21 tips for starting your own design studio

Essential nuggets of advice for anyone wanting to start a design studio – from those who’ve made it

Yes, we know. Considering the state of the economy and the unemployment rate, surely it’d be madness right now to put your head above the parapet and start your own studio? And yes, if that’s your thinking then maybe you’d be better off in a safe little designer’s job where you get paid on time every month to implement someone else's ideas. On the other hand, if you’re up to the challenge then there’s never a bad time to strike out on your own. Fortune, as they say, favours the bold.

For those creatives who are less experienced in the business side of things, it can be a huge challenge. That’s why we’ve contacted a pro selection of designers who have made it – and are responsible for starting some of the most successful studios around – to bring you someexpert tips on starting your own studio.

Want to know more? Check out our Design Studio Handbook, which covers everything you need to know to start and run a successful design business.
 

01 GOOD SKIP HUNTING

Bob Gray Design director Red&Grey Design
“When you’re setting up a studio, designer furniture is not a priority,” says Red&Grey’s Bob Gray. “Our tables and chairs all came from a skip outside a major telephone company that was rebranding. If we were starting out now, we would look out for liquidation sales and office closures.”

02 TAKE THE PLUNGE

Nick Nettleton Director Loft Digital 
Essentials like renting out work space and hiring new people – they’re big financial commitments, and they’re always terrifying in advance. For Nick Nettleton, these are psychological barriers – you just have to take the plunge. “Once you’re on the other side, you wonder what all the fuss was about,” he says.

03 GET A BIG TABLE

Nat Hunter D&AD Executive Committee member D&AD
Communal spaces offer many opportunities to pool your talents and bounce ideas around, so it makes sense to capitalise on this rather than just giving fate a free hand. Nat Hunter’s office must-have? “A big table for everyone to eat lunch together.”

04 THE RIGHT STUFF

Adam Jenns Founder and managing director Mainframe 
“Don’t bother starting a studio if you don’t have the intention of being the best.” Adam Jenns challenges you to succeed with any other attitude. “Few people ever get there,” he adds. “But if you don’t start out with that intention you’ll get lost in a sea of one-man bands with novel company names.”

05 THE BEST POLICY

Russell Townsend Managing director Clusta 
It’s very tempting to believe your own hype, and design is certainly a business that demands a little esprit de corps. But that’s not a sound footing, says Russell Townsend: “Firstly, don’t kid yourself, and secondly never kid the people that make your studio work – your clients, staff, suppliers, bank manager and the tax man. They make your world go round.”

06 CREATE A WEBSITE

Chris Brand Founder Christopher Brand 
According to Chris Brand, putting up a website was one of the best things that he ever did. “It’s the easiest way to show people your work,” he explains. Making sure you have the right domain name is a good idea too. Keep things as simple as possible to use, and choose a name that’s easy to remember.

07 SPACE CONTROL

Josie Harold Managing director Dirty Design 
Think about how you would like your space to work for you long term, and what works best for the business. You might want to work in an open-plan space all together with music, laughter and fun. “However, you need to think how that will work when you’ve got phone calls to make or you’re trying to write a brief – or have clients in,” says Dirty Design’s Josie Harold.

08 WORK IS WORK, HOME IS HOME

Sean Freeman Founder There Is
Working from his bedroom day-in day-out gave Sean Freeman a nasty bout of cabin fever that only wore off once he found a desk in a shared space. “Now, when I get home, it’s home,” he says. “Plus, it’s totally tax deductible, so in a roundabout way I kind of look at my desk space as paying tax.”

09 FIND SOME NATURAL LIGHT

Russell Townsend Managing director Clusta 
Everyone wants a fancy studio with a hot tub and pool table, but do you really need it? There are larger priorities, says Russell Townsend. “Make sure you have a suitable environment with good natural light and good security, and that it’s somewhere you are happy to spend a lot of time in – because you will.”

