So let’s talk about the brief

1. How important is for you the brief you get from your client when you’re asked to design something?

In my current situation it’s not that important because my services and style are very defined, anyone that visits my portfolio knows what I do and what to expect, so I don’t need a very detailed brief. Actually I wouldn’t recommend an extensive brief if you work for small client profiles with low experience in the design process, in some cases it´s appreciated negatively, clients tend to think you are so lazy that you give them homework to save time yourself.

I recently had to do a refund because the client was so rushed that he refused to write a brief, he textually said:

 "We don’t need a corporate message… It seems to me that you have boilerplate questions that you ask regardless of the design goal or source and try to force your customers to answer them by repeating the same questions over and over. Your design process needs to work with the customer, for the customer — not force the customer to work around your methods or requirements."

2. Are you fully satisfied with the briefs received from your clients?

They usually don’t provide a brief, there are exceptions, specially for web design orders since the client perceives the task as more complex. For logo or corporate illustrations I usually ask some informal questions and they tend to reply briefly. It´s tough, on one hand you need to get the info, on the other hand, you need to ask carefully or the client could be offended.

3. Do you help your client to create his brief? If yes, how do you do it?

Yes, I do. I openly ask for their brief, they usually don’t have one so I write a list of key questions to understand their needs. As I previously said, it needs to be a short list and direct to the core.

4. How hard is for your clients to create a brief even if they receive some helping questions?

Most of the clients have problems to define their own corporate values and their corporate image, they actually are not conscious about their brand identity. If I ask something like: "what are the feelings you want to communicate? or how would you like to be perceived? they reply with series of adjectives with so wide meaning that is not too helpful, like: cool, professional, sleek, good looking… they don’t elaborate their replies too much.

5. Are you satisfied with the solution you use right now in order to get complete briefs from your clients (meaning a brief that is really helpful for you when you start working at your client’s project)?

Yes, I do. It’s not perfect but it works. 

The problem is not my design process, it’s a deeper problem, it’s my whole brand identity. Right now I’m perceived like an artist, but I’m redesigning my corporate stuff to be perceived like a brand manager with very good artistic skills.

6. An I add the following questions: What do you do when the client refuses to write a brief or he does it sloppily?. Would you accept the work even if you know it’s not going to be a good logo or web?

Honestly, at this point, sometimes I don’t know how to act. I usually refuse the work and I offer a refund… what do you do?

Today we have a post with some questions from the blog users: about copyright, confidentiality, how to improve our drawing skills and how to learn to design web pages.

So let´s go!

I’m in a rap band and I’ve designed a logo for it. And my doubt is whether I should register my design or not, just in case I could have any problems in the future.

Law (in Spain) protects the artwork since its creation. Registry is not necessary, although it’s good evidence that you’re the author of the artwork.

The best choice would be to go to a copyright registry office, as far as I know it’s not very expensive.
But be careful, registering the design and registering the brand is not the same, the registry of a brand is much more expensive. Moreover, the name could be already registered, or be very similar to some registered brand in the same sector.

There are some companies dedicated to advise their clients in this area, although you probably don’t need them by now.

My client ask me to sign a NDA (non-disclosure agreement). It´s fair? Do you have any contract you can share?

I state in my terms of service page I don’t offer confidentiality by default (5th point) since my portfolio is my only marketing tool to promote my services. If somebdoy ask me to sign a NDA I charge a fee, it varies from 0-100% the standard quote depending on my workload, if I’m extremely busy I charge 100%, if I have no work in that moment I negotiate with the client and I even could accept it with no extra charge.

The client should ask the NDA upfront since the quote can vary, but sometimes he does when the order is already finished, then I just redirect him to my terms of service page. I always charge 50% of the order upfront, so the client has 3 choices:

1. He pays the fee: I sign the NDA and deliver the files.
2. He doesn’t pay the fee but he pays the remaining payment: I don´t sign the NDA but I deliver the designs.
3. He doesn’t pay the fee and doesn´t pay the remaining payment: I warm him he would loses the design and the down payment, I keep the files to sell it as stock images or for personal projects, I never resell the designs as custom work.

