At first glance, you may find the idea of skimming through yet another designer’s writeup on spec work a bit redundant. I can hear your collective sighs from here. It’s like a hot rolling gust of tired frustration, with a slightly bitter aftertaste.

Bear with me though, I think you may actually find this one useful.

What is Spec Work?

‘Spec Work’ is common parlance for speculative work, or working on speculation. Merriam-Webster’s defines speculation as: “the assumption of unusual business risk in hopes of obtaining commensurate gain” and “a transaction involving such speculation”.

In plain language, if you are asking designers to work for you with only the possibility of payment, and no contract or obligation of payment, you are asking for spec work.

Even more simply put: “do this work for us, and maybe we’ll pay you.”

Obviously, this is separate from volunteer or pro-bono projects, where it is clear from the outset that no payment will be involved.

Common Arguments

Arguments and anecdotes about spec work are a simple web search away, but to summarize, most center around an inherent lack of ethics, a lack of respect for the profession/person, and the fact that spec work by its very nature results in hurried, vapid concepts with no strategic advantage for the client. And while the arguments made by organizations such as No-Spec, GDC and AIGA are perfectly well based in fact, to the client these arguments have little context and at worst, can make designers look like touchy, pretentious jerks.

How to Respond to Spec Work Requests

The design industry’s governing bodies do provide sample letters to help guide our responses. Unfortunately, they all seem to miss the mark in some way, focusing on the damage to the designer rather than appealing more respectfully to the client’s point of view. Or, they’re just way too long to hold the client’s interest.

Reality check: the challenges of the shopkeeper are not the customer’s concern. In a perfect world, where everyone respects everyone else and all is ethical and honest, yes. But in our world, no. I’m not saying the client doesn’t care, but in the end the consumer’s primary interest is simply in getting what they need, under conditions most advantageous to them. They don’t need to hear your problems.

So then, how to respond to spec work requests without “being a d**k about it”?

Tips for Crafting Your Response

• • Remain at all times professional, level-headed, and respectful.
• • Formulate your response around the client’s concerns.
• • Neutralize the reasons you feel the client opted for spec work in the first place.
• • Keep it as short as you can (this one is difficult, as there is much to explain).
• • Stay calm. Spec work requests are incredibly insulting, but you need to rise above.
• • Again, do not let emotion taint your response. It’s tacky and counterproductive.
• • Keep your bridges burn-free with a reasonable counter-offer.

Sample Letter in Response to a Spec Work RFP

Below is a more generic version of the last letter I sent in response to a spec work RFP. This prospect contacted us out of the blue, on a personal referral from one of our oldest (and happiest) clients. Names have been removed, as the intent here is not to insult or embarrass, but to educate and assist.

Hopefully this will be of use to others who are increasingly finding themselves in the position of being asked to work without promise of payment.

Is it perfect? Of course not. We will continue to tweak and improve it as time goes on.

Despite the prospect’s dismissive response, we remain respectfully unwavering. My use of the word “luck” in closing was not without meaning. So too, was use of the phrase “company policy” in response to the prospect’s reference to “feelings”. Some concepts are universal enough to hold their own weight… namely, paying the people who work for you.

Now, although the response in this particular case was not positive, others certainly have been. It is important to note that many prospects simply don’t know any better (understandably) and will respond positively to a patient and respectful explanation. Still, others are committed to the idea of having people work for them without compensation, unconvinced that the quality of the work will suffer as a result. In these cases, only lessons hard-learned through doing things the wrong way first will change their minds.

In all situations, designers should continue to respond accordingly. The more that people stand up for what is right, the more ubiquitous their message becomes.

This can easily leave the customer feeling overwhelmed and a bit lost, especially in trying to establish a project budget.

A massive industry-wide disparity in qualifications and experience has yielded a widespread lack of understanding of what design is actually worth (on a monetary scale). Customers are largely misinformed when it comes to market value for professional design. A web search immediately yields a selection of companies offering logo design for $99, so that must be the going rate, no?

No.

For several reasons, pro designers do not like to discuss their rates in public. There are some concerns that such discussions may be misconstrued as price-fixing, which opens up a big stinking can of legal worms. There are others who are concerned that competitors will see their rates and undercut them, or that clients will be scared off by an hourly billable twice as high as a competing designer (who might take ten times longer to do the same work). And of course there remains the simple fact that every project is different, which means that pricing will differ according to client needs – as it should.

Frankly, I think every designer should publicly advertise their rates, so long as they are clear and honest about what the numbers represent. Publishing a range per service area is a good way to give your customers an idea of what you charge, without making any false promises.

