http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/business/management/designing-an-annual-report-for-charities-and-corporate-customers.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/management/designing-an-annual-report-for-charities-and-corporate-customers.html Wed, 28 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0500
Choosing the right annual report designers
Many charities and some corporate firms are tied to strictly budgeted guidelines and often use amateur designers or recommended friends to produce these complex reports. Would you let a helpful friend come in and have a go at cutting your hair off without any credentials to back up their skills? Of course not, unless you were really tight. It obviously makes sense then to choose an annual report design company that have a proven track history in this field and can show off some impressive design portfolio of past annual reports they have designed to back up their quality.

Don't make a mess of the figures
More often than not an annual report graphic designer will be handed over a bunch of excel documents including balance sheet reports and financial statement reports and be expected to turn a page of numbers into something approaching creative design. You could just flow in the columns and leave it at that but far more worthwhile a design idea would be to introduce some visual elements such as 3D pie charts or columns to illustrate the figures and annual financial statements.

Make full use of white space - the designers default trick
White space, to fill or not to fill that is the question. On balance and especially if you are able to maintain a straight face while convincing a head of accounting that leaving the page design as a minimal exercise in preserving a blank canvas is the way to best portray annual report designs, you should always try to move in the white space design direction. Another good design trick to use on annual financial statements is to have a photoshoot and have the normally camera shy accounting division staged to look like they mean business. Perhaps have Norman the financial director waving his arms about in a faux businessy way. It will provide an amusing counter balance to the dry waffle contained in the report wording.

High production printing if in budget is the cherry on the cake
Although for many smaller charitable organisations, spending a sizeable chunk of their funding on something that could have been printed out on their office inkjet and stapled in the corner, on a gatefold die cut, spot varnished annual report may seem frivolous and down right irresponsible. However for those corporate clients that are looking for that competitive edge over their rivals, the one upmanship that a ridiculously expensive annual report is going to afford them is worth its wait in gold. Lets not forget that the annual report is a signifier of how well the organisation has been doing over the last financial year and to not revel in a ludicrously wasteful way is missing a trick.

Hopefully these pointers should offer a good argument for employing the best annual report graphic design strategies the client can afford. A financial report design should make you want to rub the page with glee not send you to the land of nod.

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Lunatrix annual report design expert advice on all forms of corporate report design and creative annual report design

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/advertising/why-a-company-brochure-is-the-right-tool-to-increase-sales.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/advertising/why-a-company-brochure-is-the-right-tool-to-increase-sales.html Wed, 28 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0500
Create a good feeling and see those smiles turn into hard cash
What we mean by 'good feeling' is something to feel in the hand and get excited by. By employing a good brochure designer and making the best use of creative brochure design, you are up to 10 times more likely to impress a prospective customer than by telephoning them cold or by sending them to a website. In much the same way as people prefer to read books and newspapers in a printed form rather than online, so the same is true with a nicely produced eye catching brochure design.

Choose the right brochure format for your customers
Very often a new business may have much to say but not neccessarily the best idea about how to present themselves to best maximise sales. Remember a business brochure design does not have to cost the earth. If you can get your message across concisely and clearly without too much bother then a trifold brochure design may be the best form of promotion. It can fold up and fit inside a standard business envelope so can be mailed out cheaply as well. Alternatively if your company has regular promotions or targets different core markets, A cost effective print solution is to produce a generic folder design with a pocket in the inside back cover and have a designer design some leaflet templates that can be simply formatted and printed out in short runs as and when they are needed. Brochuretastic!

Ooh you little tease...
One of the best marketing ideas around is the teaser campaign. If you've gone to the trouble and expense of having a brochure designer work their magic on your company brochure and had a run of brochures printed, the next step is to let your customers see them. You could send out thousands through the post and hope for a good response but the reality is only 1-2% of sales are likely to be made from such untargeted means if you're lucky. A cheaper and more viable idea is to run a large volume of postcard size flyers promoting your new business but tantalizingly leaving your prospective customers wanting to find out more. By allowing them to respond to the teaser you can then send out your more lavishe brochure and should see a higher rate of return custom without the waste.

