Ronnie LEBOW

The freelancer's year.

2011-11-29T10:38:00.001-08:00

Dollar Store mentalities.

2011-11-22T11:00:00.000-08:00

Last night, I attended a mini high school reunion.

When reconnecting with old friends, discussion always turns to questions about what you do for a living? Of course, this discussion often turns into the trials and tribulations of your industry in today’s global marketplace and the effect of the current economy.

Speaking with Ken, a long-time friend, I mentioned that the biggest challenge in my career today is trying to educate new clients on why they should spend more money marketing their business than what they spend to have the oil changed in their car. Simply put, people seem to want all their marketing materials produced for next to nothing.

Upon hearing this, Ken remarked “it’s because in today’s world, we have dollar store mentalities.”

This sentence from his lips stopped me cold.

“Brilliant” I thought.

Let me explain…

Dollar stores have sprung up everywhere. There’s a reason for this. It’s because we all visit them. In today’s marketplace, let’s face it, many want stuff done on the cheap. Quality in many instances doesn’t matter. In some cases, you may actually get a deal. But is the quality on most of the items actually there?
If you were looking at purchasing a good brassiere, would you buy one from “Dollar Dollar Dollar”? (I just made this name up BTW). Did the cheap manufacturing job overseas (which put many in your country out of work I might add) give you exactly the quality that you were looking for?

Case in point, you buy your child a bolo bat. You get it home, they play with it twice, and it breaks. The ball comes straight off the elastic. Going by Ken’s “dollar store mentality”, do you go to a higher end store and buy your upset child a decent bolo bat for a few extra dollars that won’t break? No. You go right back to the dollar store, complain, and bring home another one which will immediately break again.

It’s not money well spent. Spending a few extra dollars the first time on much better quality is money well spent. What you’re doing is just throwing money away on cheap crap that won’t work.

Relating this to advertising and design materials/communications, many clients don’t see the value in paying a great designer $1000 to market their business when they can get the cheap “dollar store” version produced for $250. Of course, most of the time, there is a huge difference in the quality and when the $250 version doesn’t work, they will not only go back and complain, they will find somebody else to do another horrible $250 version, instead of originally paying $1000 for someone MUCH better that will deliver a piece that will meet the required objectives.

Recently, I had a wealthy client ask me why he should pay me $1000 to produce a direct mail piece when he can get somebody to do the job for $250?

I immediately asked him if he had an accountant for his business?

“Yes” he answered.

I asked if this accountant does his income tax?

“Yes” he replied.

I continued… “why do you use an expensive accountant when you can go to the mall and use one that sits in a kiosk for $50”?

I could see the wheels begin to turn in his head.

“Well”, he answered, “if I’m going to spend $1000 with you I want you to GUARANTEE that my business will explode”.

“I can’t do that” I answered.

He looked at me angrily (and completely puzzled). “Why not?”

“Let me put it this way” I replied. “Let’s say you (god-forbid) get cancer. You have a choice. You can go to a $100 an hour doctor who’s mediocre, or you can go to a $1000 hour doctor who’s highly recommended and has a great success rate. Which one are you going to use for your treatment?”

“The $1000 doctor” he answered.

“Of course you are” I responded.

“Is he going to guarantee that you’re not going to die?”

As a long time, somewhat reputable, higher-earning professional in this business, I have to educate new clients and have these conversations with them on an ongoing basis.

Why would I use your services when I can easily get cheaper?

Of course, they will also be sure to show me the last piece that was designed by said cheaper designer and it’s seriously atrocious.

“This is good, no?” they ask me?

My first response to that is “did it work?”

“Not so well.” they answer.

Of course, they are now coming to me for a new piece that WILL work but they are looking to spend the exact same amount of money again.

Dollar store mentalities.

When will they stop being surprised when they pay bottom dollar and it doesn’t work?

I have two favourite sayings. I use them often.

“You get what you pay for”.

And “the poor always pay twice”.

Until next time, keep dreaming.

Print is NOT dead.

2011-04-17T19:55:00.000-07:00

You’ve been hearing countless rumours about its demise. The words are being spoken from the lips of many designers. You’ve even started to believe it yourself…

Is print really dead?

If you are like me, a traditional art director who LOVES creating magazine advertising campaigns, full page newspaper ads, outdoor posters, and hell, even the magazines themselves, this is the very last thing you would ever want to hear, or see happen.

But is it true?

The world has gone digital. There is no doubt about it. Marketing on the internet is no longer just a fad, the hottest technological toys on the market are personal tablets (e.g. IPADs), and creating APPs for new technologies can be quite lucrative. Every company now wants an amazing website, and somehow, “back end programming” and “art director” often appear in the same sentence on job listings (this one REALLY irks me).

Is that to say that a traditional creative should hang up their hat?

I don’t think so.

It is true that in the last few years, the website designers I know have seen their workloads explode and print jobs have become a much smaller percentage of clients’ budgets. But the fact remains that print is still a necessity in many client budgets.

Designing for print is not going away, it is just becoming more of a specialty area and those that remain dedicated to it, and produce it correctly, will find themselves in a niche.

90% of what I do for a living is print. I’ve seen my main clients do less of it recently but the fact remains that they still have it in their budgets. They might not be doing both a magazine ad and a direct mail piece but they are likely to need one of them. People will always network. They still need corporate materials to hand out with their website address. A business card, postcard, or brochure. Trade shows will still need print materials. Companies will always need signage. Products will always need packaging. Supermarkets still utilize promotions and POS displays.
I don’t care how much I love my IPAD, I still like thumbing through my favourite magazine while sitting on the throne. I still like reading my newspaper at breakfast and I’m far from alone on this.

Print is not dead. It’s just becoming a little old-fashioned. And it’s not as needed by each client as it used to be.

You can still remain a dedicated print designer. I intend to remain one until I retire. But what I am learning is that you can no longer rely on just a few clients to give you endless print work. You must hustle a little more. You must work harder to gain more clients that need SOME print work. Many small jobs make for large paycheques. Small projects build a solid foundation for more projects. 10 small projects in a week for 10 different clients at $300 each is $3,000. A trade ad here, a business card there, a handout, a menu, these projects are not going away so quickly.

I know people will say “but won’t everything eventually become electronic?”

Maybe, but here’s my answer…

What percentage of your clients are willing to spend the money to go completely electronic? Can you see every one of them willing to pay for a large storefront pixelboard sign? In this day and age, many companies are shopping around on crowdsourcing sites for $100 logos. Do you really see them forking over the cash to go fully digital?

Lets face the facts. You can’t do everything. So focus on what you love. Even if websites are the hottest commodity to a client at this very moment, in 5 years, will you be reading a website or will you be watching an interactive, online infomercial? Everybody will have to adapt to changing technologies.
Let’s say design schools are currently churning out APP designers. Where will these designers be in 10 years when design schools start churning out say, 3D hologram designers? (I just made this up).

Are the current design students learning how to output and produce work for print? I don’t know. But I’ll bet they don’t entirely focus on it. Which means that you have designers that will end up in the freelance pool that will have no choice but to outsource print projects. To YOU.

There is still much work to be done in print and there is still a LONG way to go before somebody hands you an electronic business card. We are still a long way from my breakfast cereal coming in something other than a box.

I will gladly continue to creative direct and outsource web design projects. I will happily take (and produce) other’s print design projects. That’s my specialty. That’s my love. As the old saying goes, “focus on what you love and the money will follow”.

Print is not completely dead. It’s just not the current fad anymore.

For all the website designers (that are currently swamped with work), for all of you designing for what’s “in the now”, there is a question you have to ask yourselves…

How long before the next one?

Until next time, keep dreaming.

A Confession

2011-04-14T06:35:00.000-07:00

After almost 20 years of climbing up the creative industry ladder, I can honestly say that the ONLY person I envy (career-wise) on this entire planet, is the creative director on Google's homepage.

Elegant Simplicity

2011-03-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I checked the “mentions” tab on my Twitter account and saw the beaming face of a smiling, 1960s styled hippy named “GibbyGooBop” directing me to a YouTube link. He only said two words to me in his tweet…”Elegant Simplicity”.

How he found me and why he thought he should hit me personally with this is anybody’s guess. I’m still trying to figure that one out for myself.

At first, I thought it was some form of spam but upon careful observation, I concluded that it wasn’t and curiosity got the best of me. So I cautiously clicked on the link. What I saw was a music video titled Strife on Mars?.

It was the WEIRDEST, most unique, well produced piece of work I have seen in quite some time.

At first, I didn’t exactly get it but I must admit, I was smiling and my mind was quite blown. I couldn’t decide if I had just seen the work of a madman or an absolute genius. Being an advertising creative, I’m used to the ideology that a message should be delivered clearly. However, being an artist (and an individual that I believe to be deep and intelligent), I LOVE weird metaphoric content (movies for instance) that actually makes me think about what I had just seen for days to come.

Boy Gibby, did this EVER make me think. So much that I really haven’t stopped thinking about it since the original viewing.

I admit, I must have watched the video a dozen more times in the last few weeks. I’ve studied the lyrics. I’ve listened to the music. I’ve examined the acting and special effects. I carefully watched everything right down to the editing and the overall production and this is no regular YouTube garbage simply thrown together with a standard video camera. It is a well thought out work of art that has been professionally executed in every area.
In SO many ways. I quickly went from feeling baffled and a little weirded-out to an extreme sense of awe.

I must also mention that the song is an earworm. It’s been weeks and I can’t get the “Zim Zam” or Bowie-esque “Curly never gave up on Moe” out of my head. The accompanying musicians that performed on the track are great. Of course, it's a swipe of Bowie's "Life on Mars" but I'll forgive GibbyGooBop for this as he made it his own.

So, what does it all mean?

This is the best part. I’m still trying to figure that part out. I’m almost positive that I get it and if I could sum it up in a few short words, I would say it’s about “Innocence lost”. Tree-huggers, hippies of old, and others that try to voice their concern over important issues (like harpooning whales and destruction of Mother Earth) typically lose the fight. People in today’s world (for the most part) are too serious, oblivious, and angry. All that really concerns the masses (my buddy likes to call them “drones”) of today is if the local coffee shop has WiFi and that you quickly make up your mind and move along (as so many have also done when it came to viewing this video but more on this is just a moment). The woman in the opening scene in the coffee shop doesn’t even look up from her newspaper when a weird looking stranger bumps into her.

