Please give a warm welcome to Josh Jeffryes

Introducing Cube2.0

Josh has gone the business route, tasted the waters, then happily signed on to work in-house with a small web development company in St. Louis. His many experiences (past and present) will be invaluable to our readers. To help those who are a bit technophobic, Josh will also touch on how interactive technologies are transforming our businesses.

If there’s one common theme running through the designers on BoDo’s visiting author’s roster, it’s the personal involvement in helping the industry. It shouldn’t really be a surprise, as being a team member on BoDo is yet another way of contributing. As the organiser of the St. Louis Graphic Design Meetup (5th largest design Meetup group in the world), Josh fits right in.

Josh, thank you for joining BoDo. Your experience will go a long way in helping round out the team.

And before we forget to mention, your diddles ROCK!

The BoDo Team
cat - nt - jay

Say “hello” to Robert Wurth

Introducing Freshly Squeezed Branding

What design business can get along without a touch of branding? Right on time, in Freshly Squeezed Branding, Robert will be writing about the subjects of brands and branding.

Have you read Freshly Squeezed Droplettes? If it’s a “yes”, then you’ll already know Robert has a flair for clear, concise and well researched subject matter. In Freshly Squeezed Branding, it’s a sure bet you’ll learn something there as well.

Another passion of Robert’s is NO!SPEC. A year ago this month, 20 concerned designers worked nonstop to launch the NO!SPEC campaign. Robert chipped in with copy and advice, even while under the influence of a nasty flu. Have a look around NO!SPEC to see what he wrote, or go straight to Design Contests Are Dangerous For Your Business.

Now that NO!SPEC is in its second year, Robert has agreed to be the new voice of the campaign. As a level headed, tireless advocate for the industry, Robert is well suited for the appointment. Robert also holds the position of Vice President of Proscodi: The Professional Society of Communication Design. Proscodi has been taking its time getting sorted, but hasn’t been lax as NO!SPEC is a product of Proscodi. First things first, right?

We’re glad you could join in Robert. You are indeed a welcome addition to the team.

The BoDo Team
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BoDo, Gravatars and Community

Why gravatars?

BoDo is a community. As a community, we aim to make the experience at BoDo as pleasant as possible. And living on the web as much as we do, bringing in gravatars is a logical step.

What are gravatars?

Gravatars are images that appear next to your comments in a blog. With blogs that use gravatars, if you don’t have a gravatar, a default is used.

How do you get your own gravatar?

It’s free and easy. Go to Gravatar.com and follow the simple directions. Just be sure to use the same email address you intend to use on BoDo.

Here’s looking at you,
The BoDo Team
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Welcome to BoDo:
The Business of Design online launch

Introducing Ask jay

Ask jay is the Dear Abby of business.

BoDo’s own Jeanette (jay) Wickham will give advice on hard core business issues like, ‘What the heck is a general ledger and balance sheet?’ and ‘How do I confront a thunder stealing client?’ and ‘How do I get control of my finances?’

Juggling client projects, BoDo and handling the technical bits on NO!SPEC, Jay is a tireless superwoman (well, ok, it does take multi-injections of cappuccino frappes and coke lights before she wakes). Although it hasn’t been confirmed, there’s talk that she’s planning to have her keyboard surgically attached. Her broad experience in IT, design and business administration is the critical shot in the arm to keep BoDo running smooth. We owe her a debt of gratitude. Without her vigorous work, BoDo would still be just an idea.

Go ahead, try her out. You can Ask jay.

The BoDo Team
cat - nt –> jay

Welcome to BoDo:
The Business of Design online launch

The BoDo Team is not alone

That’s right, we will not be chewing your ear on our lonesome. A considerable chunk of BoDo’s energy will come from knowledgeable professionals pitching in.

If you check out our visiting authors section, on the design side, we have Alina Hagen (Creative Latitude), Erin Harris (Sanguine Theory), Stefan Bean (Pulse Creative Partners, Inc) and Thomas (Tom) Stephan.

For a rounded conversation, BoDo will also pull from industries other than design - ME “Liz” Strauss (Successful Blog), Dr. Tammy Lenski (I Can’t Say That!) and Mark McGuinness (Wishful Thinking).

But wait. There’s more! The BoDo Team has been busy

In fact, in the past six months plus, Cat’s been lining up designers (web and graphic), illustrators, writers, marketeers, photographers, account planners, agents, programmers, printers and pre press specialists to come on down and give up their business savvy. So keep your eyes out for an extensive lineup.

