Dave Carlson

I have always been an entrepreneur at heart. I think as designers we love the challenge of using our creative talents to solve business problems. So about 11 years ago, I wanted the challenge of running an agency vs. just freelancing. I freelanced for about 4 years before I started my agency and hired my first employee. Then it became serious, because now I am not only responsible for my own salary, I had to find enough business to cover my employee too, which I did and took on that challenge whole-heartedly. So much so, that two years later, I began hiring my third and fourth, fifth, six, etc employees. Then I entered a whole new ball game and for a creative guy who never went to college (design or business school) this just became my entry into the school of Hard Knocks.

So before you jump right in with exciting dreams of building a big, famous, kick butt design agency, maybe you should ask yourself these soul searching questions:

Your personality

1. Are you patient with people you rely on?
2. Are you able to work through emotions (yours and your potential staffs’)?
3. Can you stay focused on your long-term agency goals?
4. Are you ok not designing as much or not at all?
5. Do you enjoy the challenge of finding and closing new business?

Your finances

1. Are you good at managing your money today?
2. Do you have someone more qualified to manage the accounting of your agency?
3. Do you have enough current business or cash reserves to weather the slow months?
4. What would your initial business start-up needs be? Then what would your costs be for each?
5. Would you enjoy managing the business and expenses to make a profit every month?

Your location

1. Are you in a good location where you could acquire more business than you currently have today?
2. Are there networks, groups or organizations that you can attend to introduce your new agency to.
3. Are you working from home or do you need to lease an office?
4. Are you looking for space to grow in? Then assume 250 sq ft per employee+recepetion+conference room.
5. Where do you want to be located one year from now?

Your target client

1. Do you know what type of work you want your agency to do or focus on?
2. What projects or industries are you most passionate about?
3. Will your passion for working certain projects or in specific industries bring enough business to match your personality, financial needs, and location?
4. Do you know where to find the right clients?
5. Do you know where to find talent with similar passions?

Dave Carlson | The Agency Route
The Vyant Group | DegreesInc | Team Author

What an exciting way to slide into a Monday! Dedicated Debbie Millman’s informative Design Matters is standing at number 15 out of 290 nominees for a People’s Choice Award.

What is good design? Is it form? Is it function? You tell us!

» Browse and vote for your favorite nominees.

There’s a short time frame (October 16 at 6:00 p.m. EST), so if you are planning on a vote, please do so asap.

Debbie, you’ve got my vote!

Catherine (cat) Wentworth | Project Manager
Creative Latitude | NO!SPEC | BoDo team

“The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money. … In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his “real” vocation. The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it.”–Steven Pressfield, screenwriter

Howard J. Blumenthal’s book, The Creative Professional: A Survival Guide for the Business World, is a must-read for anyone in any creative professional. Blumenthal starts off with the basics: what defines a “creative” professional, the rules of behavior in the marketplace, and the valuable assets of a creative professional. He also addresses the myths surrounding creatives, such as “creatives are disorganized”, “creatives are crazy”, and “you can’t learn creativity from a book”. He discusses personality traits and how they translate into the workplace, with specific references to the Myers-Briggs personality test, and how to use those traits to your advantage.

Blumenthal then goes on to talk about work styles, and includes a number of helpful exercises to help you determine how you work best. He talks about being a leader vs. being a specialist, and the difference between working for an employer and for clients. Blumenthal details the hiring process, including why you might not get hired full-time, and the positives and negatives of working for different size and types of companies.

The inherent distrust of creatives is discussed at length: business people don’t trust creatives; “creatives only care about creative work”; “creatives don’t follow business logic”. Blumenthal includes an excellent chart on traditional business thought vs. the creatives’ view.

From there, Blumenthal talks about managing your resources: time management, the creative process, getting past obstacles, how creatives think, and legal issues. He also discusses a creative’s career path: alternate paths, how to make changes when things aren’t going well, why the traditional job market doesn’t work for creatives, how to grow your career, determining what you really want to accomplish, and knowing when to move on. At the end, Blumenthal includes The Creative Bookshelf, a list of excellent resources.