In few other industries are vendors intimidated into keeping their prices a closely guarded secret. It seems the only people consistently and openly advertising their prices are crowd-sourcing sites, generic stock art sites, and contest-model/outsourcing wholesalers. As a result, these are the only numbers that customers are seeing, creating a false impression that ALL design services are represented by this handful of bottom-of-the-barrel vendors.

People who see a necklace at the dollar store don’t go into Tiffany’s and expect to pay a buck for any necklace in the shop, yet because the bottom end are the only prices being consistently advertised, this is the phenomenon we are dealing with in design.

Thankfully, GDC (Graphic Designers of Canada) and RGD (Registered Graphic Designers) conduct a biennial national survey on project fees and billing practices in the Canadian graphic design industry. AIGA does a similar review in the United States, though their survey is limited to salaries – useless data, from the customer’s standpoint.

Having worked in both the Canadian and American design industries for several years now, it has been our experience that the market rates in our countries are near interchangeable, with rates in the USA being only slightly higher than those here in Canada.

Averages for Project Fees

Respondents were career professionals with post-secondary education (95%) and an average of 10 years experience. They were asked to indicate fees for the projects described, excluding any reimbursable or out-of-pocket expenses. Note these are not our rates, they are averages that have been reported across our entire graphic design industry.

Given approximately one-third of respondents were freelancers, it would have been interesting to see rates as reported by registered design companies alone, however this survey still gives a fair (if broadly generalized) representation of what customers can expect to pay for quality work by people who know their stuff.

It was also nice to see that our own rates fell below the reported averages, though it was not surprising. We’re small and fat-free.

The survey results can be reviewed in more detail at http://www.rgdontario.ca – as soon as they publish the next report, we’ll update our site with the latest data.

These words came from one of our current clients, during the early wireframe phase of his first website. And although we make the process as easy as possible for our clients, it remains a valid point. Your website is your company’s public face after all, so you really do want to make sure that each and every detail is just right.

The process can be overwhelming for the uninitiated. If this describes you, read on. What follows is a basic, plain-language checklist for getting your organization online.

1. Purpose

Before you do anything else, you need to create a plan… and this plan needs to be centered around the question: What purpose do you want your website to serve?

In essence, you need to develop a proper job description for your website. What do you want it to DO for you? Will it be a simple informational marketing tool and point of contact? Will it serve as an online community, gallery or forum? Do you want an online storefront with e-commerce capabilities? Do you want to position yourself as an authority in your field through the provision of news and resources? The requirements for every website are unique, so you will need to decide which functions best serve your organization’s specific needs.

2. Web Host

A web host is not the same as your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Your ISP simply provides access to the internet. If you want a website of your own, you will need to effectively “rent” the space for it on a hosting company’s server.

A hosting company owns and maintains X number of servers. On each server, X number of websites is stored. With that in mind, there are three common options for hosting:

• • Shared means that you share a server with several other websites, and is the cheapest.
• • Dedicated hosting gets you a server all to yourself, and is the most expensive.
• • Semi-dedicated reserves a server for a very small number of clients.

For most websites, shared hosting with a quality hosting company is more than adequate. If you anticipate high volumes of traffic or bandwidth, however, you will want to look into dedicated or semi-dedicated hosting options. Keep in mind that servers are just like your own computer… if it is overloaded, outdated and neglected, it will perform slowly and inconsistently at best, and crash and fail at worst. Most bargain-basement hosting companies are able to offer cheap rates simply by squeezing as many accounts as possible onto a single, often outdated server. And then there’s the human element… when your email and website are down, quality customer service suddenly becomes very important.

Bad web hosts are a dime a dozen. It is imperative that you do your research, and choose a hosting company based on reliable measures of quality rather than gimmicks, sales or ad campaigns. Widely advertised does NOT equal quality. We both use and heartily recommend the pros at Fused, but always encourage clients to do their own research before deciding on which host best suits their needs.

3. Domain Name

Now that you have a home for your website, you need a relevant, easily identifiable address. The domain name (DNS) is the address that appears in the address bar in your web browser, excluding ‘http://www’ (e.g., our domain name is ‘sagemedia.ca’). Unfortunately, nobody owns a domain name for life. You need to register it (usually through your web host) to start, then renew it every year. If you don’t, someone else can and will buy it up, and your site will be rendered both nameless and inaccessible.

Choosing a domain name is a frustrating, but important process. It is frustrating because of the simple fact that if it is a recognizable word, chances are someone has already registered it… even if they’re not using it. There exists a scourge on legitimate online businesses everywhere known as domain squatters… these people buy up thousands of domain names, and simply sit on them until someone comes along who wants a name so badly that they are willing to pay an exorbitant price to buy it from the squatter. Squatters also buy up versions of existing business names and fill the pages with pay-per-click ads (known as link farms) so they generate ad revenue for themselves by capitalizing on well known companies. Your choice of domain name is nonetheless important – it needs to be relevant to your company (containing your company’s name), easily remembered, and easy to spell. Once you’ve committed to a name, you’ll want to stick with it.