A picture paints a thousand words
Its very important to get the wording right on your brochure, and if you are having trouble then it may be worthwhile getting a marketing proffessional or copywriter in to help you out. Equally important are any visual triggers that are going to best sell your products and services. Simply pulling some product shots off of a competitors website or taking some pictures of your new products on your camera phone is going to make you look a shoddy mess and customers would quite rightly turn their noses up at your lousy stinking organisation. Far better would be to invest in some quality commissioned photography from a proffessional or if budgets are tight look online for some cheap royalty free images that could be used throughout the brochure design. Most serious designers will be able to assist in this matter so if in doubt call on the experts.

Setting up in business can be a stressful and expensive endeavour. Getting a good design and style for your company brochure from the offset could be the difference between making a mint or going belly up. It couldn't be clearer, having a well designed company brochure is for winners.


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Lunatrix Brochure design expert advice on all forms of company brochure design and creative brochure and catalogue design

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/marketing/make-the-news-by-producing-your-own-trade-or-company-magazine.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/marketing/make-the-news-by-producing-your-own-trade-or-company-magazine.html Wed, 28 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0500
Short of cash? Get some advertisers to pay for it!
Paying for a good quality designer to design and layout your in house magazine goes without saying and a print run on a couple of thousand magazines isn't going to give you much change out of a couple of grand. Therefore make the magazine pay for itself by getting some advertisers on board. It would be worth offering some big name advertisers in your chosen field a highly reduced ad rate for the first issue and by the time issue 2 is ready to go, advertisers will be queuing up to get involved having seen who else is placing ads in your publication.

As endorsed by...
Everybody loves celebrities and if you can manage to get some sly celebrity patronage of your product or services then you've effectively got your magazine cover star - doing your selling for you. For instance, if the company you are involved in sell shoes, send out some samples to public relations companies handling the stars and ask for some kind of feedback from their clientelle. Even if it is met with a blanket silence you can always pull out the old 'allegedely' trump card and claim that Kylie Minogue was reported to be a fan and user of your product and hey presto buddy, you've got yourself a hot dang news story.

Circulation, circulation, circulation
Lets face it, printing a handful of A5 magazines on the office inkjet isn't going to create a buzz among the cognoscenti. Realistically you need to be looking at 10's of thousands quantity wise to get the return on investment for your time. Depending on your particular industry, mailing and marketing lists of suppliers and contacts within your target market are fairly cheap and easy to come by. Send out your industry bible and get people talking.

Generate a buzz
Magazines live or die by their reputations. What you should always be thinking about is your next promotional idea. Most retail magazines these days in the shops are plastered with promotional giveaways. Could you give away a cover mounted CD with your magazine for example? The design and style of the magazine is also intrinsic to its perceived value. If you don't have in-house designers or writers capable of producing a quality publication then you need to find a good contract publishing company to take care of your magazine design, layout and sub-editing. This could then free you up to come up with some wacky promotional ideas such as getting Gordon from accounts to do a sponsored masturbateathon in aid of endangered wild cod. You get the idea - make it controversial and see those circulation figures go through the roof.

OK thats given you enough incentive to go out and produce some wonderful magazines. Once the magazine settles in and becomes the industry standard, why not sponsor some kind of festival or event giving the magazine and possibly your products even more promotion. It's far too easy isn't it?

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Lunatrix Magazine design expert advice on all forms of contract magazine design and creative magazine and booklet design

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/branding/new-business-design-all-you-need-to-know-to-start-trading-in-style.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/branding/new-business-design-all-you-need-to-know-to-start-trading-in-style.html Wed, 28 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0500
Step 1: The Logo Design
What are the things to look out for when thinking about your new business logo design? Well we could bore you to tears on the subject or we could just get right in there and divulge the secrets every successful company has learnt at some stage about good logo design. What? you want to hear the long, boring answer? All right we'll save the secret to a successful logo design for another tutorial then. The first thing you need to do is establish your market, its no good trying to be all things to all men - it can't be done. Lets say we are aiming at pretty young girls - and thats not a bad market to try and tap. Go for something pink and frilly and your halfway home. Alternatively for boys you might want to pick a blue fat typeface. For a corporate market you'd be a twat to move far away from greys, blues and reds.