The book is packed full of information and exercises, and needs at least a second read to begin to process all the fantastic information in it. Any creative, newbie to veteran, should have a copy of this book, and refer to it often.

until the next
Erin Reviews

Erin Harris | Designer
BoDo Author | Erin Reviews

Last week I was contacted by Scott Belsky from Behance, an impressive project.

The Behance team studies exceptionally productive people and teams working in the creative fields. We document the methods and resources that productive creative professionals use to push their ideas forward.

After clicking around and liking what I read (especially their tips for meetings), I went back to Scott for an overview.

The Behance team convened because we were frustrated with the creative community. All of us had witnessed the mismanagement and eventual demise of great ideas conceived by brilliant creative professionals. We realized that great achievement requires much more than a great idea. As we began interviewing creative professionals, we started to notice a few themes. For starters, creative people from across industries self-report a lack of productivity. We heard a lot about being “extremely disorganized” or struggling with prioritization. In addition, we learned that creative professionals, especially freelances, struggle to present themselves professionally. MySpace is looked down upon. Personal websites are expensive and high-maintenance, and other niche creative sites fail to attract potential clients and collaborators from other industries.

Since early 2006, we have focused on developing methods to help creative professionals organize their work and then productively share their work. Many people found our first project a bit surprising for a start-up technology company: a paper product line! In February 2007 we launched a product line of notebooks and “Action Pads” along with a new methodology for project management. We developed the “Action Method as a way to emphasize the focus on “action steps” and minimize the time spent managing “reference items” (notes and articles), and “backburner items” (those ideas that you just need to set aside for some other time). With this method, we were encouraging creative professionals to seriously consider their approach to staying organized. Too often, design for productivity is an afterthought. We think that a successful system for managing ideas needs to be simple, well designed, and action-focused. With so little time in a day, notes and filing systems are overrated.

While the product line consumed about 10% of our time, the other 90% was spent on building the Behance Network. For over 14 months, we debated the philosophical and practical needs of creative professionals that want to manage portfolios and represent their work professionally. Why create a network? Networks provide a few crucial ingredients for productive creative careers:

Accountability

If you don’t share ideas with a group of people that will hold you accountable, new ideas will be overridden by everyday demands…

Cross-pollination

Most ideas originate at the intersection of different creative realms (i.e.: a photographer comes up with a new idea through her work with a musician…). If you silo yourself, or become isolated in one particular group (i.e.: just designers), you will not experience the enlightenment from the clash of different talents.

Freshness and Truth

Without feedback from a network of trusted confidants - an inner circle - your work may become stifled and stale.

Professional Opportunities

New jobs and connections in the creative community happen through circumstantial interactions. Without a network to maximize these “circumstances,” your opportunities for growth are limited.

The Network Effect

Your latest project may solicit little interest from your close peers and clients, but how about the peers-of-peers and clients-of-clients?

You can’t do it all alone.

Networks help you engage new collaborators and hire resources to push ideas forward.

The Behance Network, just launched, is the culmination of our efforts. The network is an open platform for creative professionals and teams to present their work and take full advantage of a network of peers, industry leaders, and potential clients. Powerful but intuitive tools enable participants to build multimedia portfolios and navigate the network for new opportunities. Of course, the future of the network depends on how it is used. We are eager for feedback and suggestions from network participants. Ultimately, we hope that it helps brilliant creative professionals make ideas happen.

Scott, Matias, Dave, and Chris
Behance Team

Thank you Scott, for taking the time to explain Behance. We’re certainly looking forward to seeing more of you!

For more on Behance, Scott’s ABC interview is online.

until the next
Business Briefs,
cat

I am stuck. Creatively, that is.

The majority of my bread-and butter work right now is more template-based, production-style work, than real creative stuff. And while I do get plenty of web design work, once the design itself is done, I have to kick into “code mode,” which isn’t something I find particularly creative. And don’t even think about having me try to switch between “code” and “creative” modes – that’s nearly impossible!