4. Target

Further to your initial plan, it is important to decide exactly who you want to communicate with online. Your target audience should already have been established in your business plan. In planning your website, you need to keep in mind what THEIR needs are. Are they looking for information; Do they need a problem solved (hint: the answer is always yes); Do they want to be entertained, educated, or simply served? Combined with your purpose (and as you’ll see, intertwined as well), a sharp focus on the target audience is central to your website strategy.

5. USP

Following from the previous items, your website will need to emphasize and reinforce your USP, or Unique Selling Point. This is the reason why people will choose to come to your site (and your company) rather than your competitors. Note you can’t get to this point without first developing an understanding of your target audience. The USP is the answer to your customer’s problems.

6. Budget

As the single most important online marketing investment your company will make, you will need to determine a realistic and appropriate budget for the design and development of your company’s website. Plan to invest well into four figures for a properly planned, well designed and expertly executed business website. Rates vary wildly between providers – the web design field is largely unregulated, so be sure that you look for qualifications, reviews and referrals, and know exactly who you’re hiring. This includes confirming precisely who will be doing the actual work, as many ‘design’ companies are simply middlemen outsourcing contracts to unqualified overseas labour farms.

7. Content

Given this article is being written by a designer, it may surprise you to see content weighing in first. The fact is, effective design relies on high quality content to provide context, depth, and relevance. If you think of your design as a restaurant, your content would be the food. Note that content is also not limited to the text within your pages; it also refers to images and brand materials (like your logo, for example). These are things that your designer should be provided with upfront, so they can move forward with context and purpose.

8. Persona

Refer back to the parameters covered in previous checklist items – namely your purpose, USP, and target audience. These items will help guide you in narrowing down a personality for your website. As part of a more thorough consultation, any reputable designer will ask you fairly early in the process to provide them with a mood-board, or a selection of exemplar sites that portray the sort of image you want for your business (in addition to industry relevant examples of what you explicitly do NOT feel represents you). Obviously, the purpose is not to find something to copy, but rather to better define the mood and theme for your online presence.

9. Website Design

This is the fun part, though it doesn’t quite start out that way. Clearly, you’ll need to research and choose a qualified, reputable designer. Find someone you feel comfortable with, review their portfolio, look for customer reviews, learn about their company and philosophies, and enter their name into a search engine. Finally, be sure to review the design company’s terms and conditions. There are many designers whose terms specify that they (not you) retain ownership of all materials in perpetuity, placing restrictions on your usage. Remember, you will be investing a significant amount of time, trust, effort and capital in creating your website, so it is most certainly worth your time to ensure you really are choosing the right professional for the job.

Following your initial consultation and scope development, your designer will generally develop a wireframe for your approval. This serves as the skeleton for your site, establishing general placement/layout and structural presentation of site elements. It’s boring, but it is important. Spending a little time here now will save a lot of time later on.

The wireframe will be followed by a visual concept presentation for your homepage. If all of the preliminary steps have been covered thoroughly and thoughtfully (by both the designer and yourself) and communication has been clear, this will generally serve as the starting point for your site. Of course, you may want to tweak some colours, graphic treatments or images to make the design perfect in your eyes. Remember though, your eyes are not the important ones… it is the eyes of your customers you really need to consider. And it is your designer’s job to communicate your message with your target audience squarely in mind.

The design phase finishes with your visual layouts contained within PSD files. If your designer is also your developer, the transition to the next step will be seamless.

10. Website Development

If your website designer and developer are the same person, they will already have been provided with the required functionality and content for your site. If you are going with a separate developer, you will need to provide them with PSD files for the site (provided by your designer) as well as a detailed outline of exactly what you want each part of the site to do, and an outline of your content. They will then turn your visual design into a fully functional, working piece of communicative art (in code).

Like designers, web developers are not created equal. Not by a long shot. Web development is a rapidly changing and ever-evolving field, with different technologies and techniques being created, updated, and rendered obsolete on a daily basis. Web standards are important to ensure that your website looks and works as it should for the maximum possible number of visitors, though even that is no guarantee. Your developer will also need to test the site for cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility (because not all browsers follow standards). The way your site is coded is incredibly important for usability, accessibility, and will have a strong impact on how your site ranks in search engines. So choose someone who really knows what they’re doing.

11. Launch

While there are certainly other considerations insofar as pre-launch marketing goes, at this point your website is technically ready to deploy. Your developer will want to migrate your site onto your server for you (the one that your domain name points to, provided by your hosting company), and then complete one final set of tests to make sure that everything continues to work the way it should in its new home. This is another reason your choice of hosting companies is important – the software installed on the server needs to be up-to-date so it can support the latest standards in development.