This is not set in stone, if he’s a good client and he’s easy going you can make exceptions, but you need to cover yourself for worst case scenario.

A confidentiality contract and a copyright transfer, are they both the same thing?

No, they aren’t, a NDA is a document for confidentiality while a transfer of rights contract is a document where you agree it´s a work by hire and the client owns all rights about your designs, though a contract can include both of them.

While I don´t offer confidentiality by default, I always transfer all rights to the client, whenever a client ask a contract I provide it.

You can download some contracts here.

How can I learn to give expression to my characters? I usually draw them all with a psychopath face.

I’m afraid there are no magic tricks to improve your drawing skills, just practice, lots of practice… and lots of observation.

I have a file of facial and corporal expressions, and photographs and images from other artists as well. At first I used to copy a lot, with some time you’ll create your own style.

My advice is to search different sources so your style can be as rich as possible.

I’ve read your tutorial about creating a web page. It has made some things clear for me but, how did you begin? Did you use any tutorial in particular?

I’m afraid it’s not that easy, but you can make it with some patience.

1. Create a portfolio in some online community, Deviantart for example. This way you have something to show and you can make yourself a name. Besides, there is an area to create a portfolio independent from the community. It’s not perfect but suitable for a start.
2. Learn to use Dreamweaver, it’s a good program, very easy to use and you can design web pages visually. It’s not the ideal but a good training for the next step.
3. When you’ve get to have a good command of Dreamweaver, you’ll have basics of HTML. Try to improve and understand the meaning of each tag. You can continue using Dreamweaver or just the Notepad.
4. Learn CSS to separate content from presentation. It’s a simple language, the main inconvenience is to manage to make your web look the same in the different browsers (cross browsing).
5. Learn about usability, study the trends and practise a lot.
6. The next step would be to study PHP and MYSQL to add functionality to your web.
7. If you want to go further, you can learn Rubi, Ajax, Javascript…

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So now we are going to start this new section

I’ll start with Evangelina’s case, beautiful name by the way. Eva is argentine but resides in the USA and wants to dedicate herself to the world of illustration, but she has lots of doubts and prejudices that I’ll try to clear out; at least orient her to walk her first steps. Here are the most interesting parts of that email:

I live in USA (I’m from Argentina) and I have wrote to many people with my heart in my hands, but not one of those people have found it in their hearts the willingness to help me. I think it is because they fear that I’ll get really good and that I might “steal” their customers if they told me their “secret recipe”, but…

Let’s start with the good news, you live in the USA; this will give you lots of opportunities that you wouldn’t have in Argentina; you are also optimistic and you really want to make progress. So you speak English and you’re eager, congratulations! You have the minimum requisites to start this difficult career.

Now the bad news

It’s not good to expect any help from people, don’t take me wrong, there will be lots of people who will be willing to help you altruistically, but that’s not the norm; it’s due to lack of time or energy rather than because they are evil. That’s why you have to keep in mind that every single triumph or failure you get will depend 99% in you, outside help is always welcome, but don’t count on it.

Forget about “secret recipes”, nobody will teach them to you because they simply don’t exist. The secret recipe is HARD WORK during a long period of time, applied to multiple fields: marketing, interpersonal communication, technical and practical knowledge… Also keep in mind that what has value for me might not have any value for your; you will have to find your own path.

This is a nice digital painting by Evangelina.

I am a completely “new” newbie. And I would like to start working as a freelancer. I have skills (no degree, though)…

Before venturing into freelance, I would recommend that you try to work for a design agency first; take it as a contact-making experience. I personally worked part time (4 hours a day) for 6 months at a local agency; the salary was really bad and those were the worst months of my working life, but working there cleared out lots of questions and I learnt a lot.

You don’t necessarily need to have formal training to be good at what you do; it might be harder that way, so you need to compensate your lack of formal training with willingness and a great portfolio. I recommend that you read a post I recently wrote about the advantages of self training vs. formal.