10 FUTURE-PROOF YOURSELF

Tom Skipp Founder Tom Skipp
It’s true that you get what you pay for, and since a designer’s main tool is his or her computer, it pays to get the best you can afford. “As a freelancer, I’m always on my MacBook Pro, which I find sufficient – even for artworking,” says Tom Skipp. “And I have also recently subscribed to the iPhone generation, which means that I can respond to people immediately. It’s essential to appear available at all times for clients.”

11 TAKE SOME RISKS

Adam Jenns Founder and managing director Mainframe 
Logic and restraint are not always your best friends: they can lead to piecemeal decisions and compromise. “If you don’t take risks, you’ll stay a one-man band forever,” says Adam Jenns. “I rented a big studio very early on in Mainframe’s life, and it seemed to fill itself.”

12 SPACE IS THEORETICAL

Glenn Garriock Creative director at Atelier 1A Co-founder of FormFiftyFive
Working alone isn’t ideal. “Simply the process of explaining an idea to someone else helps me figure out if it makes sense or not,” says Glenn Garriock. However, you don’t have to be isolated even if you are physically alone: “With a little help from modern technology you can share ideas and thoughts with colleagues and friends, regardless of where you are.”

13 LIVE THE DREAM

Josie Harold Managing director Dirty Design 
“Think carefully about what you want from your office space,” warns Josie Harold. “The quirky older building that feels really individual and is cheaper than more traditional office space might seem perfect, but trust me, with no double-glazing the heating bills won’t be. And if you buy flatpack desks from IKEA, plan in three days to build them.”

14 PRACTICAL MATTERS

Aurelia Lange Founder Aurelia Lange 
Talking about heating bills, illustrator and designer Aurelia Lange has some practical advice: “Setting up in the summer will give you a head start,” she laughs. Also, research all your expenses thoroughly – public liability, insurance, rates and such: “Business Link is a great resource for advice on this.”

15 SENSIBLE SOFTWARE

Russell Townsend Managing director Clusta 
These days the specs on mid-level machines are generally fine for all but the most demanding of design applications. “So try and make sure that you are very sensible about software and, in particular, hardware,” says managing director at Clusta, Russell Townsend. “Assess what you really need. Video and moving images are far more demanding than design for print.”

16 GOTTA HAVE A SYSTEM

Glenn Garriock Creative director at Atelier 1A Co-founder of FormFiftyFive
Without a decent system to help you find older files – real as well as digital – you are simply increasing your workload. Glenn Garriock’s big on filing systems for exactly this reason: “Having a methodical filing system will spare you a lot of rummaging around,” he reasons. “You never know when one of your older files or documents could come in handy to sort out a misunderstanding, or help you with your final billing.”

17 LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Aurelia Lange Founder Aurelia Lange 
Location is king, ask any estate agent. So check out the area you’re thinking of setting up in thoroughly. “How accessible are the nearest supply shops? What about banks and nice pubs to meet clients? Is there parking?” asks Aurelia Lange. And finally, how accessible are your premises? Is it 24/7? If not, how will you manage all those late nights?

18 BACK UP!

Glenn Garriock Creative director at Atelier 1A Co-founder of FormFiftyFive
“Back everything up,” advises Glenn Garriock. This doesn’t have to be expensive – you can pick up a one-terrabyte external hard drive for less then £100 these days, on which you can create a bootable carbon copy of your main hard drive. “Couple this with an online back-up service, such as Backblaze or CrashPlan, and you should be sorted.”

19 HOME FROM HOME

Aurelia Lange Founder Aurelia Lange 
You’ll be spending quite a bit of time in your studio, so make it your own. “You should create an environment that you want to spend time in,” says Aurelia Lange. “Invest in some good speakers, a comfortable chair, a kettle and some chocolate biscuits.”