I believe the underlying message is that people lose their innocence. Somewhere along the way they stopped caring or understanding. Especially about many things that are important. We must spread goodwill and happiness. We must show compassion. We must all get along and dance and sing. We must look for joy in the small things in life and appreciate our surroundings.

If you already do this, then “you’re in orbit and all alone”.

At least, that’s my take.

As of today, the video has been viewed over 14,000 times. It has 83 likes and 55 dislikes.

55 dislikes? Of course this is art and those that hit the dislike button are entitled to their opinion BUT you must stop and take some time to look at the message more deeply (as with things/problems/issues throughout life in general). Comments such as “this is retarded”, “strange” and “somebody must be on some serious drugs when they made this” are angry and shallow. What’s “retarded” is that so many people today don’t look beyond the surface. This piece of art is FAR from that of a creator that is all those things. It’s extremely well thought out, executed, and ridiculously deep. What you 55 people have actually done is more or less PROVEN Gibby’s entire point.

And THAT’S why I believe it is brilliant.

Well done Gibbygoobop.

I stand up and applaud you.

Bizarre, enjoyable, metaphoric and mesmerizing.

EXTREMELY well done.

Why a logo should cost more than $100.

2010-12-08T08:06:00.001-08:00

You see it everywhere. Logos advertised for $99, designers promising unlimited concepts for under $200, and you’ve had some potential clients quickly disappear when you gave them (what you considered) a cheap quote.

After almost 20 years of working in the advertising and design industry on some of the world’s most recognized brands, it amazes me to see what I actually consider the HARDEST and most time consuming of creative projects cheapened in the eyes of the general public and made readily available by designers wearing blinders to what realistic and acceptable fees should be for this type of work.

Of course, I know I will get the usual comments of “what is acceptable is what people are willing to charge” but creating a logo for a new company, product or service should not come with a measly $100 price tag.

Here is my reasoning…

To design the correct look and feel of a company, you must first RESEARCH the company. Who are they catering to? What’s the target audience? What is the look they want to convey? Do they want 3 concepts or do they want 10? Is it a simple solution or will you have to go back to the drawing board 20 times? Studying and learning about your client’s business and their objectives takes time. I’m going to give this part of the project a very modest one day worth of work. One day to visit my client’s business, to research their competition’s websites, to examine their target audience, and to find examples of logos created for similar clients. If I am to charge an industry average of $50/hour, working one day from 9:00am – 5:00pm (with one hour for lunch), I am billing for 7 hours. This is a $350 fee.

Part 2 is the concept stage. I always give at least 3 concepts. Whether you use a marker or you go straight to the computer, it doesn’t really matter how you begin, you are looking at an empty page or screen. Can you simply splash it quickly and spew out creativity? Sometimes you can. If you are creating the logo for a dog walking service, you might start with a dog. But what happens when your client is a law firm or a company that manufactures sheet metal? The first rule of thumb is to avoid the first things that pop into your head.

Creating a great logo is like sipping cognac or smoking a fine cigar. You want to do it slowly. You must appreciate the craftsmanship and the process. I like to come up with something to start, and then I walk away. I do something else. I then come back later with fresh eyes and look at it again. Repeat this until you have something you believe the client will fall in love with that best represents their objective. Then do it two more times for the next concepts. All of this takes time.

Of course, I like to give myself about 2 weeks to go back and forth to the drawing board. But for arguments sake, let’s factor in one day per concept. One day to create and polish one design. So, 3 days in total. Once again, using the 7 hours at $50/hour, this stage would create a fee of $1,050.

Stage 3 is presentation. Are you sending your ideas as a PDF through email or are you meeting with the client? If you are meeting with the client, factor in some additional charges for travel time and presentation.

Stage 4. Everybody’s favourite. The revision stage. Very rarely will you nail something that the client quickly approves. I’ve had it happen several times over the years but typically, there are going to be revisions.

The client showed it to 8 friends and they all had opinions. The client’s spouse wants to see it in orange, then in yellow, then in blue. They love the icon but want you to play around with the font. They love the font but want you to tweak the icon. The logo is great but they wanted something more feminine. The logo is feminine but they were thinking something more cartoon-like. The list goes on.

Truthfully, most clients have no idea what they want and will beat even the greatest concept into the ground because they are indecisive. A decisive client is one that you should bend over backwards for and cater to their every whim because they are few and far between. They are the difference between loving what you do and wishing you could flee to cut the neighbour's grass for a living.

3 more days of revisions and back and forths (again, I’m being modest).

Add another $1,050 to the quote.

Taking all these factors into consideration, you have a quick estimation of what a logo design should cost from an intermediate designer for any small, start-up client.

The quote, taking all of my points into consideration is at $2,450.

This does not take into consideration all the other variables associated with logo design work. Will the logo be prominent on the side of a downtown skyscraper? Will the client want to buy the exclusive rights? Etc. etc. etc.

How you charge and what you charge is up to you. But by taking the time from concept to completion into consideration, the amount you paid for your education, computer and software, your phone conversations, travel, amount of revisions you will most likely encounter, be honest with yourself, how much is it worth?

Remember when you were young, and you practiced your signature over and over and over again until you hit that eureka moment and finally came up with something that defined you? Was it easy? It wasn’t. This is what you are doing for your client.

And it’s worth a hell of a lot more than $100.

Until next time, keep dreaming.

Something has been missing.

2010-11-11T09:06:00.001-08:00

Recently, I did something I never imagined would ever happen again.

I started to paint.

It took me a while to figure out what drove me to pick up a paintbrush after 20 years. It seems that something has been missing from my career for quite some time. It’s not a lack of creativity, I get to be creative designing and thinking up stuff every single day. It’s an underlying force much more powerful than the desire to “create things”. A force so powerful, that it predates my modern, technological brain and goes right back to the beginning. It’s all thanks to my sense of smell.

For those of you just getting into this line of business, you sadly missed a time where the art department of an ad agency (or design studio) had the warm, welcoming smell of various art supplies all mixed together in one room. Pencils, magic markers, thinners, paint, hot wax machines, glue…the smell of the creative department was unlike no other found in the workplace. There’s a reason I skipped the party of going away to University to attend 4 years at a local prestigious art college. It has always been an ingrained sense in me that was also a driving force behind my entering a career in the field of art. The smell of an art studio has always made me feel like I am in my proper element.

By the 2000s, this smell was replaced. I don’t know by what but if I were to guess, I would say it was by a hint of electricity. The smell of the creative department was no longer unique. Does it really smell any different than the IT or accounting department? The acrid, burning smell of a room full of computers, photocopiers and fax machines took over the sweet smell of rubber eraser dust and India ink. With today’s technology, this smell of supplied power to a room full of machines has also been nearly extinguished. If you are sitting in a creative office environment at this moment, please close your eyes and take it all in. What do you smell? Does it smell like a room full of creativity?

My 4 year old is in Junior Kindergarten. I love taking her to class every day. When the door opens, I can instantly smell (and almost taste) the paste and paint. I’m sure you know what I’m referring to. Many of us fondly remember it. Smells are so powerful they can unlock our deepest memories.

Finally realizing what was missing, I ended up at the nearest art supply store where this smell still exists. I dropped my credit card and walked out with a huge canvas, various sizes of paintbrushes, and dozens of different paint colours.

I quickly got home and set everything up.

Staring at the bright white emptiness in front of me, I pushed a pin into the first tube of paint to break the seal, and squeezed a large dollop onto the fresh, clean palette.

The aroma hit me instantly and I found my happy place once again.

I don’t plan to ever forget it.

Until next time, keep dreaming.

There will always be haters.

2010-10-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

It has been a VERY long time since I’ve written anything in this blog.

I haven’t really had a second.

2010 has been an incredibly busy (and successful year) for me but as you have hopefully learned from reading my posts, one should never let a series of successful months go to their head (as a freelancer) because it can all come to a screeching halt tomorrow.

To make a lot of hay when the sun has been shining, I’ve had to move sharing some words to the bottom of my priority list.

This is only one of the reasons I stopped writing.

Another is that sometimes, I simply don’t feel like it.

See, I never began writing for any of you, I have always written for me, and then made these words public.

With that said, because I make it public, a lot of great stuff happens.

I end up making top blog lists like this one.

My words end up in published books like this one or this one.

And this gets me a LOT of mail. Mostly great response and words of encouragement.

But every year there are always one or two emails that are completely negative.

Not just negative but downright nasty.

When I complain about the state of the industry, I get a hater screaming at me to stop whining.

When I write that I’m having a great time, or year, or success, I get a hater calling me a “smug bastard”.

As I did recently when I posted something I wrote titled “An ode to freelance”.

It was late at night, and I couldn’t believe how alive and free I felt to do this job for a living.

I figured many of you could relate. After all, there are MANY worse jobs than creating something in a design program late at night with a glass of spirits in hand.

I had no demanding boss breathing down my neck.

There was no dumb-ass co-worker asking me how to fix the fax machine that they jammed for the 3rd time.

I wasn’t watching the clock mid-afternoon to count down the minutes.

And I wasn’t stuck in a 2 hour traffic jam to get home.

If I sounded smug, it’s because when it comes to working from home, on my own, Sometimes I AM.

Freelancing rules. Everything (when it is going well) is amazing.

Right now, because times are good, I feel like the luckiest guy on the planet.

So I jotted down my thoughts at that moment.

There was no need (Mr. Hater) for your anonymous attack.

I write for me. I write what I’m feeling, when I’m feeling it.

Belittling me for that post was like slapping somebody for smiling to themselves because they are having a good day.

For those that enjoy my posts. I thank you for I am glad and honoured. You make my writing and sharing it worthwhile.

For all the haters to my thoughts and words, I have a very thick skin.

Call me whatever you want.

I’ve worked in one of the meanest industries for nearly 20 years.

One that chews people up and spits them out, sometimes as fast as they came.

On my own, playing by my own rules, for almost half of it.

Your words didn’t hurt (which I know was your goal).

You simply annoyed like a fly buzzing in one’s ear.

Sometimes, I whistle while I work.

If you don’t like listening to it, I have an easy solution.