So, given that 75% of my work doesn’t require that much creativity, I’m always looking for creative projects. I mean, who isn’t in this field, right?

Well, recently, I got a nice, creative project. I was pretty excited to get back to my desk and start working on it. But when I finally DID start working on it, I realized I didn’t have any ideas. So I started with my usual tactics…writing down words that I associated with the business – feelings, adjectives, colors – just a stream-of-consciousness list of words, hoping to spark something spectacular.

Once I did that, I looked at my list, and gave it a good, hard, looking at…only to realize I didn’t have anything more than I did before, except this list of words. Then, I decided to assign blame: I couldn’t come up with anything because I’m not so good at drawing. Now, I am working on that, and taking some drawing lessons, but I thought maybe my skills weren’t quite far enough along, and that’s why I didn’t have any great ideas.

So there I was, staring at this list of words, mad because my drawing skills weren’t where I wanted them to be, when I had a thought: IF I could draw whatever I wanted to, and my skills were where I wanted them to be, WHAT would I draw? Again, I drew a blank (pun…intended.)

At that point, I finally realized what was going on. It had nothing to do with the list of words, or the fact that I couldn’t draw the way I wanted to. I was stuck. Plain and simple. I had a creative block. Now that I had a realistic grasp of the problem, I knew I could begin to find the solution.

That’s where I am today. I’m still a bit stuck, but I’m working on it. I’ve found a lot of great resources (see below) to help get unstuck…but for me, the biggest thing has been realizing that as a designer, I’m expected to create on-demand. And as a solopreneur, the task of creating falls solely on me. Given that, how can we be expected to be creative ALL the time? Writer’s have Writer’s Block. Creatives have Creative Blocks. It makes sense to me. But what do you do when you’re on a deadline?!?

Well, now that I know what the issue is, and have found a bunch of resources, I’m working on a way to help prevent this in the future. Little things, like spending 10 minutes everyday before I start my work doing a creative exercise (like those found in Caffeine for the Creative Mind by Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield or Designers in Handcuffs by Pat Matson Knapp), or taking a 15 minute walk in the park to clear my head and get away from the computer, or listening to some podcasts about creativity and creative blocks.

While there is one project that’s still giving me a little trouble creatively, I can tell I’m getting close. I’m actually starting to look at the problem differently, rather than using my usual methods of problem solving, and I’m starting to feel excited about the project again.

Now, I know this article is a little bit off-track, given the topic of my column, but I figured I’m not the only one that faces creative blocks, and thought I’d share some of my experiences and resources. Because the bottom line is that as designers and creatives, we ARE expected to create on-demand, and more often than not, with a deadline that doesn’t allow much room if we do get stuck.

So here’s a list of resources that I’ve found, and if you have any resources, tips or tricks that you use to help overcome creative blocks, I’d LOVE to hear them!

Resources:

Books

• Creative Utopia: 12 Ways to Realize Total Creativity, Theo Stephan Williams
• Designers in Handcuffs: How to create great graphics when time, materials and money are tight, Pat Matson Knapp
• Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake up Your Brain, Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield
• Creative Sparks, Jim Krause
• Zing!: Five Steps and 101 Tips for Creativity On Command, by Sam Harrison
• Ideaspotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea, by Sam Harrison

Online Resources

• Accidental Creative
• Creativity to Spare
• Design Guy
• Media Artists Secrets, Franklin McMahon
• SketcheeBook
• Killer Innovations

Join me next time, as I continue my journey Out of the Bedroom,
Tamar Wallace | Principal, TAMAR Graphics

In my last post “Bringing You Up To Speed” I told you about my recent short comings and how I would begin a series on things I have learned from these experiences. The Honest Truth series will discuss my various experiences during my mistake ridden first few months as the new owner of Pulse Creative Partners.

