Week 04 - Business Plans and communication, client relationships, insight, content, structure
Weekly Learning Objectives
You will be working towards achieving the following learning outcomes detailed in Brief 1:
LO1: Research – select and deploy appropriate research methodologies to inform the needs within a project.
LO4: Distil – position a creative strategic insight that has been distilled and refined through an informed investigation.
LO9: Communicate – communicate effectively in a range of contexts and situations to specialist and non-specialist audiences.
L10: Manage – demonstrate applied planning and organisational skills to support self-directed project work and inform ongoing professional development needs.
Lecture Introduction
Business plan - Studio & client relationship
Presented by Stuart Tolley and featuring Emma Harverson and Lucy Warburton
Presented by Stuart Tolley and featuring Emma Harverson and Lucy Warburton, exploring the dynamics between a studio and their client
Case study 01 -
Looking at the relationship between the design studio and clients, and the service that’s provided and maintained to create an effective and efficient client relationship.
Question - Look at the key components of the development of a project but also question emergent issues facing design studios, and their relationship to the broader, globally focused clients and business opportunities.
Make notes on how they:
Design and client relationships
Managing expectations
Clear project planning and development schedules
Format and structure for a business plan
In this lecture podcast, Stuart Tolley, talks to Emma Harverson, the editor at White Lion Publishing, and Lucy Warburton, a freelance commissioning editor. They discuss their collaboration on the Build+Become book series, which focuses on smart thinking and aims to provide readers with thought-provoking lessons on various topics. Lucy explains how she became the editor of the series and highlights the importance of bringing new ideas to the publishing industry. Emma discusses her role in overseeing the development of the books and managing schedules and budgets.
They also talk about the strategic outlines and business expectations for the project, including the importance of global reach and foreign language editions. Overall, they emphasise the unique structure and approach of the Build+Become series and the collaborative nature of the publishing process.
Interesting points in the client-design relationship to take on board for my practice -
Lucy Warburton - On collaboration with other creatives
“Within publishing, you’re encouraged to bring ideas to the table. The world is becoming increasingly content lead. There’s definitely a culture of, if you’ve got an idea it’s best shared, best presented, best collaborated. That for me, is one of the most exciting parts of the job.
We have a team of commissioning editors whose job it is to come up with those ideas, but actually it is encouraged across the team – designers, editors – who work on seeing the books through, rather than the commissioning, to input any ideas, absolutely.”
Notes: I think this is incredibly important that she emphasises early on that communication within the team is incredibly important to make the project run smoothly. It’s great to get the whole team on board and collaborating ideas.
Lucy Warburton - On strategy and structure across global markets
I was constantly faced with challenges, that required me to devise strategies and adapt to different global markets. This experience often felt like pitching an idea, where it seemed as though people were resistant to its implementation. However, this was not due to opposition but rather the need for rigorous testing. Throughout this process, the idea underwent significant shifts on at least three or four occasions, as I aimed to address various objectives. Balancing the perspectives of the UK, Europe, and America presented immense difficulties in finding a solution that catered to all markets. Determining the right balance and staying true to the original concept proved to be the ultimate goal for both myself and the publisher. It was crucial to consider advice from different sources while identifying the most significant aspects (Edited)
Stuart talks about communication and organisation, and the fact that a lot of people are working remotely on the projects. How can they maintain project planning and communication when working remotely.
Emma Harverson - On remote working but still sticking to schedule
We’ve got a standard scheduling document that we use for every one of our books, that we fill in basically based on the manuscript in date and the file to print date that we’ve got. Then it’s just a case of letting everyone know up front, from the beginning, what those dates are. As I touched on earlier, just making sure that people are as up-to-date as they possibly can be. You just have to be flexible with the way you work.
We keep people as up-to-date as we can with what we know.
Notes: Trello and slack (and Asana) are also discussed for group organising and project management. This helps stopping emails being clogged up and can help with scheduling in and timesheets.
Stuart discusses the publisher's expectations for the design direction. How did external experts help with the planning and development of the project?
Lucy Warburton - On getting a distinct design brand across the series
“One of the things I did was organise an impromptu focus group. I ‘forced’ most people in the office to congregate into one of the meeting rooms. I put up a few logos, put up a few initial design styles. In terms of publisher expectations, they wanted to see that it was very clear, smart. That it was aligning with what the sales team felt works, in particular, in business and personal development markets. I felt doing things like the focus group, we then wrapped books and went to stores with them, you know, do they look the part outside of the meeting room? Because in meeting rooms people know you, it’s maybe not as challenging as it could be when you’re actually faced with well would this look good on a shelf or would this look good on Amazon?“
Notes: Testing the markets is essential out of the office/studio. Is there data to look at? Is it sales or price led? Look at the data and respond to it.
Lecture 02 - Setting up a design studio
Stuart Tolley examines how Hamish Makgill set up his design studio and business at the point at which formal business planning was required.
Hamish Makgill, the founder and creative director of Studio Makgill, a design and branding studio which is based in Brighton, UK.
Red Design
Initially, Hamish set up Red Design with Ed Templeton, and the business grew exponentially but after 8/9 years in the business and some pivotal changes in his life, he felt a real urge creatively to move away from what he’d created and concentrate on stripped-back projects that they weren’t getting within the company. So he left Red and went back to freelancing at some London studios.
Going back to being freelance - honing your craft
Hamish discusses going back to freelancing and going into big agencies and how this is where he really learn his craft within branding and working and managing clients. He also discusses the new personalities he worked with who made him empathise with a client’s perspective and how they operate.
Notes: Know your worth. Hamish discusses in the early stages about charging enough. “How can what I love doing be worth this much?” Make sure you know the value in what you create.
Starting again - Studio Makgill
Starting again with one client and supplementing it with teaching in Brighton they managed slow growth, through cautious times, but then took on their first employee, after a year with the philosophy, to create beautifully simple work.
Hamish talks about on the key advice he would give on setting up your practice:
Build and keep your network - Make sure you keep close contacts with your network and have people to lean on, to ask questions
Financial advice - Get some advice, on how to manage cash flow. Just as simple as that.Make sure you can see when you need to make sure work’s coming in and what’s round the corner to avoid any really nasty situations, laying people off, recessions.
USP - Work out what you do and what is it that you’re doing and with whom. If you want to set up an agency, what does that agency stand for? Why is that agency there?
READ I WATCH I LISTEN - Talis Resource Lists
Chris Do: The client is not your enemy, Redefining your client relationship
Designer and businessman Chris Do, talks about the differences between being an artist and a designer, empathy being the key factor.
He stresses the importance of listening, communicating and understanding that the client is not your enemy. In addition, he also stresses the importance of aligning your life goals with client needs in order to reduce professional selfishness and improve communication, efficiency, and value.
Chris Do - How to ask better questions to your clients
Questions he addresses such as, “Why do clients have such bad taste?” “How can I convince the client my idea is better?” In this interview, Chris addresses how to manage the client relationship to make more money, have fewer revision cycles and be happier.
He addresses a designer’s frame of mind that they shouldn’t be seeing each piece of work as a ‘portfolio piece’.
Notes: The benefit of having a great relationship with your client is that you become more valuable through the work you produce as you get to know their product, (website, logo brand etc) which is associated with additional work and a financial reward, and growth within your practice. Service your client to the best of your ability.