20 UPDATE YOURSELF

Daniel Baer Founder Studio Baer
Keep your website up to date. “Our site is updated each quarter with new projects,” says Daniel Baer. “We adapt the studio portfolio for every client meeting in order to focus on specific areas of interest.” If you’re small, you’re nimble. Make the most of that.

21 USE SOME SHOE LEATHER

Bob Gray Design director Red&Grey Design
Searching the internet for studio space might have the advantage of speed, but you won’t be getting there via the internet superhighway. It’s best to get out and walk around until you find somewhere you like. “This is a much better way to get a feel for an area, and you can also find some hidden gems that don’t appear on larger estate agent websites,” says Bob Gray.]

Want to be your own boss? Find more advice in our Design Studio Handbook, available now.

sumber : computerarts.co.uk

There’s no such thing as originality

Don’t worry too much about originality, says Jeremy Kool; just make sure you create something of quality

I started working on my first independent project, The Paper Fox, around eight months ago. If I had listened to others, I would have folded under my own doubt.

The Paper Fox will be an interactive storybook for the iPad and Android devices. The art style is digitally created to look like origami and papercraft, and while I was well aware that other 3Dartists had created various ‘hand-crafted’ pieces before, I thought that my take on the style was daring and new.

When I’m working on an art piece, I’m convinced that it’s the most innovative, cutting-edge and insightful artwork ever created. It’s a steadfast (and insulated) feeling that stays with me through the creation of any work. Of course, when looking back on the piece with the benefit of hindsight, my opinions can vary wildly. However, in the case of The Paper Fox, I look back on it with a sense that it could become something more than a single piece.

After publicising The Paper Fox and my intentions for the project, the comparisons started rolling in. People were overwhelmingly positive about the art style, but many of the comments came with examples of similar works. “This looks great; it reminds me of this,” was the overall resounding tone.

With every web link I clicked, my confidence was shaken. Clearly, my style wasn’t the unique and special snowflake I first thought it was. At a glance, many of the artworks I was directed to were exactly the same as my project. I remember thinking that I shouldn’t bother continuing with a style that had already been done a hundred times. I was close to shelving the project and relegating it to a folio piece.

The problem was, I was putting far too much stock into the concept of originality. I thought the artwork was only successful due to its unique and distinctive look. As soon as I saw that not only had it been done before, but it had been done many times over, I wondered whether there was any point in continuing.

But of course, that was a very naive and somewhat arrogant perspective. Originality plays a part in creating any artwork, but if the success of my entire work hinged on the fact that it had never been done before, then it would be doomed from the start. The same can be said for most creative projects.

The reason I’ve had some critical interest in The Paper Fox is not because of its uniqueness, although that is a part of it. I believe its appeal lies in the fact that I spent a very long time polishing the artwork to create something of quality. I wanted to give the project a sense of tactility: the feeling of rough paper; the impression of imperfect shapes bathed in warm, buttery lighting. I spent many hours simplifying the characters just enough so that they could still emote, at the same time ensuring that their silhouettes were strong.

All of these aesthetic choices, combined with the thematic ones, are what makes my – and any other project – unique. I could have easily given up on the project before it became what it is today, which is something much more than a sum of its parts. But then I never would have come to understand that there are no new jigsaw puzzles: it’s how you arrange the pieces that matter.

Source : http://www.computerarts.co.uk/features/there-s-no-such-thing-originality

GRAPHIC DESIGN THEORY?

Article by Helen ArmstrongSeptember 29, 2009.

Filed Under: Inspiration, critique, social responsibility, Voice, graphic design

Graphic design has often looked to architecture as an intellectual model. We long to infuse our work with the same kind of dense theoretical knowledge and the same kind of broad ranging, legendary critiques. But we're not architects. We're graphic designers. Our role is less defined. We cross between print and web, 2-D and 3-D. Our work is easier to produce and more ephemeral. This fluidity, coupled with a discipline-wide pragmatic streak, makes it difficult to establish a defined body of graphic design theory.

Or does it?