In the first few months of my Presidency, I found myself making, what I thought, were good strategic decisions. We had changed our name early on to combat some looming perceptions of our firm as a sign shop. The goal was to get people familiar with us as skilled designers rather than just craftsmen. This has actually turned out to be one of my more successful decisions. What followed, however, were some of the not so great decisions that resulted from the name change. Because our name changed, we had to get new stationery and business cards to the tune of around $5000. Then, because I felt they deserved it, I gave everyone (including myself) a raise. This basically raised our monthly operating costs by about 20%. While the intentions were good, and of course I thought it would make everyone want to work harder, moving too quick to raise salaries actually turned into a bad thing. (I also had added expenses of asset purchase payments each month because I purchased the company on an installment plan.) Then, because I am an aesthetically driven person, I felt it was necessary to go through a renovation, albeit, minor. The renovation was to the tune of around $15,000 +. One bright spot in the renovation budget was that we actually sold off some equipment that we really didn’t need which helped to fund the renovation, almost entirely.

While all of this was happening, we were operating almost entirely off of one project’s revenue we had billed early on in the year and which we had yet to pay for the printing bill associated with it. This is where I made another mistake called American Express Gold Card. I thought I was pretty smart to pay for the sizable printing bill with my Gold Card to take advantage of the points I would receive as a result. Plus, it would give me another 30 days to pay the bill. I thought I was so smart. Good idea, in essence, if you can guarantee that you will have the funding to pay the bill when it’s due.

So, my worries were put on the back burner for at least one more month. And as business was rolling in, and I was anticipating the completion of a few other projects, I thought there was really no reason to worry. Of course, I wasn’t really doing any less spending to be sure I would have the money to pay for it. The AMEX bill rolled in and, as you can probably guess by now, I didn’t have the money, in fact, some of the projects I was going to be relying on were not complete yet and they were going to end up providing less income than I had originally banked on. Go figure. So, I had to let the AMEX bill lapse and I had to do the most miserable thing I have had to do in a long time, ask a client to pay their bill before completion so we could make the payment. Which put us in a bind with another printing bill, but we had to get this one taken care of first.

Needless to say, I put our company in a very tight and overwhelming spot during probably one of the most stressful times of my life. Had I held off on a renovation, which wasn’t entirely necessary, put the money we made on selling equipment into the bank, paid the printing bills when they were due, and kept salaries where they were until I knew for sure we were in a sound financial position to give more money, I might have avoided this situation. Hindsight, as it is, is always 20/20.

We did change our spending habits, worked out a deal with our printer to repay over a few months and had to drop salaries for a short period of time to get us back into the black, but it was worth it, despite countless mornings where I thought I was going to throw up.

I hope this will help someone out there avoid similar situations. I do believe I learned a lot about myself and areas I needed to address which has ultimately made me a stronger business person and Pulse a stronger company. As a result of my mistakes we have actually come away with a much better understanding of how to spend (or not spend) only when it will actually benefit the company. That’s not to say that taking risks is a bad thing. Risks sometimes end in negative results but can also create some tremendous rewards. In this case I took some risks which turned into tragedy but delivered us into a very rewarding and new mindset.

For now, good luck and better spending!

Stefan Bean | President/Creative Director
Pulse Creative Partners, Inc. | BoDo Author | Bean’s Biz

Well, as you can see, it has been quite a while since my last post and this has a lot to do with many different factors which have inspired the topics that I will be writing about in my upcoming posts.

In April and May, I spent a good portion of my time working on the renovation of our offices as well as running a business and designing for multiple clients. (Pretty soon we’ll have some photos of our space which is now complete up on our site.) Trying to manage all of those things at once was quite a lesson in time management and taught me not to spread myself out too thin. I was probably working 8 or 9 hours on various projects then I would get my hands dirty for another 6 or 7 hours in the evening working on the demolition, reconstruction and beautification of the space. This wore pretty heavily on me physically and mentally after a few weeks in a row of this same kind of schedule. Needless to say, the next time we do any kind of renovation, I will hire someone to handle all of the renovation instead of getting in on the action.

