How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul addresses the concerns of young designers who want to earn a living by doing expressive and meaningful work, and who want to avoid becoming hired drones working on soulless projects

1. 191207
GAMBAR COVER BUKU/
GAMBAR PENDUKUNG LAIN
BOOKCLUB
How to be A
Graphic Designer
without Losing
Your Soul
07-09

2. Introduction
Chapter 1. Attributes needed by the modern designer
Chapter 2. How to find a job
Chapter 3. Being freelance
Chapter 4. Setting up a studio
Chapter 5. Running a studio
Chapter 6. Winning new work
Chapter 7. Clients
Chapter 8. Self promotion
Chapter 9. The creative process

3. CHAPTER #07

4. Without clients there is no graphic design and without demanding
clients there is no great graphic design.
Chapter 7 Client
Client psychology

5. Treat your clients like you treat
your friends, this is not saying
make your clients into friends.
This is not say that clients are
always right, or that you should
do everything they say.
Clients need to be challenged
when they are wrong.
No two clients are the same,
they all need something
different
Chapter 7 Client
Dealing with client expectations

6. Time is also essential in allowing clients to formulate a response.
Encourage your client to “think about it” before giving you a
definitive response.
Chapter 7 Client
How to spot a time waster

7. Retaining a client is easier than
finding a new one.
The smarts designer talks to his
or her client about the problems
in a frank and open manner.
You have to tell your client that
you are available and willing for
more work.
Chapter 7 Client
Keeping clients

8. Wherever possible, it is worth
devoting time and energy to
developing clients.
Keeping a line of
communications open so that
they are able to share their
thinking and plans with you.
It will be helpful if you let
clients know how you operate
Chapter 7 Client
Developing clients

9. There are some clients who are
frankly exploitative, can cause
damage to you and your company.
When you find a client unable to
pay their bills, immediately stop
working for them.
There are other sorts of clients
worth ditching: time-wasters and
con artists.
Chapter 7 Client
Sacking client

10. Don't let one client dominate
your business.
You are in the most vulnerable
position when clients
monopolize you.
If they leave, you will be
stranded with problems to
replace them.
Chapter 7 Client
Monopolized by clients

11. Many designers find it difficult to
stand in front of a room full of
people and present their work.
Your work must be good, your
thinking must be perfect, your
preparation must be complete.
A piece of wisdom: Never use
PowerPoint template and
PREPARE!
Chapter 7 Client
The presentation

12. CHAPTER #08
SELF PROMOTION

13. Large groups have the money and expertise to promote themselves
using sophisticated marketing and communication techniques.
Smaller designers group have to promote themselves to acquire a
reputation.
Chapter 8 Self Promote
Cultivating a reputation

14. You must start from within the world of design, confident that if your
reputation is strong, it will be picked up by alert clients.
And you will find yourself out of the closed world of design to a
world of greater clients, money and connections and opportunities.
Chapter 8 Self Promote
Getting noticed

15. Try and find a client who will let
you do some boundary-defying
work in exchange for
substantially reduced fee.
You must be resolved to work
with all the gusto, imagination
and focus.
Chapter 8 Self Promote
Work done for the portofolio, not the bank balance

16. You can see the point: winning
design awards, detractors will
notice.
Enter every competition
possible on the reasonable
premise of a gifted invaluable
promotional opportunity.
Never forget to include your
client in any celebration.
Chapter 8 Self Promote
Design competitions

17. Most require membership
fees and instead you get
useful advice and useful
opportunities to learn more
about design and design-
related matters from low-
level professionals.
Chapter 8 Self Promote
Professional organizations

18. Conferences are relatively new
additions in the field and they sit
rather nervously in them.
In design, we too often assume
that there is only one way to do
something, but listening to
designers, especially those from
different cultures, reminds us of
other possibilities.
Chapter 8 Self Promote
Attending lecture and events

19. Designers have an unwritten
duty to pass on their experience
and give support to the next
generation of designers.
Many designers develop an
interest in teaching and ignore
the ability to guide.
Some become external testers,
while others like to give lectures
and presentations occasionally.
Chapter 8 Self Promote
Maintaining relationship with art colleges

20. Sometimes it is useful to
appear in obscure magazines
from time to time.
Even though it may be difficult
to persuade editors who don't
regularly display graphic
design to report graphic
design stories.
You also need to decide
which section of the
magazine fits your project.
Chapter 8 Self Promote
Dealing with a press

21. CHAPTER #09
CREATIVE PROCESS

22. Where does the creative process begin?
The Creative process begins with the
decision to become a designer.

23. When we look at good design the stuff that inspires us we
want to emulate it.
Graphic design is a bit like the game of rugby.
There isn’t much physical violence in graphic design, but
there is room for nearly everyone with any sort of talent.
It's important to have an attitude of questioning your work.
If you don’t question everything that is put in front of you,
then you run the risk of being compliant and submissive, and
these two qualities are not conducive to producing great
work; they are the qualities of mediocrity.
Chapter 9 The Creative Process

24. A design voice, a tone, is forged
by three main elements.
1. It is firstly a question of
creative conviction.
1. Secondly, it is question of
personality.
1. Thirdly, it is question of an
awareness of fashion,
cultural trends and history.
Chapter 9 The Creative Process

25. Talking about the concept of
originality. Most designers are
untroubled by the notion of
originality, but others are
obsessed with it.
The British Julian House, who I
worked with closely at Intro for a
number of years, has clear
views on this question.
‘I don’t believe in originality as
an absolute.
Chapter 9 The Creative Process

26. Allowing Influences into your work is one of the ways that you expand
your expressive range.
Designers enrich their work not diminish it by looking for ways to
‘incorporate’ new and radical modes of expression into their work,
especially from places outside contemporary design.
Chapter 9 The Creative Process

27. All design jobs start with a brief;
even it’s a self initiated project,
a designer must have brief.
And the first duty of a graphic
designer is to understand the brief.
Briefs can be verbal, they can be
written and sometimes they are
neither.
Chapter 9 The Creative Process
Brief

28. ● Most design briefs in the
commercial world are ugly,
half-cooked and not
promising.
● Importantly, you must look
for McGuffin. Every brief has
a McGuffin whose task the
designer will find it.
● Sometimes the brief is
wrong and sometimes it is
necessary to disobey them.
Chapter 9 The Creative Process
Brief

29. ● Before starting a new project,
designers go with a pile of
favorite books and look for ideas.
● It is also important that the
designer conduct research if only
to provide a reason for their work.
● One of the studies that designers
often omit with devastating
consequences is that they don't
bother reading the text they are
asked to design.
Chapter 9 The Creative Process
Research

30. Chapter 9 The Creative Process
Process
Graphic design Now almost
entirely is a digital activity.
Some are operated
surrounded by stacks of
paper, books, specimen type
sheets and drafting
equipment.
Some stood on the image
board, while others crouched
on top of their work like
Victoria's big book clerks.

31. There are 4 questions that you must ask yourself at the end of each job.
● Are clients happy?
● Is the job profitable?
● Is this project newsworthy?
● What about the suitability for the intended audience?
Chapter 9 The Creative Process
Criteria Of Good Work

32. How to become a graphic designer?
After reading this book, you will probably become a design superhero
The big problem that designers face is fear.
Fear of clients, fear of failure, fear of ideas.
Chapter 9 The Creative Process
"HOW TO BE A GRAPHIC DESIGNER"

33. THANK YOU