Top Tip: Letterspacing - increase the spacing between each letter to a ridiculously large amount. This will then give a standard typeface such as ariel a new dignified gravitas that speaks volumes about your cutting edge new business design.

Step 2: The Business Stationary Design
The holy trinity in the designers canon. Your business card, your letterhead and not forgetting wee little compliment slip hiding away behind his big A4 size wise cracking brother. It's imperative for every new business to order far more business stationary than they can ever hope to use. Typical figures for example might be a thousand double sided matt laminated business cards. You'll be impressed with the quality and feel for approximatly one week. Copiously handing them out at soirees and meet and greets before filing the remainder away in a drawer never to be seen again. As for letterhead and compliment slips, why not plumb for another couple of thousand print run with maybe an embossed logo to impress any blind friends you might have? Key design concepts are to try and make them in some way different from the billions of other designs that have gone before.

Top Tip: Try to avoid using large blocks of flat colour on letterheads and compliment slips. 9 times out of 10 the inks will start to fade on the print run and its going to look a bit shoddy.

Step 3: The Presentation Folder or Brochure Design
Now we're cooking on gas. We've established a profound, daring, yet ultimately affectionate corporate logo design. We've taken the plunge and ordered well in excess of a quarter of a million business cards - sexy. Now comes the pinnacle of our design excitement. The corporate - or if you prefer - laid back brochure or folder design. Opinion is divided on what constitutes the best visual plan of attack on this matter. Some opt for the meat and potatoes style A4 brochure design. It's not particularly clever or innovative but only the most limited retard could fail to work out what your meant to do with it, i.e. turn the pages from right to left and look at the pages, pausing occasionally to read any words or look at pictures. Others are more inclined to go down the less tried and tested folder and inserts route - scary! Just remember to make it look nice rather than ugly and you'll not go too far wrong

Top Tip: Don't allow anyone to persuade you into going for a tailored die cut folder design. It's incredibly difficult for printers to get anything right and you're begging for trouble. Remember K.I.S.S. Keep it simple stupid.

Step 4: The Website Design
Up until now we've been keeping our heads down and getting on very nicely, thankyou very much. that's all about to end. Enter the world of website design. On paper it sounds easy enough - transfer what you've produced in your company brochure design up there on the old gogglebox. An easy mistake to make, what you haven't taken into account is that web design was introduced to the world less by design more by some kind of nerd magic. To get anywhere near close to producing something that looks ok on paper onto a screen takes the kind of patience and understanding not normally found in your typical right thinking human being. Suffice to say you can only have your website based on a three column grid and no you can't have it in your company colours, you'll have it in grey or nothing, alright?.

Top Tip: Please don't ask for a drop down menu. It looks fairly simple to do and your competitors all have them but we still can't get it working right and god knows we've tried, god knows we've tried...

If that hasn't inspired confidence and given you the incentive to give up already then there maybe some hope for you. Just remember design isn't rocket science, although technically speaking the rocket did have to be designed at some stage so blah blah blah etc. etc...

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Lunatrix logo design expert advice on all forms of corporate brand design and creative logo and identity design

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/marketing/environmentally-friendly-print-design-how-to-save-the-planet-and-look-good.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/marketing/environmentally-friendly-print-design-how-to-save-the-planet-and-look-good.html Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0600 graphic designers twatting about in their 4x4's and SUVs, there is however an alternative...