All you have to do is click here.

Ode to Freelance

2010-09-13T18:13:00.000-07:00

Dark room.

Silent house.

The only light illuminates off the monitor.

Sipping a glass of smoky, peaty, Islay single malt...on the rocks.

Cat contently purring in my lap.

Getting paid to play in Photoshop and InDesign for one of the world's largest brands.

Some people hate their jobs.

I pity them.

How to answer a call for spec.

2010-07-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

Recent posting...

Joanne Smith's Cover Art Contest.

Calling all design-savvy Joanne Smith fans. The cover art of "A room full of Boondoggle," Joanne's newest and hottest single, is in your hands!

If you have a great vision of what the single’s cover art should look like, we want to see it. The best design (chosen by Joanne herself) will become the official cover art, featured on iTunes and Joanne's personal website. This is your chance to showcase your talent - show us what you've got! Winners will be announced on August 15, 2010.

My reply...

Dear Joanne,

I have a friend that has a similar offer for you.

He would like you to come over and sleep with him.

He's going to try and get it on with over 100 women.

Whomever is the best in bed will be taken out for a cheap dinner.

The difference between my offer and yours is that I'm telling you flat out that you will be getting screwed before you consider it.

Be sure to let me know if you are interested.

Thanks.

Ronnie

My best rejection letter EVER!

2010-04-21T13:16:00.001-07:00

I just read what I believe is the best rejection email/letter I have ever received.

"All the quotes were competitive but I have decided to work with someone else.
I wish you continued success.
By the way, I am never too busy for your referrals!"

Classic.

A change is coming.

2010-04-20T09:05:00.000-07:00

The business of advertising, marketing, and design is once again about to change.

In order to move forward and get bigger and better clients, we will need to offer much more than what we have been up to this point.

Everybody is creating logos, print, and web designs. And they are offering it cheap. This business went from being a profession where you needed a decent traditional art school education and some work experience, to a profession where you simply need a copy of Creative Suite and a computer.

It's almost as if everyone (and their brother) said "I don't know what I want to do for a living, hmmmm...well, I like creating stuff, I should be a designer".

I was quite angry about this transition, I even wrote articles and this blog all about it.
Recently, a friend of mine said to me...
"stop writing and complaining about what was, and become the expert on what will be".
She's right.

Times are changing once again. If you are a design professional, you will need to get on the next wave. We all will.
Stay in the land of static websites, brochures, and logos and expect to work for small change for start-ups that don't have a clue in regards to their budgets or marketing needs.

It is inevitable that they will be needing much more.

Bigger and better clients want bigger and better marketing opportunities.
And there are many coming. Technology is changing quickly. Those that can figure out what these are will make the next jump successfully.

Of course, there will always be a place for mediocrity. Some clients want it, and there will always be designers willing to offer it.
But companies will need to harness the new technology in order to compete, and the general public won't be able to supply their marketing needs by simply hanging out a shingle and calling themselves a "designer".

It's coming.

And I've been studying really hard.

Now I am spending some time finding the right people to put a solid team together to offer these services.

I was a surfer growing up. I spent many summers hanging 10 in a foreign country.

I feel like I have been patiently sitting on my board in the water for the last few years, waiting for this giant wave to roll in.

I now see it in the distance.

Many of the inexperienced will be swallowed up by it.

For the rest of us that are ready, the time to ride it to prosperity is fast approaching.

Meetings, spec work, and a failure to close the deal.

2010-04-12T08:54:00.000-07:00

The first quarter of 2010 is almost over and work has been quite steady. A lot of ongoing projects, some new ones for a few upscale clients, freelance agency work (working as an art director), and I’ve had several meetings with potential clients and agencies for (hopefully) more work to come.

Many freelancers despise face-to-face meetings, consider it a waste of time, and I fully understand why. I have traveled across the city and spent hours with a potential client only to have them give me unrealistic budget expectations or end the meeting with the words “we are shopping around”. This can leave a bad taste in your mouth. Especially when you know your rates are far from the cheapest out there.

I however, have always welcomed meetings for they allow me the opportunity to sell my services face-to-face, educate the client, and hopefully close the deal right there on the spot. If you are good at your presentation skills, and can effectively show a potential client why they should use your services, you will hopefully win many more contracts than you lose.

Meetings also allow you the opportunity to see the client’s place of business first-hand, and you can quickly size them up to determine if yours will be a positive working relationship. It’s really no different than a first date. Many of my best clients were those where we clicked immediately upon our first handshake.

I would love to tell you that all of the meetings you will have as a freelancer will end with positive results. But unfortunately, this is far from reality.

This rest of this story is about one that I had last week, which I was really hoping would have turned out far differently than it did.

I met with one medium-sized company that would have been a great client. The type of ongoing work every freelancer typically dreams about. They found me online and invited me to pitch for their business.

I was excited. This company was exactly my target, one that wants agency-style creative but needs the art director and copywriter removed from the building to save all the overhead costs and middle-man fees. This has always been my niche and makes up my typical client base.

I quoted them on the first project – several magazine ads that were going to run nationally in a few prominent magazines.

They wanted concepts (“out of the box” thinking as they put it), mechanicals, copywriting, and they wanted different versions, An ad campaign for their various products under one (company/brand) umbrella.

I know from working with agencies what these ads should cost them.

I consulted several of my pricing guides and many of my past invoices, and presented them with fees lower than my usual rates hoping to get my foot in the door. I figured a client with a lot of ongoing work is worth some sacrifice.

After receiving my quote, they told me my price was higher than all of the other “agencies” I was competing against (none of which I had ever heard of) but they still wanted me to come in and make a live presentation. I took this as a good sign. The sign of a client willing to educate themselves and pay a little more when they are led to understand that quality (and this type of conceptual thinking) comes with a price. Either that, or they were lying about the other competitor’s quotes hoping to get me to slash my fees. Either way, with a ton of boardroom presentation experience under my belt, I was looking forward to the meeting and the chance to close the deal.

A week later, as predicted, I was in a boardroom full of executives explaining my rationale as to why they should hire me. I pointed out my vast experience of working on global brands, I pointed out my lack of unnecessary costs through overhead, and I showed examples of work I had created in the past that reflected their business and marketing needs. I even brought in two pricing guides and showed them what (according to industry standards) their ads should run them compared to my quote, which was on the bottom end of the scale.

A week later, I had heard nothing so I sent a follow up email asking for an update.

I received a reply in which I found out the sad news that I had lost the pitch.

Now, whenever you find out you have lost (be it a client pitch or a job interview) you ALWAYS want to receive an explanation as to why? This allows you the opportunity to plug any holes you may have had in your presentation.

I sent over the email asking what clinched it for the other company?

Here’s the response I received…

“One of the companies we met with brought three different ads they had created and designed for us, and they were actually really good, their price was very reasonable, and seeing their work upfront helped to reassure us that they were very capable of producing a quality product.

So, their work was good. Okay I get that. There are many other very talented people and agencies out there.

Their price was reasonable. Even though they are GIVING their services away for far-below-industry-standard prices, I understand that it’s a dog-eat-dog world and if somebody is willing to work in this industry for next to nothing, it’s their prerogative. It screws up the rates for the rest of us but once again, there’s really no stopping somebody that wants to work cheap.

But, here’s where it always gets frustrating…

They didn’t yet have the job, they didn’t have a brief, they didn’t make a single penny, yet they produced all the work.

Spec work.

No matter how well I presented, I simply could not compete with that.

For any of you designers or agencies belonging to a professional design organization, you couldn’t either.

You are not allowed to.

Now, I don’t belong to any organization but this got me thinking. By joining a professional design organization are you shooting yourself in the foot in today’s overly competitive world? Will you continuously lose projects to others that don’t follow the rules and moral codes of conduct?

I was feeling pretty down when I received that explanation/reply. It took me some time to shake off the loss. I finally sent another reply to the client whose business I just lost explaining how I could not compete with a company that was willing to create all the work on spec.

I wouldn’t want to. I’d like to fully research the company to the best of my ability, understand their business and their USP, and know that whatever I finally created was exactly on target. That it was the best work I could produce to make a full impact on the consumer and gain my client a successful ROI that (hopefully) exceeds all of their expectations.
And as I told my lost client in the last sentence of my email…

“I’d rather be honourable”.

The question I want you all to ask yourself is this…

Are you?

Until next time, keep dreaming.

How does one tell a company that their ads are horrible?

2010-03-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

Here’s an interesting question for all the advertising professionals out there.

But first, an introductory story.

Every morning, I read the Newspaper. I have been doing this since I started carrying two paper routes for the Toronto Sunday Sun at the age of 11.

The Sunday Sun is a heavy paper. It comes in two thick pieces that had to be assembled before I began delivery. Having two routes (including an entire building), there were a ton of papers to assemble. This meant papers flying around and pages opening to stories that would instantly grab my attention. Hijacked airliners, killer Kool Aid in Jonestown, and an assortment of serial killers roaming the city had me stopping constantly to read the details. Needless to say, I got very interested in World events at a very young age. I had to eventually give up the paper route when I decided it wasn’t really fair to the customers that were constantly complaining that their paper was late. To this day, I can’t start the morning without at least reading the front section of a newspaper containing the World’s headlines and the Letters to the Editor.

So, to make a long story short, here I am at 8:30 am this week, in my regular routine of eating breakfast and reading my newspaper when I discovered on page A3 (that’s the immediate page on the left after turning the cover) the most horribly created ad in the history of the last 10 years. It practically made my eyes bleed.

Not only was it beyond ugly, there were typos, alignment issues, bitmapped images, triple spacing between some words, even the company logo was a disaster.

I flipped some more pages and two more ads immediately stuck out thanks to their poorly designed concepts and layouts.

It appears that some small businesses are still placing large scale ads in the newspaper. But they seem to be creating them themselves.

And business owners wonder why they fail?

Of course, the first thought that goes through my mind is “I really need to contact them to offer my creative services”.

Now, here’s where my question to you comes in…

How do you politely and professionally call up a company and say “Hi, your ad in the newspaper today looked like my cat threw up in its mouth?

Do you tone it down and simply make the offer of “I’d like to come in and show you how I can help improve your advertising”?

Here’s something else to consider, is it even worth it? Would a company willing to place an ad like that on page 3 even consider paying a decent wage to have it done properly?