Graphic designers have written about the ideas behind their work since the inception of the profession. Consider F. T. Marinetti, László Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Josef Müller-Brockman, Karl Gerstner, Katherine McCoy, Jan van Toorn and, more recently, Jessica Helfand, Dmitri Siegel and Kenya Hara. This body of work is small compared to architecture and fine arts, but it is passionate and smart.

Texts about graphic design fall under different categories of “theory.” Some analyze the process of making. Think Bauhaus experiments, methodologies that fall under the umbrella of International Typographic Style, and contemporary explorations labeled “design research.” Some texts examine the ideas behind the visual work. Authors “read” designs or design texts and put them into a wider historical/cultural context. And some apply outside theoretical discourses to the field of graphic design—deconstruction, semiotics, gender studies. Many seminal texts, of course, blur such categorizations.

Through my research I work to emphasize the value of our own theoretical base and inspire others to read and write more. Working on a recent book project got me thinking about a range of issues that face the profession today. Theory can help us address them.

(Clockwise from left): Katherine McCoy's “See Read” poster for Cranbrook Graduate Design, 1989, a photographic collage of recent graduate student work overlaid by a list of possibly opposing design values and a diagram of communication theories—a model for how deconstruction and structuralist/poststructuralist literary theories might be applied to graphic design's visual and verbal processes; a spread from László Moholy-Nagy's Malerei, Photographie, Film (Painting, Photography, Film), 1925; and a spread from Graphic Design: The New Basics (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), written and designed by Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips, in which Lupton explores emerging universals within the practice of graphic design, including newly relevant concepts like transparency and layering.

Design increasingly lives in the actions of its users

Think Flickr, Facebook, Etsy, Lulu, Threadless and the multitude of blogs. Users approach software and the web with the expectation of filling in their own content and shaping their own visual identities—often with guidance from prepackaged forms. Dmitri Siegel calls this phenomenon “the templated mind.” Designers are grappling with their own place in this DIY phenomenon. Creativity is no longer the sole territory of a separate “creative class.” Designers can lead this new participatory culture by developing frameworks that enable others to create; doing so, however, means allowing our once-specialized skills to become more widespread and accessible. That transfer of knowledge is threatening to some, liberating to others.

Technology alters our aesthetics even as we struggle against it

Designers everywhere strive to create unique visual voices despite the prevalence of stock photography and the monolithic hold of Adobe Creative Suite. Simultaneously, as noted by design and media critic Lev Manovich, specific techniques, artistic languages, and vocabularies previously isolated within individual professions are being imported and exported across software applications and professions. This new common language of hybridity and “remixability,” through which most visual artists now work, is unlike anything seen before. Technology has irreversibly changed our sense of aesthetics, giving us both more power and less.

We should encourage collaboration and communal experience

What's the good of multi-touch technology if we don't want to sit down together? Collaboration and community fuel world-changing design solutions. Despite our connections online, many people are experiencing a growing sense of personal isolation. How can we, as designers, combat that isolation with projects that foster community? Media activist Kalle Lasn has warned designers: “We have lost our plot. Our story line. We have lost our soul.” Producing work that fosters real connections may be one way of getting that soul back.

We all write more today than we did 15 years ago

Blogs, emails, Twitter-we communicate with many more people through text than through speech. If grammar imparts order and structure to our thoughts, then this increase in writing brings value to our society and our discipline. Design authorship, an issue debated by influential figures like Michael Rock, Ellen Lupton and Jessica Helfand over the course of the last decade, foregrounded the active relationship between text and image and between a discipline and its discourse. The expansion of written communication makes possible thoughtful contributions to the larger discourse of design by a wider slice of the graphic design population.