Think about pdfs or html e-mails instead of Junkmail
The next time somebody suggests carpet bombing a town with a deluge of trifold a4 brochures, think about the money you would save getting a web designer or family friend with some design skill to put together a targeted html e-mail campaign or a visual pdf that can be sent out to people by e-mail. At the end of the day its all destined for the wastebin so you might as well try and save a tree along the way

Repair, Reuse, Recycle those designs
In the esteemed words of Bob the Builder, why chuck away something when it can be reused or recycled? The same dictum applies to graphic design. Instead of carelessly discarding a logo design you submitted for a client a couple of years ago, simply add a little blend in adobe photoshop or illustrator and re submit it for another customer.

How big are your design carbon footprints?
Within a short few years, the government will be insisting all companies and businesses track their individual carbon footprints in a token effort to reach out to green voters. What this means is essentially every time you flush the toilet, chuck away a scrap of paper or set fire to a mattress in your back garden, you are going to have to be accountable for your actions and plant a tree for your sins. Why not get ahead of the game now and buy up a large swath of prime rain forest in brazil and sell carbon credits to less responsible businesses?

Sustainable print materials
These days there is no reason to use pulped rain forest paper to produce your brochure designs and elegant business folders. Most printers will be able to source FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) approved paper for printing. Also vegetable based inks are now common place and not as bad as that might sound providing you are only looking for brown and green based design. Although yellow peppers and tomatoes could be used for more warmer colours

So there you have it, you could carry on throwing litter on the floor, burning your used car tyres and pouring poisonous printing chemicals into local ponds but think of the children, won't somebody think of the children. Wouldn't the world be that litter bit better if you didn't?

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Mindtap Graphic Design Resources is your single point entry into brochure design. A unique site where you can access information on UK graphic design.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-design/uk-graphic-design-and-web-design-what-does-the-future-of-crowdsourcing-hold.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-design/uk-graphic-design-and-web-design-what-does-the-future-of-crowdsourcing-hold.html Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0600 graphic design talent in this global economy. So what does the next few years herald for the UK in terms of graphic design jobs and the widespread outsourcing of design to foreign territories?

Design Specialism
Increasingly we will will see more and more specialists focusing specifically on core businesses. Rather than design companies offering a smorgasbord of design talent it will be more profitable to concentrate on single issue design strategies such as business card designers, outsized folder designers or club flyer designers. It maybe a case in point that a larger company will fragment and offer a gamut of services seemingly by different companies. Then again this might not happen, its difficult to say really so we'll keep things generalized.

Wholesale prices will tumble
Far be it from us to speculate but by all accounts we're all doomed as far as pricing is concerned in the UK. The internet has heralded a sea change as far as costs are concerned for graphic design services and website design. The market is saturated and is quite literally oozing out of the keyboard and computer screen leaving a sticky mess over your desk. Can the UK justify exhorbitant design prices when you can get a far superior design service from a Romanian or Polak working for the price of a can of baked beans?

Mergers and Accusitions among the design heavyweights
Wth such a congested global design market, something has got to give. Some of design big boys such as Lunatrix design and Mindtap design may very well find themselves merging to compete with the foreign invasion, only to find themselves demerging and fragmenting again within a space of a few months. These are difficult times for design agencies. Whatever happens we will probably see much the same sort of thing happening in the next few years as we have done over the last couple of years. Unless something highly unexpectant happens... watch this space

Unprecedented quality in design and heightened design output in the domestic arena
Already we are seeing a marked departure in terms of the minimalist type of design and typography so favoured by the lazy designers of the last couple of years. In the next couple of years the enphasis is going to be on the group dynamic and crowdsourcing of design ideas that are populated on personal blogs and network sites. The idea of course being that a clued up herd mentality can achieve more enlightened results than any individual. Theres nothing new in this of course. Design consultants and advertising designers have always brain stormed ideas. Now of course those designs, web styles and new media forms are going to be adapted in real time by many thousands more people. Wow it all sounds wonderful doesn't it.

Well then, can Uk graphic design and Web design in particular survive the onslaught we are heading into at a frightening rate. Its too close to call at the moment so we'll just sit on the fence smiling smugly for a bit and reserve our opinions until later if thats alright with you.