Some will be interviewed in You’ve been BoDo’d. Others will appear in the BoDo series, Designers Working With (writers, photographers, marketeers, illustrators, programmers, account planners, agents, printers and pre press specialists and more). Some will host a series of their own. Still others will join our present line-up ofvisiting authors (bless them).

So, who IS BoDo?
We are all BoDo.
And we are chuffed.

The BoDo Team
cat - nt - jay

Welcome to BoDo:
The Business of Design online launch

Who is BoDo?

The BoDo Team consists of three designers coming from various backgrounds in the communication design industry:

Catherine (cat) Morley, designer, project manager of Creative Latitude and the NO!SPEC campaign. Feisty and fiery, her speciality is creating teams and steering projects.

Neil (nt) Tortorella, designer, writer, marketing consultant, right-hand man at Creative Latitude and owner of Tortorella Design. His strengths are in marketing and the ins and outs of running a design business.

Jeannette (jay) Wickham, designer, web developer, business administrator, backup for NO!SPEC and Fastcoconut. Having come into the graphic design business via studio administration, Jay’s talents also lean towards the left hand side of the brain. Her major jobs these days (other than keeping cat calm) involve site and application development for both the Internet and company Intranets.

Who’s BoDo? We are BoDo. And we plan on helping out those new to the business of design, however we can.

Don’t be a stranger,
The BoDo Team
cat - nt - jay

Welcome to BoDo:
The Business of Design online launch

Why BoDo?

In September 2002, a group of designers banded together to form Creative Latitude, a worldwide community that unites various creative disciplines for collective promotion, education and ethical business practice. Creative Latitude grew into something we didn’t envision at the outset, a great resource site for all types of creatives.

Creative Latitude is a fine site for those with a few years experience running a business (a criteria for becoming a member). But if our full in-boxes are anything to go by, lacking is strong support for those starting out.

That’s right. Over the years we’ve been contacted by those who had just taken the leap, were thinking about jumping, or got the nudge to jump. Some went from a weekly paycheck to hanging out their shingle. Still others nailed their sheepskin, couldn’t find a job, then decided to go out on their own. Blind.

So a few of us started thinking … what if there was a site … or better, a blog … sistered to Creative Latitude, where people could come to get the low down on how to start up? What if this site offered the tools needed to run a design business? What if this site also had a group of vets (some blogging full time, some visiting) share their personal experiences on running a business?

So BoDo was born - The Business of Design online.
Think of BoDo as Creative Latitude … on steroids.

Glad you could make it,
The BoDo Team
cat - nt - jay

Welcome to BoDo: Business of Design online!

What is BoDo?

BoDo is the place to come when …

• you need practical business advice,
• you’re trying to avoid costly mistakes,
• or you’ve already made a range of mistakes.

BoDo isn’t the place to come if you are looking for …

• deep theoretical conversations on the whys and wherefores of design,
• the how-tos of design software (although we’ll point you in the general direction).

The ins and outs of BoDo

BoDo is the missing owner’s manual for running a design business.

If you’re like most designers, while you were learning the design process you probably didn’t learn much about the business of design. It’s often one of the failings of a designer’s education.

Odds are (if you attended design or art school) you studied layout, design history and how to create picture-perfect pixels with PhotoShop, html and css. Even if you didn’t go the school route, you probably poured over a range of books and websites to hone your skills.

Taking this into account (been there, done that) our goal at BoDo is to provide information to help run a design business in a professional, profitable manner.

On BoDo you’ll find continuously updated resources, including select e-books, business forms and more.

We’ll scour the web for the best articles on running a design business. Such as Mark Boulton’s Going it alone: Putting the pieces in place, Andy Budd’s 7 Habits of a Highly Successful Freelance Web Designer and Kevin Potts’ Starting a Business: Advice from the Trenches.

BoDo will also search out weekly resources to help trim your work flow, manage projects, find and communicate with clients, choose billing software, network, write business plans and proposals, de-stress, and not least, wade through the quagmire of business taxes.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our feed as the BoDo Team and visiting authors will post regularly. If you don’t know how feeds and RSS work, here’s a link to help you understand.

Finally, we encourage you to contact the team to share thoughts on topics you’d like us to cover. Let us know via our contact form and we’ll do our best to help out.

Welcome to Bodo,
The BoDo Team
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