Resourceful Designer - A Graphic Design Podcast

The internet is filled with unscrupulous people. Are you doing everything you can to ensure your clients’ portion of it is safe by securing their WordPress websites?

Before I decided to leave the print shop where I worked as a graphic designer to start my graphic and web design business in 2006, I had a preconceived notion of what to expect. Some of what I imagined turned out to be accurate and some of what I believed was way off.

If you want to grow your design business, your best chance is to find local design clients to work with. After all, it’s much easier to find a client among the people who know you.

If you want a more productive design business, arrange your schedule to have periods of uninterrupted time. Time that is free of notifications and distractions, allowing you to focus all your energy on the task at hand.

To a client, unfamiliar with the design space, we’re all penguins. As far as they’re concerned, we’re all the same. So how do you expect them to choose you out of all the other design businesses out there? You need to be different.

It doesn’t matter if you list your services on your website, you showcase different projects in your portfolio, or you explain them in your marketing material. Because chances are, your existing clients are not looking at that stuff. After all, they already know you, or so they believe, so they have no reason to look into what you do.

In this episode of the Resourceful Designer podcast, I'm talking to designer Col Gray, owner of Pixels Ink, a logo and brand design studio in Dundee Scotland. We discuss how he's making significant strides with his YouTube channel, Pixels Inc, as a means to market his business. 

You deal daily with people who are not in our industry. That’s why they hire you, after all, because of your creativity and knowledge of all things design. Don't confuse them by using design-related jargon they don't understand.

Offering Website maintenance is a great way to make extra money while putting in minimal effort. It’s right up there with print brokering as a way to supplement your design income.

Do you consider your home-based design business to be a hobby or a business? The way you define it can affect how much money you pay (or save) come tax time.