The central metaphor of our current society is the network

Even if we don't all understand the computer codes that run the back end of our digital age, we can comprehend the networked structure of our day and design to meet it. Avant-garde artists at the beginning of the last century, including F. T. Marinetti, László Moholy-Nagy and Aleksandr Rodchenko, were adept at activating their own networks: newspapers, magazines, lectures and written correspondence. Recently, I heard lectures by Emily Pilloton of Project H and Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity, two young designers who are creating opportunities, locally and around the world, for designers to improve basic human living conditions. The connectivity of the web is critical to their success. Efficient networks for spreading change and prosperity are already in place. We just have to grasp them.

Designers in the early 20th century rose to the challenges of their societies. We too can take on the complexities of our time, the rising millennium. Delving into our theoretical base equips us to address critical material problems in the world and our discipline.

sumber http://www.aiga.org/graphic-design-theory/

How to be a better designer

Daniel Gjøde spares us the slick quotes to deliver his top 10 down-to-earth tips for being a successful designer

Dear designer: just like you, I’m flooded on a daily basis with super inspiring, life-affirming, pocket philosophical and wise impressions from the design world. Everything has gone global and it doesn’t require much more than adding ‘designer’ to your email signature for you to become one (I’ve been there). I’ll therefore spare you the references to Sagmeister’s booksand the ShitMyDadSays Twitter feed. Instead, I’ll humbly give you 10 down-to-earth, practicable tips on how to become a successful designer.

One: love the process. I simply don’t agree that life as a designer is dull until you get to work for Coca-Cola or Nike. That’s bull. The process behind any new project is valuable and educational, so let go, feel the moment, explore the detail and try to truly understand the projects you’re working on. The more you’re involved, the more you’ll come to love the process and the result – no matter the name of the client. In short: you have to like what you’re doing to do it well.

Two: forget about your own taste. This isn’t an encouragement to make ugly stuff; rather it’s a reminder that if you’ve used the same three colours for the last three identity projects, then an alarm ought to go off. Forget about your own taste. Love the premise and your client’s hideous logo. As a designer, you’ll know your client’s needs, and you’ll know how to align design and content to make everything co-operate. When you forget about your own taste, you can start making great designs.

Three: everybody is creative, right? As a professional, you’re capable of more than just making smashing things. However, how often do you start off with the words ‘I think…’? When you say, ‘I think green is prettier than yellow,’ you seem no more creatively competent than the client you’re working for. Learn to argue for your design decisions. Go crazy and experiment, but make sure you put it all in order at the end. Don’t be afraid of a bit of craziness, but alongside the process remember to pin out what it’s teaching you about your client and the product.

Four: don’t hold yourself back. Make sure you know how to play, even though you’re a grown up – if you don’t know how, you need to learn – otherwise you’ll be holding yourself back.

Five: learn how to give and receive feedback. For me, this is a lifelong learning process. To give constructive and useful feedback is one of the hardest things to do. You have to conceptualise the design, put it into a bigger context, and you have to explain what’s working and what isn’t – don’t use the ‘I think…’ argument. To receive feedback can be just as difficult, but it’s truly a gift if it’s delivered in the proper way.

Six: you are creative – and creativity is about inventing. Use your imagination and don’t stick to routines. Try to be aware of the culture and the physical environment that exists at your workplace and make sure you don’t get carried away with routines. Make an effort to nourish and develop your creativity and imagination.

Seven: learn how to write. I’m not saying you should become a copywriter, but you need to be able to show off your ideas – which includes through text. Often you need to start designing before the copy has arrived, so the ability to jot down some sort of copy to create a context is a huge help in almost every design process. Therefore, cut off the old excuse: ‘I’m not a copywriter, so why should I…’ and learn how to write.

Eight: don’t pitch. I’m well aware that this can lead to a gigantic discussion, so I’ll make it short: don’t pitch. Life is too short for that.

Nine: be cool. Creative people often, by nature, reject discipline and set surroundings. They are absent-minded, starry-eyed and they hate systems. And that’s cool. But no matter how crazy-creative-rock‘n’roll you are, you need to:
* Make your appointments – and always be on time.
* Respect your company and its ways of handling things, such as filing and registering time. At the end of the day, this is what brings home the bacon.