While all of this was going on, I was also trying to manage a little pickle I had gotten us into financially. (Which will be the topic of another post.) Even though it was manageable, it put me and my staff in an uncomfortable position that made me realize that we needed to come out of this stronger than we went into it. Giving up was not the answer. Of course, being a young business owner, I am learning where I need to mature and realize that I am only human and mistakes will come with the territory. But, I also have to learn from the mistakes so I don’t make them again. Fortunately, the way we are managing our books now and dealing with our receivables and payables will help us make it through this relatively unscathed but much smarter and more prepared.

All in all, the last few months have been revealing. They have showed me where my weaknesses are and what I need to improve on. They have also spurred on a new zeal for generating new leads and creating a niche for ourselves. During the down time, we were actually finding ourselves doing a substantial amount of work for churches and found we were becoming pretty good at developing creative materials that can help churches grow. We were also really enjoying the work we were doing for them. Not only were we allowed to be creative, but we were helping organizations spread their message so they could help more people. We began to consider becoming a more “human impact” oriented design firm because there is such a lack of really good church, mission organization and not-for-profit communications, especially in Indiana, that we needed to become that firm that they could turn to in order to revitalize their own marketing efforts.

One particular project that we created early on has become the best marketing piece we have ever had and has generated more work than anything we have done to market ourselves to date. (See the project we did for Vineyard Community Church) Pretty much all we have had to do is either set up a meeting with the decision makers at the local churches or drop off one of these stunning packages at a church we wanted to work with and it will begin to get their wheels spinning. This strategy has actually led us to work with numerous new churches in our area.

All in all, we have been blessed to have found this niche in the midst of a period of events that could have sent me running for the hills, but if you stick with it, like I have, even in the bad times, negatives can lead to positives.

Stefan Bean | President/Creative Director
Pulse Creative Partners, Inc. | BoDo Author | Bean’s Biz

I recently read David Parrish’s, “T-Shirts & Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity.” This is a book I wish I had read some 20+ years when I started my design firm. Now that I’m working on reinventing the 60 year old firm I recently merged with, I plan to use Parrish’s ideas, tactics and techniques to help achieve our new set of goals.
I’m going to go out on a limb here at the beginning of this review and be a bit bold. Whether you’re just starting out or are a veteran, you should get this book for four simple, but important, reasons – The book is packed with information you need to know to be successful and avoid common mistakes; it’s practical; it’s clear and easy to understand (even sans MBA); it just makes sense. Here’s why.

David starts off with you – a critical core asset of your business. Well, that’s pretty obvious. But, for many designers, the marriage of creativity with business results in acute malaise and the feeling of selling out. He points out that this feeling need not be the case if you develop the correct business formula, vision, mission and core values. Parrish moves on to objectively assessing your strengths and weaknesses and finding your competencies around which you’ll build your business model and value proposition.

In the following chapters, David addresses marketing and why it’s not simply creating a brochure or mailer, effectively dealing with your competition, along with why there’s more competition out there than just other designers.

A creative enterprise is about creativity, but, as a business, it’s also about money, structure, leadership and management. Parrish leaves no stone unturned when it comes to the business end of your creativity. He shares his experience, thoughts and ideas on the hard core issues of intellectual property rights, business structure and financial management. Plus, if you follow his advice, odds are your business will grow and that usually means bringing on employees. David has you covered here, as well.

Finally, Parrish pulls it all together in an easy to understand summation. He also includes methods to measure your success, assess potential risks and the importance of a solid business plan.

I found the book insightful without any, “puff. & fluff.” David also includes a handy, “Key Points,” wrap-up at the close of each chapter. “T-Shirts & Suits” is a quick read, but one of those books you’ll likely want to have in close proximity now and in the years to come.

There are several ways of getting a copy of “T-Shirts & Suits”, and here’s just two.

You can buy it from amazon. Or, as David’s released it as a free e-book, you can download it right here at BoDo. Thanks David!

Neil Tortorella