Lizzie Wa Design

Lecture One – Stuart Tolley talks to Emma Harvens and Lucy Warburton who work on the build and become series. 

They created a series of book about smart thinking and personal development with the aim to create a series of book different to others out there. 

They wanted to ensure the designer they used for the series was invested in the project as well. They usually find designer from recommendations. The project wanted to be deigned to make it almost like a brand across the series. 

In the office they ran a focus group to show the early design styles to staff and kept asking ‘is this right?’, until they settled on a design. 

When working with designers they also make sure to one have one voice giving feedback to the designer, to keep things clear and allow a relationship to grow between the two. 

I think this lecture touched on some interesting points. The client is always going to be very invested and passionate about their product or project, so they want to work with a designer who is going to get excited about it as well. I also think designating one person to give feedback to the designer is a good idea. It stops the designer being bombarded with changes, cuts down the possibility for confusion or mistakes and it allows the client and designer to build more of a relationship that may lead to further work or recommendations. 

Lecture Two – Hamish Makgill 

Hamish set up studio Makgill in 200. Before that he worked freelance, and before that he set up Red design with a fellow designer straight after he finished university. 

He says that they set up the studio as they didn’t think anyone would employ them. It took them a few months to get set up and they had to learn it all the hard way. The idea behind the studio was to design record sleeves and create good quality work. 

However, it got to the point that the worked had moved too far away from what he wanted to do creatively, so he decided it was time to walk away from the company. Leaving a partnership was a difficult process. 

He believes that when he was working freelance, it was when he developed the most as a designer. He was working in agencies and taking on good projects, while also learning valuable industry experience. 

He thinks that as a good designer you have to be able to walk in your clients shoes, you have to understand and empathise with them. 

Hamish started studio Makgill in Brighton in 2007. He started with no clients as he didn’t want to take any from previous employers, so he supplemented his income with teaching to start with. 

The idea behind his studio is ‘beautifully simple’.

The studio had 6 members of staff, one being a studio manager and they also have a financial advisor who helps them to manage cash flow. Hamish takes responsibility for getting new clients and they take on a wide variety of projects. 

He believes it is important to have close contacts in the design world to support you and so you can ask people for advice. When setting up a studio he thinks you should work out what you do and why. Who you want to work for and what you say about yourself. You have to be accountable and add value through your designs. 

I think that Studio Magill’s ethos of ‘beautifully simple’ is a great way to get them to stand out as a studio.  It is clear and accessible for clients to understand what kind of design they will be getting from the studio. I think choosing a design style as the basis of your company instead of a client base or section of design is an interesting approach and really allows a studio to build its own brand and look that will be evident across everything they produce. 

The Client is not your enemy – Chris Do 

Chris Do talks about the importance in having a purpose beyond making money when you set up a design business. He thinks you need a big goal to work towards in your work as the person you become trying to achieve it is the important part. 

He thinks that if you are working for a client, you have to drop your ‘artist persona’ and instead listen just to what the client wants. I think this is an interesting point, when working for a client you are trying to solve their problem not create something for you. However, I don’t think it is as clean cut as Do claims. The client comes to a specific designer because of their style and expertise, this is what gives you value as a designer and should be respected. I personally think this needs to be more of a balance between working for the client and letting your artist persona come out at times. 

He believes that the better service you provide, the more valuable you become to the client and are therefore likely to get more work from them. You need to be empathic and think about what it would be like to be them. You would want to be treated with respect, listened to and have a personalised service just for you. (Chris Do 2015)

He thinks a good way to ensure the client, designer relationship works well is to define the goal as well as you can early on. You need to use simple language and ask alot of questions to get to the centre of the clients problem that needs solving. You want to address what the client needs not what they want. 

I read this article that was recommended on the ideas wall. https://webflow.com/blog/client-designer-relationship 

It gave some really useful points to ensure the client designer relationship works well:

• Set expectations and boundaries early on
• Communicate – open and honestly 
• Explain yourself in a way that a non-designer would understand and be patient 
• Don’t take things personally 
• Good client relationships take work 

From this research it seems like a common theme is treating the client well. If you set clear goals, maintain regular contact and work with the client instead of fighting against them you are going to create better results and are more likely to get repeat business. It is important to empathise with them and see the process from their perspective as they are the ones who need to love the final design. 

Workshop Challenge 

How do you write a client facing strategic document for the purpose of a new business challenge?

I started off by researching why I need a business plan and how they are often formatted. I looked at the government website to find an introduction to the main reasons to write one. (Government Digital Service 2012)

A business plan is a written document that describes your business. It covers objectives, strategies, sales, marketing and financial forecasts.