If you have ever made a cold call like this and it’s been a positive or negative experience, I for one would love to hear it.

Please discuss.

NEVER give up.

2010-03-01T09:32:00.000-08:00

It is the first day of March and this is technically my first real blog post of 2010.

I have just had the busiest 2 months of my freelance career.

Like many in this industry, 2009 was a waiting game. It was the equivalent of fishing on a lake with a million other fishermen and no fish to be found.

For over 6 months I pushed, and schmoozed, and made endless phone calls, and typed hundreds of emails, and sent out dozens upon dozens of proposals, the entire time waiting for something to come through. I would have killed for just one bite. I had a lot of bait out there, and it was a waiting game for a strike on one of my lines.

In the meantime, I wrote for creative outlet. I complained about the state of the industry, crowdsourcing sites, stock photography sites selling logos, cheap designers, and everything else that was disgusting me in relation to what was horribly altering this great profession. I got contacted and gave interviews based on these posts, I kept busy, and no matter what, I always kept at it. I constantly threw out new bait and wondered when and if it would eventually pay off?

At the beginning of January, I decided to join my family in Florida for a week on the beach. After all, nobody was signing any of my proposals and nothing was lined up. I had nothing but free time. I was exhausted from plugging. I needed a bit of R&R.

Miraculously, the second my airline tickets were bought and confirmed, every fishing line started screaming.

Everything I was waiting for, everything I had put in motion over 6 months in 2009, hit at once.

I marveled at all the retainers and signed proposals coming in and left for Florida that week with nothing but a sketchbook in my carry-on luggage. I had that sketchbook with me throughout the trip. Scribbling ideas and concepts on the beach, at the pool, at breakfast, and even once while deep-sea fishing.

Unlike any other point in my career, I had to create a work calendar and schedule all the projects into hours for the month.

There were some late nights. There was some head spinning. But I managed to get it all completed to the required deadlines.

This is what I have worked on in the last 6 weeks…

Ad concepts (and much more) for a software client in New York city.

Advertising (and re-branding) for a national bank (working as a senior Art Director through an ad agency).

A logo for an online music store.

A logo for an online music forum.

A logo and business cards for an interior design company.

A complete company identity/branding for another.

Ad concepts for a large consulting firm.

A direct mail piece for a Podiatrist.

A direct mail piece for a high-end fashion client.

A brochure for a security company.

A website for a poker tournament.

B2B ads/spec sheets (for new products) for a leading worldwide electronics company.

Etc.

I also got called into interviews for several full-time and freelance senior positions during this period. I had to turn down several other projects that didn’t match my skill set. One of which was lead programmer for the world’s most popular online poker site. That contract would have been very lucrative.

The highlight of the entire scope of work was when I was contacted and hired by a company based on my online rants against Crowdsourcing sites.

This company originally had an online contest and received hundreds of submissions resulting in nothing that was good enough to be used. In fact, the submissions were absolute dreck. I was hired to give them an identity they could be proud of. I came through (they liked all 3 concepts) and it will be launched in the near future. There is now one company out there that understands that if you think it is expensive to hire a professional, wait until you give your project to an amateur (or in this case, hundreds of them). You WILL most often get what you pay for.

My point to this post is not to boast but to inspire. To be honest, I am right back to square one. All of the projects are practically completed and I am now back to throwing baited lines into the water.

The point is to keep plugging. Keep fishing. Don’t give up. EVER. It may seem like nothing is happening but all of your hard work is setting the wheels in motion. It may seem like everything is hopeless and redundant but eventually, you WILL get a strike on one of your lines. So keep throwing out lines.

And of course, when all else fails, book a much-needed vacation.

How the new Apple IPAD will change creative job interviews

2010-01-27T12:53:00.000-08:00

Lessons I have learned in 2009

2009-12-10T07:22:00.000-08:00

Here we are at the end of another year.
What a year.
For the most part, it wasn’t exactly a great one (on so many levels).
The recession hit quite hard, many of my friends suffered (both in the industry and outside of it), some of my clients wouldn’t spend a dime on any form of marketing (even though they really should have), I lost a client (or two) to ridiculously cheap designers, and I had two close deaths in the family (one suddenly) including the loss of my beloved grandfather who was one of my biggest business mentors.
I can’t say I’m sad to see this year over.

At the end of 2007, after my first year of working on my own full-time, I wrote a blog post titled “The year in review and the lessons I learned”

All of these lessons still apply, and here are some more I learned during the great recession of 2009...

The client that says “thanks for the quote. We are getting a few more and will get back to you” will most likely never get back to you.

It seems that if you write a blog post praising somebody in this industry, people will start questioning if you are sleeping with them (I’m still laughing).

If hundreds of fishermen descend on your fishing hole, it’s time to either pack up, try a different bait, or find a new fishing hole.

When they create a movie based on the fact that people have left your industry in droves (see “Lemonade – The Movie"), that’s typically not a good sign.

With that said, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Corny and overused, but still rings true.

Twitter and Facebook are powerful as hell and can lead to amazing opportunities if used correctly.

Don’t worry about snarky, negative idiots on online forums. They are probably huge losers in real life.

A large client that nickels and dimes you (asks for a reduction) on a small invoice is one you should fire immediately.

Get a great paralegal/collection agent working for you. In Toronto, I recommend Jeff Greenberg. For outstanding invoices and the unresponsive deadbeats behind them.

I have said this a dozen times but here it is again… No matter which new client you will work for, get a retainer before you begin any work. If they are serious, they will oblige.

Never act completely taken aback when a woman tells you her age. Especially someone that has brought you in for an interview. Long story.

Know who your friends are. Know which co-workers are on your side. Make sure not to share too much information with those that can easily become your competitors. If they become your competitors, make sure you get them to forget this rule.

Find a great creative partner. Especially if working for ad agencies. I love mine to death (hi Linda) and I’m lucky to have her.

Shake all negative thoughts.

Stop putting up with, and dealing with bad clients and start focusing all your energy into finding some great ones.

Never stop moving forward.

Do not count on anyone that promises you “more work coming”. Sometimes, that could mean “many months from now”. (Go back one)

Stop contributing to design contests and crowdsourcing sites.

Don’t stop reading my rants about design contests and crowdsourcing sites. ☺

This industry (and life) is full of peaks and valleys. Not every year can be a great one. This year was bound to happen after so many great ones.

Life happens when you are making other plans.

Tough times don’t last. Tough people do. (This one’s a favourite to my father).

And (once again)…

Family comes first.
Always.
No matter what.

I think to end this year, I should tell my favourite lesson of 2009. An uplifting story about something I witnessed.

I was in Las Vegas for the 40th annual World Series of Poker (in June) and one night I played in a tournament at the famous Golden Nugget casino.
A player got knocked out (by my friend) in the bubble (the last finishing position before entering the payout structure). The poor guy lost miserably with the best hand. Anyone that plays the game knows the horrible feeling of being “the bubble” when you were just within reach of getting paid.
He shook hands with my friend and shuffled slowly out the door with his head down. You couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He looked so sad.
About 10 minutes later, he came running into the room jumping up and down and gave my buddy the biggest bear hug with the words “thank you for knocking me out of this tournament”.
When he left the room he sat down (to mope) in the first seat he could find outside the doors. It was the seat of a 5-cent slot machine. After a minute or two of shaking off the loss, and figuring he was already in front of the machine, he put in a dollar bill, took one pull, and won the $6,500 jackpot.

Moral of the story, for every yin, there really is a yang.
And just when you think you are in the worst spot (and your luck is horrible) something great may be waiting just beyond the next door.

Goodbye 2009. Bring on 2010.

Have a happy holiday season (whatever you celebrate), and may 2010 be a great year for you and yours.

I saw LEMONADE MOVIE (yet left extremely pissed off).

2009-12-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

A few hours ago, I had the pleasure of watching a screening of a movie that I could personally relate to. Lemonade is about what happens when people who were once paid to be creative in advertising are forced to be creative with their own lives.

www.lemonademovie.com

With so many people working in the advertising industry in this city, I was really amazed at how few came out. I would have bet (especially since the screening was free) that it would have been a packed house yet only around 100 people were in attendance.

At roughly 40 minutes in length, the film was extremely well done. Music, direction, etc., all came together beautifully to tell people’s stories without any unnecessary, boring filler.
It got straight to the point. Everyone got laid-off, got over the hurt and feelings of being unwanted, and moved on after discovering what was truly important in their lives. If you have ever worked in this industry, hell, if you have ever worked in ANY industry, you should be able to relate and it is really worth seeing the film. Many (myself included), left inspired and questioning what would truly make us happy in life?

So now you are probably wondering why I left steaming mad (as my title suggests)?

One word.

Irony.

The organization that sponsored/screened the film (that will remain nameless) made some announcements after it ended. One of these announcements was about an open "website design contest” they will be holding in the near future. The winner of this contest will get $1000.

Just so we all get this straight…an organization that just screened a film moments earlier about creative people being laid off in the ad industry is throwing a contest that de-values the livelihoods of creative people working in the industry.

We all know how I feel about design contests. I could feel the blood boiling in my head. I bit my tongue trying so hard not to explode when the organizer asked if there were any questions?

I decided to confront her when it was over.

I walked up, introduced myself, and flat out asked how an organization can be so hypocritical that they would hold a design contest after screening this film?

Amazingly, her response was “I know, I know” and she tried to explain how they still consider the contest a “good idea”.
I asked her how it’s a good idea? It’s no wonder people are losing their jobs. If every company that needed some creative work decided to hold such a contest (and it seems as if they are), why would anyone ever need to hire an ad agency? I tried to make her understand that what her organization is doing is contributing to the demise of our industry.

She replied with an authoritative “everyone that submits a design will have their link featured on our website”.

This is a classic line that I hear often. It translates into “do all our work for free, and we promise you’ll get a load of business out of it because we know a lot of people”.

Anybody that has been on the freelance side of this industry will tell you that this line is the standard ‘biggest-load-of-crap’ that you will hear often as justification for free work.

There was something one individual (featured in the film) said that stuck with me.

“Companies don’t need to go to an ad agency anymore. There are plenty of people out there that are great at what they do and are not only willing to do the work, they actually love doing it”.