Ten: enjoy the ride. All rright, so these tips ended pretentiously anyway. But seriously, you ought to enjoy the ride.

Source

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/features/how-be-better-designer

10 ways to transfer your print skills to digital

Print’s far from dead, but you’d be a fool to ignore all the digital opportunities out there. Here are 10 tips to help you make the change

1 Stop being a control freak

Rule number one: your digital design work is about presenting information, but the way this information looks and the way it functions are two separate fields. CSS exists to take care of the look and formatting of information. Stop viewing it as a designer’s enemy and embrace it as a tool just like Photoshop or InDesign. It’ll pay off.

2 Picas to pixels

Picas are a physical measurement, and point size is a standard subdivision of this. But you learnt this in college two decades ago, right? Well, forget it. In digital, all dimensions are relative, so take the time to learn why you refer to your canvas space in pixels, and why type is measured in pixels and percentages.

3 RGB and hex

So you’re used to working with four colours, specials and fifths. Forget about them, too. Colour is the biggest hurdle facing designers shifting from print to digital, so get your head around RGB and hex values. Simply put, hex values are six-figure codes that represent an RGB colour in mark-up, where black is #000000, with R, G and B values all at zero per cent, and white is #ffffff with R, G and B at 100 per cent each. Easy, eh?

4 Legibility is still a priority

Unless you’re really trying to alienate your audience, make sure that legibility is priority number one. This means making text big enough to read, using embedded and system fonts suitable for reading on a backlit monitor or tablet, and giving images room to breathe. A safe rule of thumb to convert picas to point size is to double it and add two. This works well for body copy being redistributed from print to a tablet device, for instance.

5 Start in landscape

Sometimes you’ll be required to design a digital page layout twice: once for vertical use and once for horizontal, with the page dimensions switching between each. Always start with the latter, as this will often have a tighter fit than the vertical, and will therefore dictate the design and fitting of the content you’re working with. Once you’ve nailed the horizontal, carry over the main elements and page furniture to the vertical.

6 Go large with images

Images always look fantastic on a backlit screen, especially on pixel-packed tablets like the iPad and Kindle Fire. Make the most of this by using your imagery as large as possible. If you’re working on digital publications, use full-screen images to create dramatic pauses within an article. The real trick of digital magazines is in recreating that ‘stop and stare’ moment that’s so effective in print.

7 Typeface experiments

You might have a typeface library bursting at the seams with slab serifs and bespoke display fonts, but bear in mind their usage on mobile and desktop. You might be able to get away with using them as headline or impact fonts, but for body copy it’s best to stick with a rugged system font, especially if your digital edition will enable users to resize the point size.

8 Relearn the grid

Editorial and graphic design grids are based on columns, boxes and negative space, which combine together to aid the presentation of the content you’re working with. In the digital sphere the grid rests on a horizontal hierarchy as much as a descending one, especially on tablet devices where the left-to-right-swipe is a common continuity method. Think about how you can flow content up and down as well as from left to right.

9 Tablets are for touching

Don’t underestimate your user and cram precious screen space with instructions and calls to action that plead with them to ‘touch here for more content’. Users naturally poke and prod at touchscreens, so guide them to new content instead of ordering them to it. You’re a designer, so come up with a set of suitable icons – such as a plus and minus symbols – that convey functionality without having to explain it.

10 Don’t overreach

Just because you can do something in digital that you never could do in print doesn’t mean it’s absolutely necessary. For example, animated splash pages for websites that keep viewers hanging around are the digital equivalent of front-loading a publication with adverts; while clever page transitions on a tablet edition might look cool to you, they interrupt the reading process for the user. If in doubt, leave it out. That’s what we say.

All illustrations by Evgenia Barinova

Source

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/features/10-ways-transfer-your-print-skills-digital