A business plan helps you to:

• clarify your business idea
  • Design for planet centred or people centred companies 
• spot potential problems
  • Aiming at companies/ charities that may not have big budgets 
  • Getting clients in the first place 
• set out your goals
  • Make enough money to survive 
  • Start with 4 projects a month/ 1 a week?
• measure your progress

(Government Digital Service 2012)

On top of this it seems that a business plan can help you to plan out certain parts of your company and how it will run from finances to marketing. This document can then we used to convince other people or banks to back you business, or simply be used as a way to check what you will need to so to ensure your company success. (Start Up Donut 2019)

The Princes Trust offer up some more good tips on how our plan should be. They say:

• Be concise
• Be specific
• Know your market
• And know your budget 

I looked at some of their example business plans to get an idea of content and structure. The language used is quite cold and formal a lot of the time. 

In this project a large chunk of my business plan will be client facing, so I will need to adapt the tone of voice used slightly to make it more appropriate for the audience. 

(Prince’s Trust 2019)

My company would be a freelance designer or a studio of one. I am going to set my business plan as something realistic but also optimistic. As I am quite early in my career it may take a few years until I have gained the appropriate experience to start this company, but I am going to write the business plan as if I am already at this stage. 

I started to write notes about:

• my goals (3 or 5 years and how I will achieve them)
• my audience 
• marketing strategy
• my services 
• Timescales for projects
• Pricing for projects

I decided to write the first part of my plan as a client facing document, that would act like an expression of interest, for the client to understand my company and decide if we were right for them. This section would need to fit to the personality and tone of voice of my brand and be clear for a client to understand. 

I will then add in some parts of a more traditional business plan at the end. This will cover finances, marketing and future plans and projections. This section would be more private and used to help me to understand and plan the steps I would need to take to ensure my company was successful. 

I used some template spreadsheets from the British Business Bank to work out my cash flow. First I looked at my personal expenses to work out what salary I would need:

Then I looked at projected sales. From my week two project I knew roughly how to price my services. To work out some projected sales I created 4 possible packages and priced them up on a £250 day rate. It would be hard to say exactly how much each project will be in reality, but this helped me to get an insight into how many jobs and of what size I would need a month for the company to survive.

I could then work out how my cash flow would work:

I then started to write up my business plan:

I updated the logo I created for my studio in Week One as I felt like the original one was a bit too childish. I found a more sophisticated font to make the branding look a bit more serious.

I then used the font combination as well as the colour scheme to base my business plan design on. I added in lots of photography to make the document more visually interesting but also add a human and relatable element to the document.

EOI and Business Plan

The business plan design is still a work in progress currently.

Reflection

Turning my initial company idea into a full business proposal this week was exciting but also a challenge. I think that the process of looking at how the company will run and what it needs to be successful will be incredibly useful if I do decide to set up my now company or work freelance as its given me a much greater understanding for the financial side of things as well as a clear view of the kind of work I want to be doing and how I’d like to work. My business plan still has a long way to go and there is much more I would like to research and analyse given more time.

Reference list

CHRIS DO. 2015. “The Client Is Not Your Enemy: Redefining Your Client Relationship.” http://www.youtube.com [online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k22HKpzDMg4 [accessed 25 Jun 2021].

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES COUNCIL. 2021. “The Value of the UK Design Industry – the Creative Industries.” http://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk [online]. Available at: https://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk/facts-figures/industries-design-design-facts-and-figures-the-value-of-the-uk-design-industry [accessed 25 Jun 2021].

GOVERNMENT DIGITAL SERVICE. 2012. “Write a Business Plan.” GOV.UK [online]. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/write-business-plan.

HEALTH ASSURED. 2019. “Employee Assistance Programmes | Health Assured.” Health Assured [online]. Available at: https://www.healthassured.org/employee-assistance-programmes/.

PRINCE’S TRUST. 2019. “Business Plans and Templates | Business Tools | the Prince’s Trust.” Princes-trust.org.uk [online]. Available at: https://www.princes-trust.org.uk/help-for-young-people/tools-resources/business-tools/business-plans.

START UP DONUT. 2019. “Essential Guide to Writing a Business Plan.” Startupdonut.co.uk [online]. Available at: https://www.startupdonut.co.uk/business-planning/write-a-business-plan/essential-guide-to-writing-a-business-plan.

LATCHAM. 2020. “Latcham | Sustainable Graphic Design.” Latcham [online]. Available at: https://latcham.co.uk/insights/sustainable-graphic-design-how-to-reduce-the-environmental-impacts-of-your-designs/.