12. Corollaries

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is an entire industry unto itself, with intricacies that extend far beyond the scope of this article. At minimum, if you want anyone to find your website on a search engine, your developer needs to employ best practices in organic, white-hat search engine optimization. Organic simply means that the optimization is contained within the code, content and build of the site itself. White-hat means that the methods employed are not prohibited or frowned-upon by the search engines themselves. Google et al WILL blacklist any website it finds that tries to circumvent the rules through unscrupulous SEO techniques.

There are additional SEO tactics you can (and should) employ yourself to maximize your exposure. Search engines rank sites higher if they have regular updates with new content, and a good number of quality inbound links. This does not mean link exchanges necessarily, as search engines often penalize sites that offer little in the way of actual content. Basically, the more high-ranking websites you can get to link back to your site, the better.

Social Media

These days, everyone and their mother has a profile on Facebook and Twitter. Professionals will also have a profile on LinkedIn. Setting yourself up with a presence on social media can draw visitors to your site, IF handled properly. In order for this to work, you will need to invest time into keeping your profiles up to date, and you will need to make sure your contributions are relevant, appropriate, and suitably engaging for your visitors.

Offline Marketing

The web is an incredibly important medium for marketing your business. However, you should not make the mistake of ignoring classic offline marketing techniques and resources. Be sure to update all of your promotional and corporate materials to include your website address and branded email. This includes just about everything that has your logo on it, including your business cards, stationery, signage, advertising, packaging, etc. If a customer sees an ad on the side of a bus as it rolls by, they will be significantly more likely to retain a website address than any other method of contact advertised.

Your Browser

While your website will have been tested and developed to function in older browsers, it cannot be optimized for them. Current best practices and up-to-date techniques are simply not supported by many obsolete browsers, requiring secondary options and workarounds. So, open whichever browser you prefer to use, and update it to the latest version. It’s free, it’s easy, and it has the potential to improve your online experience exponentially.

Although this article has been fairly lengthy, it really is just a primer on the most important fundamentals of launching a new website. If an effective result is to be expected, the process becomes an involved one that requires considerable investment and effort on the part of the client and the designer/developer. It also requires a high level of expertise. As always, research is important. Hopefully this checklist will have you well on your way.

Even if you have no interest in design theory and fundamentals, for the sake of your business there is one point that should never be forgotten: the purpose of design is communication.

Communication Demands Relevance

Each industry has a unique audience, with unique needs & expectations. What works for a law firm website will not necessarily translate well to the design of a catering company website. In an industry flooded with generic templates and unqualified or (worse) apathetic service providers, this simple fact is often overlooked. For this reason, we present to you the first in a series of Web Design Anatomy articles. Motivated by the short and frustratingly familiar script referenced here, our first article will deal with Restaurant Websites.

Why Does a Restaurant Need a Website?

We’re not talking generalities here – in today’s marketplace just about EVERY type of business needs an online presence if they want to stay competitive. More specifically, we are asking the question: what is the purpose of a restaurant website?

The reductionist answer is twofold:
• To create an attraction between diners and your restaurant
• To provide the information they need to spend their money there

Attraction

This is the point that far too many restaurant owners get caught up in, at least superficially. It’s no secret that we are not supporters of Flash to the detriment of accessibility or functionality. How can you attract when you can’t be seen? It’s best to consider Flash as just one specialized tool in a very well stocked toolbox… it serves a niche function, comes with a ball of strings attached, and with advancements in the capabilities of JavaScript is quickly becoming obsolete.

It is important to present an impressive online image that represents everything great about your restaurant. But in order to make that impression, diners need to be able to actually VIEW your website. If they are out driving around, browsing for a restaurant on their iPhone, they will not be able to view your Flash website. At all. If they are using a search engine to find a restaurant, yours will likely be way down the list, as search engine optimization techniques for Flash sites are crippled, at best. There is also the issue of not being able to copy/paste, or bookmark individual pages. Statistically, Flash sites have an exponentially higher abandon rate than XHTML/CSS based sites.