I quoted this line to her. I asked why they won’t consider hiring a great out-of-work designer to build them a website and pay them the $1000? What I got in return was another justification for the contest. “I believe there is room in this industry for both” she replied.

Why is it so difficult to understand that by holding this immoral contest, they aren’t (as they believe) giving an opportunity to recently laid-off creative people. What they are actually doing is taking advantage of their vulnerability.

Lemonade (and those involved in the making of it) - I give you an “A”. I really enjoyed it.

Organization that sponsored the screening - in my books you should really be ashamed. Go through with this contest and you deserve a big fat “F”.

Now, go hire a recently fired creative that can use the money to feed their children.

Great…Another contest.

2009-11-26T12:03:00.000-08:00

On an industry forum, a new spec contest has come to light. Absolut Vodka is holding a creative contest. The winner gets a whopping $500.

Whooptie-do.

$500 from a company that makes millions. Less than the janitor probably makes per week mopping the floors at their corporate headquarters.

Somebody excitedly posted the link (I've changed the name to indicate my true feelings)...
Absolut Bullshit Contest

Those that follow me know how I stand on this subject. But somebody in the industry wrote a response to me on the forum voicing my disapproval…

“This one wouldn't be bad practice for someone with little to no experience in the real world + you get to work on an Absolut Brief so it's not all bad.”

Here’s my response…

It's all bad. How does anyone get into the real world when the real world is the fact that Absolut (and all the others that do these demeaning contests) are taking work away from their agencies? No work = no agency. By contributing to these contests, what you are in fact telling these corporations is that we work for free. Our education means nothing, our money invested means nothing, our time means nothing.

Go call 20 dentists, have them all pitch to whiten your teeth, and tell them that the winner may get a long term client. "May" being the correct word. Or 10 mechanics can try and fix your car, and whoever succeeds, "may" get paid.

In every industry, they will tell you straight out to fuck off (I believe using profanity is appropriate in this situation).

In ours, the majority of us don't do a damn thing. Except for a select few (and don't think we don't rat these companies out to design organizations who in turn, write and bombard them with tastefully crafted nastiness), we continuously (as an industry) take it right up the ass.

And what's absolutely amazing is that many of us take it with a smile on our face.

Sad.

I'm going to write Absolut and tell them to send over a dozen crates of different flavoured Vodkas.

If my friends and I have a great time (over the course of around a month), I will be sure to "mention their name" as a winner in my books on Facebook and Twitter. I'll even pay them a little something for their trouble.

Absolut: Please make sure you ring the doorbell when you deliver.

I'm waiting.

For more info on this subject, please visit
www.no-spec.com

What the hell are they teaching you?

2009-11-11T09:31:00.000-08:00

The other day I had the pleasure of having coffee with a 20 year old advertising student that emailed me asking for some guidance. He was troubled. Not with the industry and its current state but with the school he has attended. A 2 year advertising program at a college that has basically prepared him for absolutely nothing.

I asked him about the curriculum and what he told me left my mouth hanging open.
They are teaching old school methodology. Concept driven drivel on generic products that have been done to death year after year since the late eighties. How original…lets create a new print concept for a hot sauce. It doesn’t matter that 30,000 before you also have an ad like this in their book, or that agencies (in the past) have won numerous awards for this client. You are sure to one-up them.

I asked the student about interactive and what courses he was taking?
Blank Stare.
I asked him about social media and what they have touched on?
Blank Stare.

“This is the problem” he stated. “I don’t think they are preparing us for what we need to succeed in this industry”.

He is right. Advertising today is not about creating a billboard for a hot sauce. Advertising today is about creating what is right for the client. And every one of them is different. If the client is best served by an ad campaign on a social networking site, then you do an ad campaign that will be successful on a social networking site.
They aren’t touching on web design programs? Not even one day on the basics?
Nearly every creative want-ad in the careers section of industry magazines (in today’s market) wants an interactive art director.

Many schools need to wake up and stop taking student’s money with the false promise of careers in this industry. The curriculum needs to be updated every few years with a focus of what is new and what is coming. Not what was and is now going.

According to this student, the instructors also persuade them to take on spec work for clients to help build their portfolios. This is not the first time I have heard this. In a recent comment on one of my past blog posts, the writer states…

“What really frustrated me was how the teachers at my school would encourage us to take jobs from "good clients" at a ridiculous price to "make our names". I think our teachers weren't aware that it didn't work like that anymore”.

To sum up, what I have seen (time and time again) in meeting with graduating students is that many schools are taking their money, the instructors are tired designosaurs teaching what they knew back when they were at the heights of their careers (decades ago), and they are instilling in these kids a low sense of self-worth. The very people that are supposed to be preparing their students for a successful career in this industry are contributing to the demise and immorality that has taken over through spec work, contribution to contests, and working for little to no money with the hope that somebody may take notice down the road.

Very nice.

If I were to teach (and I have thought of doing this many times), my course would focus on real world business preparation. Many end up freelancing (in one form or another) so I would teach them the basics. How to write a proper proposal. How to create a proper contract and invoice. How to prepare for taxes. Things that hold up in this business. I would prepare students for the real world. No sugar coating. I’d even give a lesson on how to collect from a deadbeat client. If I was to have them work on a client, I’d pick some obscure start-up and have them start from the bottom up.

The last thing I would have them do is create an ad for a generic client, in a tired medium, and tell them to get out there and sell themselves short. If you’re going to teach concepts, make the students adapt their work into executions for different mediums available in today’s world. The ad for hot sauce should not just be a billboard, it should also be applied into some form of a promotion utilizing the internet. It should involve different applications and mediums for a complete execution.

Students, research the school you choose. Research how many graduates got hired in their respective field. Research the backgrounds of the instructors. Where do they stand in the industry right now? Choose your school the same way you would choose your spouse.

Very carefully.

Because before you know it, the only thing you’ll be able to do with that hot sauce ad is identify the product easily in the supermarket.

Until next time, keep dreaming.

If you could follow JUST one person in your creative career…

2009-10-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

Everybody needs a mentor.

Recently, I was asked who has had the greatest impact on my career?
Over the years, I have worked with some great and talented people, I’ve learned a lot from several of them, but I don’t think I can really name one person in the workplace that took me completely under their wing. Pondering the question, what I came to realize is that one of my main mentors is actually somebody in this business that I consider a friend. I haven’t worked with her at all. I’ve only met her face-to-face a few times but we’ve just had some great chats over the years and I’ve listened…to EVERYTHING she has to say.

What I learned a long time ago is that this business is not just about the work you create, but also about making the right connections and contacts. Whom you rub shoulders with can be as important to your career as your book. As I have mentioned in past articles, I have found full-time agency work by chatting up Creative Directors at an industry function with a glass of Scotch in my hand.

Social Marketing takes this networking to a whole new level. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. are like being at the cocktail party or award show reception 24/7.
You can introduce yourself to anybody. You can follow their words. You can have many mentors and follow many people.

I have no idea how and when I met Heidi Ehlers, but I knew from the moment I met her that this was one person I would stick close to the rest of my life. In the world of advertising and design (especially in North America), Heidi may possibly be the most important and knowledgable person you could ever know. A former creative herself, Heidi is the owner of BLACK BAG creative recruitment + career management. She’s not just a headhunter, she is THE headhunter. BLACK BAG is about creative talent. Finding creative talent, strategizing careers with creatives, studying what causes the best creative talent to be the best and what causes the hot shops to be hot.

I could go on about her “Diary of a Creative Director” series or “Camp Black Bag” workshops. I could write endless paragraphs about how inspiring she is when listening to her speak, or how many times she has been able to steer me in the right direction. But I will simply end this post with two little words of advice...

FOLLOW HER.

If I could only have one mentor in this world, or if I could follow just one person that I believe would be the greatest asset to my career, it would be Heidi.
I think you should be listening too.

On FACEBOOK: BLACK BAG creative recruitment + career management
On TWITTER: BLACKBAGtweets

Status Quo

2009-10-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

Potential Client:

Hi Ronnie. We would like to use your creative services but we would like to see some ideas and concepts before we give you the go ahead.

Ronnie Lebow:

Sure. And since you are a Dental office (and I'm already here), lets go into the next room so you can whiten my teeth. If I like the results, maybe I'll agree to pay you.

Bald Media…a new launch.

2009-10-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

Around a year ago, I was busy putting together a new guerilla marketing company that I believe is fantastic for trade shows and on-the-street product giveaways. In today’s digital world, anything on the street and in the public’s face is great exposure and my company sure does draw attention.

Bald models heads are airbrushed with a company brand, product or service and are unleashed on the unsuspecting general public. Imagine 5 guys walking through a packed shopping mall during the holiday season or handing out product samples at a trade show. People can’t help but look. It only makes sense that my company’s slogan is “heads that turn heads.”

Unfortunately, while I was putting it all together, an advertising agency in New Zealand came up with the same concept for a client, it made news, and I knew I had to act fast to launch the company. To top it off, a media journalist saw my ad online (searching for the models) and decided that it was an interesting story that simply couldn’t wait to be told. I had no choice but to work through the weekend and get everything ready for its Monday release.

The story broke and the phone started to ring. I had 3 gigs booked right out of the starting gate. I figured my company was going full steam ahead. That’s basically when the economy tanked and the projects quickly got pulled because the clients began to “trim the fat”. Bald Media was simply an extra touch. All the “extras” started getting cut out of the budgets from worried corporations.

I have several friends in the staffing and event planning industry and they saw the same thing with their businesses this year.
So I decided to stop focusing on promoting the company, and figured I would lay low only to launch again when the time was right.

With the economy now getting stronger, and the holiday and trade show season right around the corner, I believe there isn’t a better time to start promoting it than at this moment. Bald Media will get a company or message noticed. Especially to large captive audiences. It is not only a fact, it is guaranteed.

The procedure of application is also a crowd pleaser. Having the airbrush artist on-site at an event is an advantage as people will gather around to watch the logo/message being applied. In today’s world of limited attention spans, it is guerilla marketing at its finest. With over 25 models of different ethnicities in my roster, I’m ready to go.