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Mindtap Graphic Design Resources is your single point entry into brochure design. A unique site where you can access information on UK graphic design.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/career/a-career-in-graphic-design-working-your-way-to-the-top-of-the-creative-industries.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/career/a-career-in-graphic-design-working-your-way-to-the-top-of-the-creative-industries.html Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0600 Lets start at the top and work down. Art directors, or Creative Directors are responsible for a creative team that may design work for magazines, television, advertising graphics, websites, or on packaging. A creative team can consist of layout artists, graphic designers, photographers, copywriters, and menial staff to do the work. An Art directors job is to make sure that each of these workers do not slack off down the pub and complete their work to a deadline and to the client's needs. Art directors also make major decisicions along the lines of should the background be slate grey or cobalt blue, issuing dictates and changing their mind several days after a deadline has passed - leaving co-workers resolutely glum about their position in the grand scheme of things. Art directors will inevitably have come from some kind of marketing or sales background and need no prior graphic design knowledge or skill.

Senior Designer
A Senior Designer is mainly concerned with the visual aspects of a company and will probably have been promoted on the basis that she is fun and a 'great team player' (despite this being far from the case). A Senior Designer will usually insist on having a larger widescreen monitor than the rest of the team which will be decorated variously with fluffy pink bits marketing people send through on a daily basis. A Senior Designer will be involved in the elements of a company’s look such as business cards, stationery, packaging design, media advertising graphics, promotional design, and sticking up pictures of topless 'hunks'.

Graphic Designer
The job of a Graphic Designer is to provide a new and exciting way to express the key information of a company or product through a dynamic image or use of typography. Graphic Designers take the scant information given to them by the client and using the internet to scab some free clip art, fashion their own ripped off logo designs in order to fleece the client for all they are worth.

Layout Artists and Artworkers
The engine room of the design world. These scumbags have been buried away with their dusty macs for decades, remorselessly churning out pages and layouts. Inevitably some clueless muppet will send over a 100 page brochure layed out in microsoft word and it will be the Artworkers thankless task to make it publishable. They will need to recognise a font at 50 yards, be able to colour correct the dreariest of images and take a good bollocking every now and again to keep them on their toes. The Artworker must have the ability to design magazines, design brochures, design flyers, design books and design posters. He harbours murder fantasies.

Illustrators
Illustrators generally speaking will have long greying hair and be influenced by prog rock. Working from home among the dungeon and dragonns figurines and manga comics they will attempt to put their own unique spin on whatever brief they are given. What you will be presented with is a semi clad girl with oversized boobs. You will have waited several weeks for this. You will never learn from previous mistakes.

Web Designers
Web designers create the pages, layout, and graphics for web pages, they will be technically minded to the point of absurdity. They will insist on using c++ coding language to impress other geeks and will beaver away doing whatever it is geeks do for hours on end. Web designers also design and develop the navigation tools of a site which will for design websites involve tiny text that makes your eyes bleed. Web designers are far too clever for their own good and should never be encouraged.

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Mindtap Graphic Design Resources is your single point entry into brochure design. A unique site where you can access information on UK graphic design

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/branding/5-ultimate-graphic-design-mistakes-things-that-graphic-designers-should-avoid-at-all-costs.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/branding/5-ultimate-graphic-design-mistakes-things-that-graphic-designers-should-avoid-at-all-costs.html Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0600 printed material.
With many young designers coming from a pre-dominantly web design background the transfer over from web design to traditional design for print can bring with it a multitude of design sins. Images supplied at 72dpi and crunched down to load fast on a website are going to reproduce very badly in print you can get away with small thumbnails but blowing things up to any appreciable size is going to be pushing your luck. There are a number of online sites offering free or very cheap quality hi resolution images which are a good source for suitable imagery.