Information

Following is a short list of requirements that every restaurant website should have in order to provide customers with the information they’re seeking:

• Restaurant Overview
  A basic introduction to your restaurant is a must. Even if you think the name of your restaurant is self-explanatory, people still like to see how you describe yourself. If you have any unique selling points (local-sourced or seasonal ingredients, fair-trade, vegetarian options, etc.) this is a great place to mention them.
• Location
  Diners need to know where you are, and how to get there. You don’t need to provide directions from every corner of town, but an address, basic map, and link to a direction-giving site like Google Maps is very helpful indeed. BONUS: include a photograph of the front of your restaurant, so first-time visitors will recognize it easily from the street.
• Hours
  Basic stuff, here. And this is very near the top of the list of priorities when a diner visits your website. Make them easy to find.
• Menu
  Your food is your business! If ever there were an influential and unique selling point, it would be a mouth-watering menu. Words paint a picture, here. Don’t just scan your paper menu into an annoying PDF file, either – invest in having a digital menu designed to complement your physical one. This is the page people will want to bookmark.
• Photos
  A picture surely does speak a thousand words. Show what you’ve described in your menu, and make the imagery so vivid that it elicits a Pavlovian response in your visitors. Show your food, show your restaurant, your staff, and your dining room. The food is the star, but the experience is the whole package.
• Reviews
  This is not a must-have, but it certainly is nice. Reviews are the first thing many people look at when considering a new restaurant to try. If your restaurant has been reviewed in print, you definitely want to boost the influence that press affords by including it in your website. If you’re not in print, patch in reviews from consumer sites like UrbanSpoon or Restaurantica, or any of the other dozens of options available in any given city. And if you’re brand-spanking-new, include a reviews page with a simple request and link for people to visit a chosen review site, and let the world know what they thought of their experience with you.
• Reservation/Contact Info
  This area can be the deal-closer in many cases. If you make it easy and painless for people to book a table, guess what they’ll be more likely to do? Provide an easy-to-find phone number, of course, but also consider bookings by email, or requests via a form on your website. You can even program in live reservations through services like OpenTable.

How to Annoy Your Customers

Some food for thought, straight from the horses’ mouths:

“I’m always taken aback when music emanates from my speakers when I’m viewing a site”

“Flash required. Biggest irritant of a restaurant website. Even more so if they have an “Intro” graphic/animation. Two of my fav places use flash for their sites and it’s very very annoying. Even more annoying with flash is not being able to copy/paste phone numbers.”

“Can’t stand it when a site starts with music or that stupid talking character/video. I’ve got my own playlist going already, thanks. I don’t want your music. And when I’ve opened a ton of tabs at once, skimming through to find a cool place to eat, it’s always a pain to figure out which ones are making the noise.”

“I have my windows set up so that everything is sized and positioned the way I want it. Nothing bugs me more than when a website takes over your browser and forces it to fill the screen.”

“Flash, flash, flash. I don’t care about your intro. I don’t want to watch a video of leaves unfurling. Atmosphere is nice, but I usually end up closing these sites before they’re even done loading.”

“Where’s the damn menu?! I scour the site for ages, then when finally find it, it’s a crappy PDF.”

Who Does It Right

Here are just a few examples of restaurants with websites that walk the walk in terms of design, attractiveness to their own target customer base, and serving their purpose through the provision of convenient, easy-to-find information.

Each of these sites has a design that appeals the demographics the restaurants are trying to attract. They look great. They work the way they should. And information is very easy to find.

The central lesson in all design, whether it be for print, digital distribution, or the web, is that (the right kind of) communication is king. The goal for any company’s website is to sell a product, service or idea. Obviously you want to look good doing it, but dressing up for a job interview will do you no good if you can’t communicate with your prospective bosses. And let’s face it… the customer is the boss.

It is important to note that web design projects can range from the very basic (e.g., PSD deliverables for under a grand) to the mind-twistingly complex (some website budgets can reach seven digits). If you don’t provide a clear picture of what you need, there’s no way a design company can quote on it.

Perhaps just as frustrating are the manuscript-sized RFPs that land in our inbox, obviously the product of committee-think run amok. If your designer needs a lawyer to decipher your RFP, and twenty working hours to compile a response to your specs, you’re doing it wrong. In general, we don’t even respond to these. Not because we’re afraid of work, but rather because the RFP sets the tone for the entire project – if you can’t be concise and respectful of our time now, it’s not likely going to happen in the thick of the project either.

In order for a designer and client to determine whether and how they’re going to be able to work together, a clear definition of the project requirements and expectations is needed.

A good web design RFP neatly and clearly lays out what you are looking to accomplish with your site, and helps to align your designer with your goals and objectives. Writing an RFP may seem a bit daunting at first, but it doesn’t have to be – taking a moment now will save countless hours down the road, and will ensure that your designer can develop an accurate proposal for your project.

So, before you even get to the point of contacting a designer, you’ll want to take a moment to write up a proper Request for Proposal. To help you in this task, we’ve put together a simple guide to walk you through the process.

The 10 Essential Components in a Web Design RFP

1. Company Overview
This section introduces us to your company. As such, the content should be fitting for an introduction (not a thesis). Briefly tell us who you are, what you do, size of company, current url, and what your overarching corporate vision or mission statement is.