To re-launch Bald Media, I teamed up recently with my airbrush artist and decided to do a test street run. We wanted to see what would happen and the timeframe involved in the application process. Since it’s my company and I shave my head (which is how I came up with the whole idea in the first place), it only made sense that I would be the guinea pig.
We did two artistic versions. One, a company logo for a potential client for the upcoming Canadian Poker Expo, and the other, a generic application for Bald Media.

Upon walking out the door and into the street, the results were unbelievable. I literally stopped traffic as cars slowed down to look at me. I had the airbrush artist grab the video camera and run way down the street to capture the reactions and results for posterity.

If it could generate this kind of response within minutes of being outside on a moderately quiet street, I can only imagine the exposure possibilities for a corporate brand in the right setting.

To watch the application video and street test run, please visit the site…

http://www.baldmedia.ca/baldmedia.mov

or on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-Wfsuywl4c

Who wants a job?

2009-09-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

In my last blog post, I announced that it is time to Abandon Ship.

This did not mean that we should flee the industry, it meant that we need to abandon what we have done in the past and move forward in a new direction.

The design/ad freelance world as we knew it has changed. It is no longer about designing a logo and a fancy business card or producing an ad for your client. It is about offering them the best solution for their business, whatever it may be. A direct mail piece combined with social media or an outdoor billboard with a mobile promotional code, the freelance creative moving forward, needs to think and produce on a much larger scale. The way companies attract clients in the technological world of today has quickly changed.

With this in mind, I am no longer labeling myself as just a creative “freelancer”. I am a creative “brand builder”. In today’s world, if you want to work small and on your own, you need to get over the idea that you alone can offer your client everything they need to grow their business, and you sometimes need to outsource.

Growing up, I watched the older generation (in my life) do multi-million dollar deals on the golf course. They were strictly middle-men. They brought this guy together with that guy and got a piece of the action. I believe that in order to continue working as a freelance creative, we have to follow this route.

If my client needs SEO (Search Engine Optimization), I know somebody who I can bring on board to provide this service. If they need a TV or Radio commercial, I have people in place for that too. And I’m going to make sure that every one of these contacts will give me a piece of the pie for making the connection and bringing them the business.

Going forward, I will continue to do what I love best. Designing logos and creating ads, but I offer my clients more than that. This is what separates me from many “professional” creatives out there. When I am hired, I offer my clients consultation on what they should do (moving forward) to grow their brand. They hire me for my knowledge of the industry and the solutions that are available to them.

Using the same principle I have just described, I have a job offer for anybody that is interested.

Do whatever you like to do every day. Look for a job, paint your house, or spend more time with your kids. I’m offering each and every one out there a chance to make some money. And the best part, you don’t have to do much.

Bring me a client that wants to creatively brand their business and I will give you 15% of whatever profit I bring in. They need a logo? 15%. They need a magazine print ad? 15%. The bigger the project, the more money you will make.

Now here’s the best part…you make the connection, go off and do whatever you want (or even better, go find the next client), and if that client continues to use my creative services, I will continue paying you 15% of all future profit. Find me 3 large clients that are tired of paying over-inflated agency fees, and you may not even have to work this year. I have a rolodex full of freelance professionals in different areas of the industry that can be brought in (as needed) and the sky is the limit as to what we can offer.

I am offering you the position of a commission-based “virtual account executive”.

And everybody and their grandmother can do this job.

Go to a cocktail party and find out that the person you just met needs a new identity for their start-up company?

15%.

Go on vacation and find out that the resort changed owners and is looking to advertise?

15%.

My strategy is this. Why be a creative person who’s always busy looking for the next project when I can focus on working creatively and have thousands of people out there looking for my next project?

While you are out there looking, I’ll be doing the same. Sending clients that I can’t service on my own to others with which I have partnerships.

Everybody in the circle moving together as one large machine.

This is the future of freelancing.

Brand building.

Who’s on board?

Abandon Ship

2009-09-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

- Bob Dylan

It has been a whirlwind of a week.
My blog post about the changing of the design industry "we have become cheap whores" has racked up the hits. Never could I have imagined this outcome when I wrote it.

I’d like to thank ISTOCK for their amazing timing this week. They almost single-handedly proved my entire point.

All the comments, forwarding of the article, tweets, and emails have been much appreciated.
So now what? As the song lyrics above say, it’s time to sink or swim.

With anything you need a game plan. You have to lay out the next course of action.
So I’ve begun doing so. Yesterday I met with an old friend of mine. We used to be DJs together way back when music was new and not “Old School” (as it is called today).
His internet company just made an impressive showing on “Profit” Magazine’s top 50 list, and I figured we should sit down together to discuss what is happening in the future of communications. What he showed me in our 2 hour meeting blew my mind and I feel like the days where I hosted a BBS site from my Commodore 64 should be included in the technological dark-ages.

Hopefully, you will follow along with me as I explore new tactics and options. I have places to go, people to meet, and things I must do in this industry and as my buddy instructed me, the first step is to sign up on “Twitter”. I’ve been avoiding it like the plague but if the guy who is considered a leader in online communications is telling me to start there, I’m listening.

Hopefully you will follow along.
http://www.twitter.com/ronnielebow

Come Monday I’m jumping in head first. The ship as I knew it (and many on it) is going down.

Swim with me.

Have a great weekend.

ISTOCK now sells logos?

2009-09-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

I have a ton of work to do this morning. Yet here I sit, knowing that I must say SOMETHING in regards to ISTOCKPHOTO’s announcement that they will begin selling logos (for lower than standard pricing) sometime in the near future. I’m not even going to bother editing this one because of time restrictions, so if there are grammatical errors on this post, I apologize.

Just last week, I wrote my blog article “We have become cheap whores” and it is still being circulated around the world. I think my timing was quite good because after yesterday’s ISTOCK announcement, I saw it circulate again and we have some huge protests taking place from designers on both sides of the fence.

On one side, is the uproar from people that have made a handsome living over the years in this industry and understand a brand’s worth. On the other, people that welcome the fact that there is possibly a market for whatever they can produce. As one “designer” wrote on the site’s message board…

“WOW, Just GREAT. Now I have a reason to learn illustrator as I have been wanting to for some time”.

Nuff said.

After reading pages upon pages of comments from wannabe designers congratulating ISTOCK for this new endeavour, I realize that in the design world of today, true professional and passionate creatives have become the minority.

Now, here are some facts and questions as to why I sit on both sides of the fence on this idea.

I’ll start with the negative.

First is the most obvious. I charge my “friends and family” $2,000 for a logo.
For clients, I start at $2,500. And I have always been fairly busy. The reason I charge this rate is because I know a logo is NOT in the same category as clip art. In fact, I believe that a logo design is the hardest thing I can produce. I have been known to create award-winning ad concepts in one day, but for the new look of the dental office down the street, I like to give myself around 3 weeks. The client must be researched. I need to know what kind of clientele they are targeting. I need to know how they want to project themselves in the marketplace. I need to know many factors before I put pen to paper. And then I need to explore different avenues and ideas for the client. Often, a logo is born by making a move (while tinkering for days) with a design until I end up shouting “Eureka”. Then I do it all over again for the next concept. Is this whole process really only worth a few hundred dollars?

Remember when you were young, and you practiced your signature over, and over, and over again until you got it perfect? How much would you have paid to have somebody come up with that for you? What if I could give you a signature that got a WOW response everytime somebody saw it? How much would you have paid for that? This is what we do and why we charge more than a few hundred bucks for this creativity.

ISTOCK claims that you should submit your third round of logo revisions that the client rejected. This sounds great. Only there was probably a reason the client didn’t want it. In my mind, the fact that they paid me for my creative concepts means that by selling those concepts I have just cheated them. They paid me handsomely for the work, and now somebody gets to use what they threw away for a small fraction of the cost?

There are also possible trademark issues and the legal expenses that could be incurred to a company if they end up buying something that has been ripped off. You are a company owner, you buy a logo off the site, you create and pay for all the corporate materials to accommodate it, and the next thing you know, some designer in (insert country here) is suing you for ripping off their work. Seems the “designer” that submitted the logo to the site copied it. Now what?

Now we have the factor I fear most. The cheapening of what we do in the eyes of the public and the start-up company owner. “What do you mean you charge $2,500? My brother got a professional looking logo for $100 off one of those sites”. Our service will now be a much harder sell.

Here is why I like the ISTOCK logo idea…

I have created dozens of logos over the years. My clients generally get a minimum of 3 concepts. Sometimes, I give them more. So, lets say I have created 30 logos over the course of my career…that means I would have around 100 designs to submit to ISTOCK. Let’s say I tell ISTOCK to sell them at a maximum rate of $800 each. I get 50% of that (according to what I have read). $400 x 100 = $40,000.

$40,000 and I don’t have to do a damn thing. Like my ISTOCK photo uploads, I’ve already created them and they were just collecting dust anyway. Have I hurt professional photographers with my photo uploads? For one thing, unlike “designers” that will submit logos, I never claimed to be a professional photographer. This is where the difference lies. If my photo has some grain to it, the one downloading it takes that chance. What you see is what you get. As a professional Art Director, I have still hired my fair share of professional photographers for different photo shoots and I have still bought high-end photographs in the $2,500 range for some of my clients. I’m sure logo designs will work the same way.

If you are looking for a professional design, hire a professional. If you are looking for something to “make do”, go ahead and download from ISTOCK. Just don’t be upset when it comes around to bite you in the behind down the road.

What I find most interesting is that ISTOCK sells photos to designers and art directors like myself. Now, they are going to hurt the business of the very people they rely on to buy their photographs. I believe this is called "biting the hand that feeds you".

Here is my take. Sell it for what it is. There should be a biography beside every one of the logo designs on who is submitting them. If somebody (like myself) has an impressive background, qualifications, and numerous awards for their work, they should be allowed to price their designs at whatever they see fit. I may not sell as many designs but I am okay with that. Hopefully companies looking at my work will see that I took the time to create what they are buying. Not that I whipped something together to put a few dollars in my pocket. An amateur with no professional background should not be worth the same rate.

In the end, if the world changes, you can fight it or you can go along with it. I’m still undecided on this one. One thing I do know is this…

I may be a whore, but as I’ve said before, I’m not a cheap one.

Whore Aftermath

2009-09-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

I went from writing absolutely nothing for a few months, to not stopping for 3 days. Updating the events from the first blog post, writing email replies to many, and speaking with a few design organizations and industry websites that have followed up.