… but I believe I can create quality art.

This is your main weakness, design has an artistic aspect in it, but it’s not art; it has a function, its rules and a specific goal, while art doesn’t. Clients don’t pay you to recreate YOUR vision of the world; they pay you to recreate THEIR vision of the world for a targeted audience.

In other words, the artist creates without restrictions; the designer or illustrator on request has to adhere to some rules. So:

• Do you want to be an artist or you want to design/illustrate on request?
• Do you want to be economically stable and create with restrictions, or unstable (at least until you reach to the top), but with the ability to create freely?

If you want to be an artist I’m afraid I can’t help you; if you want to work by request, then keep reading

Very nice, but does it have a market?.

I plan to do lots of things, but I have to prepare my website and my portfolio first, I haven’t done it yet.

Having a plan is the first goal, so write down a list of tasks, organize them by priority level and get them done.

Like I said on the previous point you are confusing concepts, your portfolio is very artistic, there is no commercial intention, so you are going to have to radically change the direction of your work. A few pieces of advice to shift your portfolio to possible clients:

1. Work at least 8 hours a day until you reach a quality product. If you don’t have a quality product then nobody will buy it.
2. You already have a portfolio on Deviantart. The next step is to publish your own website.
3. Choose your strength and look for its possible commercial use. If your strengths are landscapes, then instead of making traditionalist paintings, why don’t you get into the world of video games or films as concept artist? If you like portraits, why don’t you make caricatures on request?
4. Discover reference artists inside your field and study them. What makes them different? Why are they so good? What kind of portfolio do they have? Who does it target? Try to discover their marketing plan.
5. Make a list of potential clients and put yourself in their shoes. If you were a client, what kind of portfolio would you like to see? What type of work pieces would you be interested in?
6. Don’t forget about the minimum requisites to work on the internet: English, PayPal and lots of promotion.
7. Keep working at least 8 hours a day until you reach a quality product. If you don’t have a quality product then nobody will buy it.

What if a potential customer sees my portfolio and likes it? They call me and ask me, “What are your rates? How much would you charge us?” … What should my answer be? Probably what is preventing me from making any money right now is the fear of not knowing what to say to a potential customer.

Think about the fact that every single one of us have gone through this and we have learnt from our mistakes; believe in yourself even when things go wrong, think that you have just discovered a way of NOT doing things, if you make mistakes lots of times, then you will have a beautiful catalog of mistakes that you shouldn’t repeat.

Be honest, tell the customer that you don’t have the experience but you are eager to do the right thing, ask them how much they are willing to invest.
Be realistic and don’t expect to get paid a fortune, sometimes they might not even pay you, take it as a semi-paid training session. With time, if you do things right, you will get paid according to your skill.

Concept artist Feng Zhu. This have a market.

I have done my research online to see how other people do it, but most artists don’t advertise their rates; they encourage their audience to contact them by e-mail or phone!

Designers with a lot of demand don’t usually publish their rates because it minimizes their negotiation margins. They calculate their overhead, based on their clients’ capacity and their needs; I recommend that you read this post about the pros and cons of publishing your rates. Needless to say that to reach this level you still have a long way to go, don’t worry too much about that for now.

A few final considerations

Well Eva, first of all thank you for allowing me to share your worries, I’m sure that you have helped lots of people. I hope I haven’t been too hard on you and that my words have been helpful to you, if you have any doubts just leave me a comment.

Finally, I would like to encourage you to keep working, it won’t be easy, there will be moments in which you will feel like crying, you will get disappointed or depressed and you will think that you are going nowhere … but don’t ever stop, keep going with passion and energy, because finding your path is just a matter of time. One day you’ll go to sleep with a smile on your face and you will understand that you are living your dream.

And when you get famous, don’t forget about us
Cheers!!!

How about you, are you also lost?

If you are a newbie designer and have doubts, contact me and I’ll do my best to clear them out for you; I’ll publish the most interesting emails in this section.