2. Forgetting about or not allowing enough bleed.
A very common error is to send to print a document or flattened image that has no bleed at all. Generally speaking you should allow at least 3mm around every cut off edge. Failing to do so will give the printers no leeway and will either crop off the side of the page or give you a white border. It is always a good idea when supplying image files to save layered psd files then if things need extending or cropping you can do this on the background layer and hopefully cut down your work

3. Using obscure fonts and not embedding or outlining them for output.
We've all been guilty of this at some point and things are generally fine if you are going to be the only person accessing your artwork or documents. However if someone else needs to amend the files or use your vector logo on one of there publications. Unless you package up the used fonts, they are not going to be able to open the files correctly and some software programs may replace any unknown fonts with a default. This is a particular problem when you need to dig out stuff that was created several years previously and you no longer have your old fonts installed.

4. Supplying print ready artwork using spot colours or rgb
There are valid reasons for using spot colours in artwork, logos that need to reference particular pantone colours for example. In general design work however most print is sent through on 4 colour presses CMYK with occasional 5th colour for luminoius or metallic colour or for spot UV varnish. It is very common for lazy designers to just place rgb images into files and expect the vibrant colours seen on screen to reproduce in print.

5. Allowing design illiterate clients to lead you round the houses
The customer is always right, goes the old adage. However it is often said with gritted teeth and a sense of patience that recognizes that these morons will at some stage be handing over a fat cheque for your troubles. It is often a good idea when first submitting visuals to throw in a couple of stinkers to hopefully get them to appreciate the design you would like them to accept. There is the very real danger of course of them loving the piece of absolute arsewipe that you knocked up in five minutes to make them think you've been earning your money. Still it's a living.


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Mindtap Graphic Design Resources is your single point entry into brochure design. A unique site where you can access information on UK graphic design

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/networking/how-to-win-new-graphic-design-clients-and-keep-old-ones-coming-back.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/networking/how-to-win-new-graphic-design-clients-and-keep-old-ones-coming-back.html Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0600
A winning smile costs nothing
Think back over the last week or so and see if you can remember anyone giving you the time of day in the street, a simple 'good morning' or a cheery smile from a beautiful stranger as you go about your daily routine. It didn't happen did it? Why? Because you've got a face like a bag of spanners, you're walking around as miserable as sin and you're giving off bad vibes. In short your whole lousy operation stinks. So how do we turn this around? Next time you have a new client down to the office for a meeting, go up to them and plant a big sloppy kiss on their forehead. You never know they might turn around and sign that big 5 figure sum graphic design contract.

It's not all about the money
Sometimes, the old adage 'a dog is for life - not just for christmas' rings chillingly true. If you've ever considered or contemplated suicide based on the fact your clients have been leaving in droves and the only regular graphic design job you've secured in the last 3 months is a flyer design for 'disco Stu's' 70's night down at the church hall - on a wednesday night, then it's high time you looked at yourself square in the mirror and worked out why. Bad breath? Crooked teeth? Inability to stop yourself scratching your privates in public? No, the real reason your clients are leaving you high and dry is because you're too mean. Throw in a few freebies, offer to cook your client a lovely lasagna dinner for two, buy them a kinder surprise. Anything to curry favour that isn't going to break the bank is worth its weight in gold. And that's a fact, fact fans!

Dress to impress
Anyone who was anyone in the eighties will remember 'power dressing'. 6 inch stiletto heels, shoulder pads set to stun and low cut tops with peep hole bras. By and large businessmen today are reluctant to go back to cross dressing in order to win that all important contract and prefer to go along the tried and tested route of wearing dull grey slacks and loafers. Remember Elton John didn't get where he is today by dressing like the boy next door.

Brainstorm until you haemorrage
If you can't work out why you're losing money hand over fist and your client base has dried up to a thin wafer like crust, get your team involved and crack some skulls! Sometimes the best people to tell you where you're going wrong are your terrified and hate filled staff. Jim over in scanning has been sat there feeding off his resentment for not fulfilling his life for the last 10 years. Use him - he's got a brain up there hasn't he? Margaret the lady who comes by the office to sell sandwiches - again, could she be put to better use sat in the spare room paid to think up a marketing strategy to win over your rivals clients? If not think and think again until it hurts. Remember its your ass on the line here. Above all remember 'skull cracking' is fun and if a few eggs get broken in the process, hey that's life in the fast lane buddy.