To everyone that submitted comments and praise in regards to the article and the info it contained, I thank you.

This was never about me. I was merely pointing out facts. And after speaking to the RGD (who have really been amazing in regards to all of this), this isn’t about them either. They seem as genuinely concerned as we are, are investigating, and I for one commend them greatly for it.

This was about the state of our industry. This is about the freelance website that doesn’t care about standards or guidelines. They only care if they get a piece of the action. No matter how low it may sink.

This is about the employer in Toronto that believes $2.00/hour is fair pricing for what we do.

And most of all, this is about ALL of us putting our foot down.

Somebody said that we should form a union and I should be the Jimmy Hoffa of this industry (minus the unhappy ending to that story). And truth, if I knew I could change things for the better I would seriously consider it. But we all know this is not possible.

I could write a blog post (keeping names out of it). I could bring the situation to your attention and hope you get something from it. That was about it.

All of this has to do with you.

I have turned down many jobs this year (and lost several others) because I have stuck to my guns. I will continue to stick to my guns. I’m not interested in competing with those that feel that $2/hour is acceptable.
I poured a lot of sweat into getting to this point in my career and I’ll be damned if anybody is going to have me cheapen that. Make some concessions because it’s a rough economy? Sure. No problem. You need a logo, website, corporate materials and a direct mail postcard? I’ll throw in the postcard design for free. The rest will cost what I believe it is worth.

Why? Because if I’m not getting paid what it is worth, I’d sooner do something else.

So now what do we do?

Do we sign a petition stating that none of us will work below minimum wage?
Do we all agree on a standard pricing guidelines? The Graphic Artist’s Guild of America has a book like that.
Many don’t follow it.

As we discovered this week, even the organizations have their work cut out for them to regulate what their members are up to.

It’s entirely up to you as a professional creative.

Do you want to keep giving away your work or not?

If there isn’t anyone willing to do this cheap work, we’d all be in great shape again.

I’ll be the first name.

I solemnly swear as a professional creative to not cheapen our industry by working for wages (or contributing to anything) that I feel, de-values us as a whole.

I swear to keep up the fight.

Ronnie Lebow.

The cheapest whore of all.

2009-09-10T14:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote a blog post titled “We have become cheap whores”.
Although I knew it was good, I didn't realize it would spread like wildfire around the world with kudos coming in from people not only in our industry, but other industries as well.

Photographers, art directors, web designers, people in film editing, even accountants felt the need to write me on this one.

I woke up this morning to approximately 167 emails praising it with a hundred other additional comments (all positive except for one) on different websites. People have been forwarding the link.

Now, some new information has come to light.

As I mentioned, 5 proposals were submitted for that $2/hour project.
The one Canadian proposal belongs to a designer who is a recognized member of both the RGD (Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario) and a Professional Member of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada.

Please feel free to write both organizations (as I have) and stress how you feel about their members contributing to the destruction of our beloved industry. I mean, aren’t they the ones that are supposedly adhering to strict values? If THEIR members don’t give a crap, should anybody?

I have nothing left to say. I'm just shaking my head.

We have become cheap whores.

2009-09-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

For those of you that have been following me, you may have noticed that I haven’t written in months. I’ve been extremely busy. Not so much in the industry (and workwise), but with life.

I have traveled extensively this year. I had family affairs on 2 different sides of the world, I got sponsored and played against the top pros in the World Series of Poker (and made a final table in a large casino tournament while I was there), and I was a guide to 8 men on a canoe trip to North Ontario.

The list goes on.

My point to this is that I had a LOT of time to think. About my place in this industry, about the future of this industry, about what I want to do for the next 10 years.

This week, I turned 40. A milestone. The age where I’m (supposedly) going into my top income bracket yet here we are in the middle of a deep recession. Work has been relatively slow. Friends in this industry have been crying to me. Clients have feared spending money, and all the unemployed have been whoring their services as freelancers.

Yes, that’s right. I said it. Never in all my years have I seen the competition so fierce. Never have I seen people give their services away for so little.

I recently had a client tell me that they found someone to do their monthly direct mail/postcards for $20. The worst part is that this client asked me if I could beat that price (and this is a client that makes over $20k+ in commission per sale).

Are you seriously kidding me? Can I beat $20? Needless to say, I walked away. Quickly.

Our profession has become tainted in the eyes of many thanks to $20 designers who pump out crap with pirated versions of design software.

To an uneducated client, we are all simply Mac Monkeys. To their understanding, what we do is relatively easy. Crowd-sourcing sites, $99 logos for sale, and design/advertising "contests" have quickly cheapened this once-great artistic profession. “I don’t need to pay for one professional, I can hold a contest, and pick a winner from thousands of entry submissions”.

I got into this profession after growing up with Mad Men. I’m not talking about the hit TV show but those same people they portray. I wanted the single-malt scotch in my hand at 4:00pm while I wristed up a concept at my drafting table (and believe me, I experienced this at more than one agency). I sketched naked models for years just so I could nail a pose correctly. I then went to art school for 4 long years and did it some more. You had to be a trained artist to get into this business. I penned an article years ago about my ode to my dying craft entitled “I love the smell of rubber cement in the morning”.

Times changed when the computer came into play. For better and worse. It did however, allow me to land where I am at this very moment, working from a home office.

With the Blackberry, my business changed even more.

I have taken advantage of all the freedom freelancing has to offer. I walk my kids to school in the mornings, I take vacations whenever I want, I go grocery shopping in the afternoon, and all the while, I’m connected to clients, potential clients, project notifications, and my entire virtual office thanks to the little mobile device attached to my belt.

Looking for work and pitching for projects has become a little too easy.

Many design schools became businesses. It’s not so much about the craft anymore, it’s about how many “professionals” they can churn out. Once these “pros” come out, they look for work. Any work. Competing like rabid stray dogs over scraps on a bone.

Name me one single industry where somebody can simply buy some software, hang up a sign, and call themselves a professional without any prior training or work experience?
I see it in our industry every single day. And to many businesses and their owners in today’s economy, we are a dime a dozen.

Recently, I got notified from a freelance work site regarding this listing…

Description:

The graphic designer will be responsible for the conceptual and creative design for a variety of marketing pieces including: permanent and temporary display renderings and concepts, posters, POP material, on-line advertising, tradeshows, newspaper and magazine advertising, among other printed applications. The graphic designer will also be responsible for some project management responsibilities.

Skills Required:

•Develop and design concepts and renderings ( 2D & 3D) as per client request

•Manage multiple ongoing projects with frequent and tight deadlines.

•Work closely with various personnel to complete and manage a project through to completion.

•Strong at conceptualizing, a problem-solver, and creative presenter, coupled with excellent written and oral communication skills.

•Superior understanding of print processes, pre-flight management, and burning files for archiving and distribution

•Must be a quick-thinking, decisive and resourceful team player with the ability to distinguish good design from mediocre.

•Strong organizational/time management skills and ability to understand client needs.

•Succeed and thrive in a highly business/creative environment and take constructive/corrective criticism well

Qualifications:

•University degree/College diploma in graphic/industrial design

•1-3 years of design experience

•Proficient in a MAC and PC environment

•Proficient in 3D software a MUST.

•Strong knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite - Illustrator, In-Design, Acrobat/Distiller, Photoshop

Okay, are you ready for this?

Seriously, are you ready?

You may want to brace yourself.

Pay is $2.00 an hour.

No, there aren’t any zeros missing.

Once again, a University degree, 1-3 years of experience, all those requirements (including extensive knowledge in 3D software), and this complete asshole believes that $2.00 an hour is an acceptable pay rate.

I could make more than that by humming into a kazoo in the subway station for 10 minutes.

This job is not in India, it’s not in some third world country. It’s right here, smack dab in Toronto, Canada.

I was furious. I answered the employer in the project question board with the following...

“I believe you have entered the pay field incorrectly as $2/hour is an illegal wage in the province of Ontario”.

What happened next made my blood boil. I was immediately banned from the question board on the website for “derogatory and/or sarcastic comments”.

I wrote an email asking the site how I could be banned for bringing up the legalities of the situation? They responded with the following…

“Regarding the amount posted for this project - as this is a global marketplace, there may be professionals willing to complete this project. Cost of living, and therefore pricing, varies across the globe. While project amounts of $250 or $300 may not seem like much to you, it may be the equivalent of $1000 or more in another country. Also, someone just starting their freelance career may be willing to complete this project. As long as there are professionals willing to complete the project, we do not intend to deny them the work. We certainly cannot force the entire community to abide by the standards of one group or another.”

Seeing as this is a job which appears to be on-site work in Toronto, I replied back, stating the legalities again and that it appears the site has no problem making money on illegal business practices and slave labour.

I quickly got my privileges back.

It is time to take a stand to save this industry. How? I don’t know. We never had standards or set pricing guidelines. We never had a union and for the most part, we have too many out there that are hungry.

The first step would be to stop contributing to Crowdsourcing sites and “Contests” promising us fame and fortune based on our winning designs. They are simply taking advantage of us, our talent, our thousands of dollars in software and equipment, and they de-value what we do for a living.

As the site replied, “As long as there are professionals willing to complete the project, we do not intend to deny them the work”.

We must stop being willing to do the work.

The next step is to start educating our clients. Make them understand that conducting research on their company, conceptualizing and producing an effective look/brand for it (and all the other associated materials etc.) should not cost less than the 2 uneducated guys nailing new shingles on the roof of their house.

Branding a new business and unleashing it into the marketplace should not cost less than a new set of brakes on one’s car.

Until we can get this through their head, we are going to see many more ads seeking trained professionals for these pitiful wages. We are going to see the profession we love become something that just isn’t worth doing anymore.

Going back to my beginning, what do I want to do in the next 10 years? Besides working creatively, I want to make some changes. Stay on top of these things. I want to see all of us getting paid what we are worth.

I don’t know how to go about doing this, I don’t even think it can be done. I just know it HAS to be done.

Because as I type this last sentence, there are now 5 proposals from qualified designers for the $2.00/hour position.

The "Out of our minds" promotion.