2. Project Overview
Describe in plain English your current web site situation, and give us an overview of what the project is going to entail. Don’t try to be too formal or politically correct here… oftentimes corporate semantics can muddle the message. Write in precisely the manner you’d describe the project to a friend.

3. Project Goals and Objectives
This section is the spot to list your short term and long term objectives for the project, as well as your motivation for investing in your web site. It aims to answer the question, “why are you here?” Is your website outdated? Have you expanded your services/product line? Are you marketing to a different target audience? Are you trying to attract job candidates? Or are you finding your existing site isn’t converting to enough sales? Tell us what you want to achieve.

4. Technical Parameters
Here’s where the client’s eyes begin to glaze over. If you know what the technical requirements for the project entail, this is where you tell us. These parameters range from the basics (how many pages and unique layouts do you need; do you need hosting; do you need a domain name) to more advanced questions (do you require programming in one specific language over another; is your current site in php, .net, asp, cold fusion etc; do you need databases; do you have license or preference for a given e-commerce platform). If it doesn’t matter, tell us that too – giving your designer the option to work in their preferred language will save you money and time.

5. Usability Requirements
Usability testing is a frequently overlooked step in web site design and development. Just as companies will put new products through focus groups as part of the R&D process, a web site should be put through at least a basic round of usability testing to determine how well the design and build works in practice. If you’re interested in developing a persona or having us perform user research as part of the development process, tell us here. If not, you will still need to tell us about your audience. If you have relevant statistics about the demographics of your current web site visitors, refer to them here. If you have a specific flow you would like your visitors to follow, run through it with us.

6. Functional Parameters
In layman’s terms, this section asks the question, “What do you want your website to DO?” We need you outline the features and functionality you’ll be wanting to see on your site (this could be things like a secure members area, contact forms, file upload functions, database development to store lead info, content management system to edit your own content, custom admin area, newsletter opt-in form, blogs, news sections, discussion forums, faq or knowledgebase, or e-commerce to sell products).

7. Proposal Directions
This is where you ask questions of us, and tell us how you want your proposal laid out. For example, many RFPs will ask designers to describe their experience, show sample work, outline a process plan for the project, provide bios of key personnel, or provide a list of references. A lot of this is basic stuff that should be available on your designer’s website to begin with, and similarly is probably already a part of their proposal boilerplate. But if you have special questions for us, throw these in here too. We recently responded to an RFP asking us to list our top ten favourite music artists – the project was run of the mill, but the question was so entertaining we just had to respond.

8. Contact Information
Here you should include the name, email, billing address and phone number of the project leader. Indicate how you’d like the proposal submitted (email, fax, post, courier) and give a timeline.

9. Budget
This is another item that a lot of clients skip over. We understand that you want to get as much as you can for as little as possible (it’s human nature), and we also understand that a small proportion of unscrupulous designers will pad their quotes to max out your budget. We’re not in that group, and we don’t play that game. Be honest about what you can afford, and we’ll be honest and respectful about what we can give you within those parameters. Even if your budget is a little lacking, there are usually compromises that can be made here and there to accommodate you. If you don’t have a budget set at all, then you’re not ready to be undergoing this step – your business plan should already include budgets for marketing and corporate identity development.

10. Timeframe
This is an easy one – if you have a rough date by which you’d like the project done, let us know here. Similarly, if you have specific deadlines, we’ll need to know those as well. Remember, most designers will charge a premium for rush jobs – you’re bumping other paying clients out of queue when you request priority status.

At the end of the day, every RFP is going to be different. This list is simply meant to be a guideline to help you get the most accurate, thorough and honest project estimate from your designer. You may want to adjust your RFP to suit the scope of your website, but you shouldn’t need much more than what’s outlined here.

Whether or not you ultimately choose to go with us, we’re always happy to help should you need help assembling your RFP.

Already have an RFP? Send it our way.

What follows is a recounting of one man’s frustration at the restaurant industry’s infatuation with Flash. Enjoy.

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A conversation I have every month or so

Me: (tries to visit a local restaurant’s website via iPhone)
Restaurant website: I require Flash. F**k off.
Me: I just want to know how late you’re open.
Website: Nope.
Me: But I’m on my phone. Don’t you have a little “HTML Version” link up in the corner or something?
Website: I’m ignoring you.
Me: What if I’m on my phone because I’m out, looking for a place to eat? Didn’t that ever occur to you?
Website: F**k entirely off.
Me: (gives up, switches to computer)
Website: Oh! Hi! What can I help you with today?
Me: What are your —
Website: Hang on, I’m loading the music.
Me: Really.
Website: You’ll love it. It’s “Girl from Ipanema” arranged for steel drum and keytar.
Me: No, you don’t have to —
Website: Loading…
Me: All I want is —
Website: I SAID DOT DOT DOT.
Me: (drums fingers on desk)
Website: There we go. Isn’t that nice? It’s… what’s the word. Ethnicky.
Me: What are your hours?
Website: Take a look at our menu! It’s a PDF of a screenshot of a scan of a Word document printed on a dishtowel. With fonts!
Me: I don’t care. What are your hours?
Website: Don’t worry, the menu loads in a new window so the music won’t stop. Can I show you some broken images?
Me: What. Are. Your. Hou. Rs.
Website: I… I don’t know.
Me: (goes to Denny’s)