Delegate, don't vegetate
We've all done it at some stage. Tried to cope when our world is falling apart, attempting to juggle the accounts, the graphic design work you have in and trying to bone up on web design for beginners in order to make ends meat. Here's a tip. Don't bother. That's right you heard. Research has shown that the best way to overcome a problem or situation is to sleep on it. If you've just about had a basin full its time to hit the sack and forget about it. Take it easy, kick back and have a beer. Feels good doesn't it. Don't forget to always have someone on hand who can cut the slack when you've lost the plot. A right hand man is someone to offload problems onto at a moments notice and then slink back to your chair safe in the knowledge he probably isn't going to quit his job any time soon what with a new baby at home and a mortgage hanging over his shoulders. Too many graphic design managers just do't know when to distribute the work. Remember the immortal words of Homer Simpson 'If a jobs worth doing well, don't bother"

Right, you're now armed with some invaluable insider information to get things back on track. Don't screw up and you'll do just fine. Now get out there and nail that son of a gun.

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Mindtap Graphic Design Resources is your single point entry into brochure design. A unique site where you can access information on UK graphic design

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/business/career/freelance-design-tricks-how-to-get-away-with-murder-in-the-workplace.html http://www.articletrader.com/business/career/freelance-design-tricks-how-to-get-away-with-murder-in-the-workplace.html Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0600 design company whether it's a multi-national branding corporation or a regular down at heel tatty magazine publisher needs to fill holes in the workforce. If the canny freelance designer plays his or her cards right, he can earn a tidy sum while essentially loafing at home. Here's how...

Have a handy repotoire of excuses lined up
Everyone has heard of the line 'the dog ate it...' or 'I left it in my jeans when it went into the wash' to avoid handing in an assignment but how often do we actually use them? Some of these old well worn excuses are due for a renaissance period. A boss is far more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt when you use one of these old dogs as they will question your sanity for attempting to use such an audacious excuse. Reverse psychology. Use it to your advantage

Backstabbing - Is it so wrong?
A favourite trick to pull on another member of staff is to sow the seeds of doubt in the rest of the full-timers minds about your chosen fall guy. Office politics can play a huge role in screwing with their heads. Why not try surreptiously planting somebody elses scissors or staplers in the victims drawer and asking to borrow them. When they can't find them say you saw so and so using them earlier. Sit back and watch the tension build.

An apple a day...
Being a teachers pet can sometimes work wonders when you haven't bothered to layout those pages that were given to you 3 weeks ago. Coming into the office armed with a nice rich chocolate gateau for everyone will smooth over any resentment for your tarde lackadaisacal attitude to work. Another good idea is to be the coffee gopher at regular half hour intervals. When you're gone they'll really miss you and because of the caffeine withdrawal will be snapping at one another.

Outsource and reap the rewards
Everybodies doing it so why not you? If you've landed a hefty long term design job that is a regular payer, why not bump your rates up and get somebody in India or China to knock out the work for you. Unethical? Perhaps but since when did you consider the plight of individuals in far flung places? You can explain away the discrepances in language and grammar by claiming you've been working all hours

Getting away with murder
There comes a time and place when despite your best efforts to cover your ass and blame others for your laziness and ineptitude, you are going to be found out. At this stage with disgruntled colleagues lining up to put in a bad word about you, there may be no other option left but to use the failsafe rear guard action of killing someone. This will have the effect of distracting attention from your less than honest approach to handing in graphic designs on time. It's probably best to avoid murdering the boss as questions are likely to be raised and you may find the new apointed editor will not see you as part of the new team format. No, go for one of the more replacable members of staff such as Ian the sub-editor, the resulting fracas will buy you enough time to work on some new scams at another organisation

So there you go, use these tricks as and when you feel they may benefit you. But be careful the cops are sometimes pretty keen to clamp down on office genocide - only use this last option under extreme duress.

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