. You now have over 200 new fans. Our task – convert as many of those fans into actual sales. Let’s focus on that (without giving away anymore product). So that is what we are working on now.
Lesson learned: If your client wants to give something away for free on Facebook, put a limit on it and be specific. Or, don’t do it at all!
Presentations, oh how I love thee
A key mission for Glyphgirl [me] is to rid the world of bad presentation. The most egregious offender is large corporations. They spend countless sums of money on their brand, only to fall short on PowerPoint or Keynote presentations.
I went to an event where Microsoft was presenting. I nearly fell off my chair when the presenter was going through his PowerPoint slides. It was physically painful to view his slides. Or maybe I am just a freak and care FAR too much for information design. There was no continuity between slides. The transitions were all over the place. Yuck!
Thankfully, I have clients that trust me to help their clients create a unified brand that extends to presentations. I just completed a presentation that was created in Keynote and features builds, transitions and voice over. Click below to get a sample of one part of the presentation. The entire presentation is over 20 minutes long and over 120 slides.
While working on this project I learned a lot about the limitation of even Keynote. [Note: it is far better than PowerPoint.] Timing a presentation with a voice over track is not as easy as I thought it would be. So the extra time over my budget is what I like to call “a lesson learned”.
I hope I get more of these projects!
I have such opportunity! I created a poster for Kwof Salon for their forthcoming event Kwof Kuts for Kids. In partnership with other top salons in Milwaukee, such as Bella Lei, John Grubor Salon, Knick Salon & Spa, Mr. Dino’s and Vici Cappelli, the stylists are coming together to raise money for the Autism Society of Southeast Wisconsin.
Kwof Kuts for Kids Event