Visit the Source: Venomous Porridge
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

As much as I might be tempted to rail and ramble on about the detriments of Flash to concepts like website usability and UX (user experience), it somehow seems folly to think I could be quite as succinct or relateable as Mr. Wineman’s script above.

If you’re a restaurant owner, the next time a designer tries to sell you on an overpriced Flash site with all the bells and whistles… take a moment and think about the purpose your website actually serves. And think of Mr. Wineman. He could have been one of your best customers.

That’s not to say that hiring (or being) a freelancer is a bad idea. The pearls are there, and they are worth the swim if you’ve got the legs for it. The problem – or at least one of them – centers around an over saturated and under regulated marketplace.

The Business Owner Perspective

In our early days, we hired too many people who only felt the need to earn their way inside the door… then promptly slumped to a drooling, whiny, expensive heap on the other side. They didn’t last long. Now, we test run our designers through freelance assignments before offering anything close to a permanent position – and our criteria for freelancers in the first place border on the punitive.

Other business owners only have temporary or occasional need for designers, which makes the long and expensive process of retaining a permanent employee more than a bit undesirable. Unless you’re the Federal government and enjoy wasting time and money. But that’s another story.

It’s obvious enough to say that when a business owner (or manager) needs a designer, they want someone who will do the job, do it efficiently, and do it spectacularly well. But the process of finding such a rare beast is a daunting one.

Searching for Freelance Designers

Google, for all its virtues, has failed us here. Searches around the topic of freelancers yield an overwhelming number of contest, bidding, and crowd-sourcing sites… which the majority of experienced designers avoid like the plague. If you want something unrealistically cheap and enjoy such pastimes as Russian Roulette, then you have found your holy grail in these sites. Good luck to you.

What’s wrong with contest/crowd-sourcing sites? Think about it. Assume you are a lawyer with all of the appropriate education and experience. A firm approaches you and says: “We are asking 1000 people at random to work for us for a month, we’re not going to provide the resources needed to do the job properly, pay is below minimum wage, and we are only going to pay one of you.” Would you bite? No. No professional would. The only people working in those situations are the desperate and the unqualified.

For the rest of us, it seems the trick is to omit the word ‘freelance’ or any variation of it from your search. Instead, look for phrases like “graphic design portfolio” or “graphic design company”. You’ll still get a lot of garbage, but at least you’ll have a chance at catching a glimpse of where the pearls have been hiding.

Big and Small are Not Mutually Exclusive

Think your startup is too small for a good design company to bother with? Wrong. Many established design companies love startups – you are a clean slate and usually fun to work with. Be honest and fair about your budget, and if it’s realistic they will find a way to help. Even if they’re enormous, they will usually have interns or students (properly supervised) chomping at the bit to work on your project.

Think an small team or individual freelancer won’t serve your multinational corporation well? Wrong again. These key players can have the advantage on the big design houses precisely because of their size. They are agile enough to respond to your emails the same day, and push that big project through within the month. All without the red tape and endless circular meetings chewing away at your budget.

Alright, So Where Do I LOOK?

Well you’re here aren’t you?
Am I really that cheeky? I suppose yes, at times.

If we’re not your style, here are a few places I have come to rely on when searching for individual (quality) freelancers:

• • Behance
• • Creattica
• • Krop
• • Portfolio Base
• • Stationery Style
• • Pattern Tap

Caveat Emptor

Regardless of the circumstances, there are always sharks hunting nearby. There are people passing off templates and stock materials as their own designs. There are kids just looking to make a bit of spending money, without having the skills or experience to produce something your business can or should rely on. There are offshore outsourcing companies who hire thousands of employees with “no experience or education required”.

So do your homework. Scour portfolios. Read customer reviews. Send an email and see how long it takes them to get back to you. Make sure they know what they’re doing – because if they don’t, you’re the one who pays.

Providing exceptional design is not the full picture of what our company does. For a professional firm, quality of design should be a given. What keeps people coming back is the combination of high quality work product, and excellent customer service. And the same is true with any business.

Last week, my husband scheduled an appointment for me at my favourite spa. I’d been working such long hours that I hadn’t had time for a haircut since last Canada Day. I had forgotten how unbelievably nice it is to walk into a quiet, warm, lovely smelling room, have the receptionist stand up, take my coat, welcome me by name (AND pronounce it correctly) and get me a nice hot tea. And my hairdresser is not only genuinely friendly but also exceptionally talented, so it provides the full experience for me: quality plus service. As a result, I didn’t mind too much when they last raised their prices.

So what does this have to do with your business?

Simple. All other things being equal, great service standards give you a key point of differentiation from your competitors. You just need to commit to it, and make it an integral part of your organizational SOP.

A Few Things You Can Do…

Share the Love
A great service experience starts with consistent affirmation that your client made the right choice. It does little good to make a big fuss over prospects, only to forget about them once they become customers.

Create a Comfort Zone
People are resistant to change, and working with a new company makes people nervous. You can get rid of any ambiguity or uncertainty by explaining what your clients should expect. This simple act of letting your clients know how things work is called “Future Pacing”. Through knowing what to expect in working with you, your clients will have a higher level of comfort and security in their decision.

Be Predictable
This follows from future pacing. If you know what you’re doing (and you should if you want to stay in business) you’ll have a set of proven processes in place, to ensure consistent and predictable results for your clients every time. Your processes reflect your professionalism. Promoting your processes fosters trust in your abilities, and respect for what you do.

Take Nothing for Granted
I wrote another article about this not too long ago. The little things all add up, so don’t neglect them. The more consideration you give the small details in your service experience, the more valuable you will be to your clients.

Up Sell
Clients come to you because they have a specific need. As they work with you, they’ll likely realize that they have other, related needs you could also fulfill. You need to make it easy for your client to purchase other services from you. You don’t need to give them the hard-sell… doing your job well and providing excellent service does that for you. It can be as simple as a sell-sheet that lists all of the services you provide. Something for them to keep in mind, just in case.

Better to have it and not need it…
than need it and not have it. My mother’s favourite saying when we argued about bringing umbrellas to school on a sunny day. The reality is, problems happen. A smart business person will anticipate them, and have a plan in place should things go wrong. Let your clients know what to do when they have issues or concerns.

Be There
Service providers are busy, even when they’re not. In the minds of clients, this could be construed as being flaky, inaccessible, or apathetic. Make sure your schedule allows for peak service periods, and that you are both accessible and engaged when your client needs you. Be organized, and come to meetings fully prepared. Connecting with your clients means just that.

Embrace Client Reviews
Don’t fear the social media machine. Feedback, reviews and testimonials hold far more weight than any advertising campaign. Ask for feedback after each project, both positive and negative. The positive will help you establish credibility, and the negative will help you improve.

Eliminate Surprises
You need to be fully transparent in your work. This includes billing (which is very important for clients). Your invoices should be timely, itemized, and free from hidden or unexpected upcharges. There’s nothing that irks me more than having a waitress ask if I want a particular side dish with my dinner, then being billed extra for it at the end. It’s not the extra dollar or so that bothers me, it’s the sneaky factor. And the result is the dissolution of trust. If something is not included, tell your clients beforehand.

Mind Your Manners
The phrase “thank you” is simple, it’s free, and it has the potential to have a profound effect on your business. Be genuine, and thank your clients often. You are fortunate that they are choosing to work with you. You are not simply entitled to anyone’s patronage. Voice your appreciation whenever you can.

Creating an exceptional service experience makes your business more profitable, and infinitely more referable. There is no advertising quite so effective as a base of loyal, satisfied customers.

Thanks to Michael Huggins for the blog-fodder.

Led by Dieter Rams, the Braun of the seventies embraced a design sensibility that was both minimalist and modernist-inspired, leaving us with a collection of timeless pieces that are fast disappearing into the homes of collectors worldwide.

Though product design is slightly removed from what we do at Sage, their approach to what Rams called ‘Good Design’ translates quite well.

Ten Principles of Good Design

1. Good Design is innovative
2. Good Design makes a product useful
3. Good Design is aesthetic
4. Good Design helps us to understand a product
5. Good Design is unobtrusive
6. Good Design is honest
7. Good Design is durable
8. Good Design is consequent to the last detail
9. Good Design is concerned with the environment
10. Good Design is pure and simple

For nearly 30 years, Dieter Rams served as head of design at Braun until his retirement in 1998. Many of his designs have found permanent homes in museums and galleries around the world, including MoMA in New York. And much like his designs themselves, the principles he helped to define for the industry have a lasting, timeless quality.

Famous for defining ‘good design’ as ‘as little design as possible’, Rams had a full appreciation for the importance of clarity over cacophony – and that’s a tenet that travels incredibly well. I have a feeling the man’s influence will endure for years to come.

A little video produced by Scofield Editorial gives some context to these tendencies, in a way that’s sure to make fellow creatives laugh. Then maybe cry a little.