2009-06-11T14:48:00.001-07:00

2009 is the year of the start-up. Or so it has seemed by the numerous requests for corporate identities that I have received this year. Many recently laid-off people seem to be skipping the job hunt and opening shop instead. For years I have had a minimum rate for logo design projects. This year as well, only I have lost several projects to starving designers now offering bargain basement pricing and the growth of “crowdsourcing” sites.

I thought long and hard about this problem and the question that kept nagging me. How can I sweeten my proposals to ensure I win them? Was I willing to take a pay cut? Sure, if I had some help.

The idea hit me one day like a load of bricks. I even had a name for it.

Offer 2 professional designers for the price of one. Even better, I’ll offer the client 3.

I emailed two very professional and seasoned freelancers I know, Brad Choma and Denny Kurien, with the invitation to meet over breakfast.

I shared my idea with them, we discussed it for 2 hours, and left with a partnership.

The “Out of our minds” promotion was born.

Working together, yet separately, we are offering a unique promotion to any start-up for the duration of 2009.

3 professionals working independently on the look of your brand, for roughly the same price you would typically pay for one.

We will share the final concepts with each other and polish them as a team before presenting the client with 6 finished identities to choose from.

Unlike the Crowd-sourcing sites that can see thousands of amateur designers competing by submitting logos in the hopes of having their design selected, “Out of our minds” is unique as it immediately brings 3 extremely seasoned professionals to the table. The client doesn’t have to spend weeks going through thousands of entries in the hope that one stands out.

We research our client’s business. We speak to them directly and we’ve all been working on some of the world’s most recognized brands for a very long time. Anybody starting a business has to have a strong identity in today’s market. They need a look that stands out from the crowd. We’ve just made getting one not only much easier, we’ve made it extremely cost-effective.

3 Professionals, 6 concepts, one low set price.

$2009 during 2009.

www.outofourminds.ca

When life hands you lemons, go for the jugular.

2009-05-31T07:17:00.000-07:00

The last few months have been an interesting ride. A scary ride. You know when you receive an email from a known working creative director asking if you need any help, that things can’t be too good.
I have many friends in this industry and many of them are not working at the moment.

I have spent the last 3 months creating and executing a game plan. If you read my last blog post about my website going down and the email blasts I created to follow it, this paid off well and resulted in several projects that I am currently working on.
I believe that when this economic slump is finally on the upwards swing again, those that have prepared and put all the correct pieces in place will reap the rewards.

Many of you that read my blog (or know me) have figured out that my biggest passion in life is Poker (I’m heading to Las Vegas to play in a World Series of Poker event in a few weeks… fully sponsored).
Many of the lessons you learn in that game carry forward to real life.

I have won a lot of big tournaments because I understand that when the big stacks are showing weakness, that is the perfect time to go after their chips.
Right now, big agencies are hurting. REALLY hurting. This has been the perfect time to meet with their clients and show them some much cheaper alternatives for their creative needs. This game plan has been taking up the majority of my time. I have not only received some projects from one or two of them, I have also been referred to others in their rolodex and have 6 meetings next week with the heads of different companies.

I also figured out that during bad economic times, some of those recently laid-off will skip looking for a new job and instead take a shot at starting up a new business. I have been targeting these people as well. I am currently working on two large corporate identity projects and have several more waiting to sign. I also had a serious idea for a promotion, brought two other people on board, and we will be launching this week.
If all goes according to plan, you will hopefully read about it in the industry press.

My point to all this is that you should keep your chin up. All is not hopeless.
Nothing is easy. Nothing happens overnight.
It’s all up to you and the steps you take now.
You can’t give up. You can’t take no for an answer. You knock on one door, it slams in your face, you move on and knock on the next one. Eventually, one should open.

If I told you it has been an easy ride, I would be lying. It has been the hardest grind of my career so far. 16 hour work days with nothing to show for it but alot of talk and promises. Thankfully, some of them are starting to come through.
I could be back to square one tomorrow. But I don’t believe in giving up.
As we say in the game of Poker, you have to constantly be mixing up your game to win.
And right now, there are many opportunities to come out of this thing a winner.
Fortune favours the bold.
Go get them Tiger.

Until next time, keep dreaming.

Shop Closed.

2009-05-09T08:32:00.001-07:00

The last week has been one of the worst in my freelance life.
For the first time in my career, I felt an unbearable feeling of dread. That sick, queazy, stomach
turning stress that almost made me physically ill.

Last Monday, I lost my website.

The Friday before went extremely well. I had some new work I created (for Nestle Canada) launch nationwide.
To a freelancer, the day something goes live is the equivalent of Christmas morning.
The main way to gain new business is to always be promoting yourself. When you create the majority of work months before you are allowed to show it to anyone, you look forward to the day you can finally announce it.

I sent an email blast showcasing the new work on Friday to my contact lists... agencies, clients, potential clients, friends and family etc.
Friday afternoon was spent deleting the emails that bounced back (and it seems there are many during this economic downfall) and writing thank-you follow-ups to those that responded with compliments. I also sent off a few proposals for some potential business.

The weekend came and went.

Monday, I had to run a few errands and at roughly 11:00 am, I was standing in a Home Depot aisle with a full cart when my phone rang.
A close friend and colleague called me to deliver the news.

“Buddy, I hate to tell you this but I was just about to forward your email to somebody when I noticed it’s completely blank. I checked the internet and your site is gone. It also says your domain is no longer registered in your name, and it expired today.”

I left my full cart right where it was and bolted from the store.
I also believe I would have beaten Mario Andretti on the road back to my house.

Now, I’ve been in a lot of emergency situations in my life (where I had to remain level-headed) but my adrenaline was pumping so hard that I had to slow down for the operator at the hosting company to understand what I was talking about.

It turns out, years ago, I had a web-savvy friend offer to register my domain name and do all the dirty work involved with the process. He had several email accounts and for some reason, he registered it under one of them that he no longer uses (instead of mine). This combined with an expired Visa card number means that my site didn’t automatically renew itself and went into what is called “Redemption”. Redemption is the equivalent of internet purgatory.

Getting your site out of redemption (once my friend uploaded forms transferring emails/rights complete with government issued identification) takes 5 business days. That and hours (upon hours, upon hours...) on the phone making your way through different people, managers, and departments.

The good news, I eventually got my site back.
The bad, everybody opening my promo email on Monday got a dog’s breakfast. Anybody I sent a proposal to with the invitation to check out my website, would have seen nothing.

I equate this to advertising a big weekend sale in my store, only to get there in the morning when a large crowd starts to gather and realizing that I have lost the keys.

For one week, I was completely shut down.
Imagine how you would feel if you had several big creative directors scheduled to see you and you just lost the only copy of your portfolio.
THAT was the feeling.

There is however, a positive spin to all of this.
For every yin, there is always a yang.
Thanks to the mess-up, I was able to send out my promo twice. Double exposure.
My first basically became a teaser (a really lousy one). My second was an apology for the blank email followed by the promo once again.
It did its job rather well and I was more than pleased with the response.

There are several lessons to be learned from all of this.
The most obvious is that I will ALWAYS make sure everything related to me is in my name and my contact information is up-to-date.
The other is just a reminder that without a website in today’s world (or any form of internet exposure), a business is nothing. It has no clout.

My door is now open.
It will remain that way.

Feel free to browse.

It's a dog-eat-dog world.

2009-04-14T14:00:00.001-07:00

It’s now over 4 months into 2009 and I have noticed that compared to the last economic downturn, it seems that there is complete anarchy in our industry.
Many creatives have been downsized, and they have now jumped into the freelance pool.
Competition is fierce.
Back in 2001, when I became a full-time freelancer, websites where companies can search for RFPs (and pitch against 80 others for each one), or online sites promoting ads and logos for sale (for a mere $99) did not exist like they do now. Anybody with a computer today can go after a project. And it seems as if they are.

The main challenge facing our industry today is that there is no structure. We don’t have set rules and guidelines. We don’t have any form of a union. You don’t need initials after your name anymore to be considered. Many with hacked versions of Photoshop consider themselves “professionals” and have opened shop. The computer (and the design programs) was supposed to make our job easier. What it actually did was destroy a profession that was once well-respected.
A free-for-all has ensued, and companies/clients are taking full advantage of this.

2 days ago, I saw an RFP for a project on a worldwide freelance site. The client wants a 1000 page booklet revised and designed. The entire budget is $250. Sounds crazy right? Last time I checked, there were 8 proposals already submitted for it.
8 designers/firms from around the globe thought this budget was worthy of their time.

Seeing things like this has always infuriated me. For those of you that read the forums, I have spoken out about spec contests where designers submit free work for the chance to win prizes/money. I would be lying if I say I haven’t participated in this type of work myself in the past (the winning 2010 Vancouver Olympic logo is very similar to the Inukshuk version I submitted) but eventually, I came to the conclusion that these “contests” are nothing more than requests for free work, which undervalues our time, effort, and our profession. No other industry has this kind of crap going on, yet for some reason, we allow it to continue.

A few days ago, I was competing for a large design project against another designer. The client contacted both of us by day’s end on Friday (after work hours) through email to tell us that we were selected as the final two and he would be making up his mind over the weekend. When I called first thing on Monday morning, I learned that my competition had already submitted 8-10 concepts. The client was thrilled, decided to use one of them, and I was out. 8-10 concepts, and they worked all weekend without a signed contract. How does one compete with something like this? I have two choices. I can play this silly game, or I can simply choose not to and at least lose with my dignity intact.

Recently, I went out for breakfast with a good friend who was the Canadian representative of a Stock Photography company. He was recently let go after the company decided to close the Canadian division. He asked me what I thought about websites where advertising creatives (or anybody that considers themselves one) can submit ad concepts with the hope that a client will purchase them. I told him it undervalues what I do for a living. He then asked me if I have ever contributed any photography to online photo sites?
I have. I dabble in photography and have actually made some decent money by contributing to one in particular. He then responded with “Why do you think I am now out of work?”
He was right. It hit me like a hammer. I am an absolute hypocrite. I had no problem submitting my work to a site that undermines professional photographers with cheaper pricing, yet I complain about sites that do the same on my end.

I’ve decided it is simply a dog-eat-dog world.

I’m considered to be on the expensive end as a freelance creative. However, compared to an ad agency (from where I came) I am an absolute bargain.

I’m going to shut up and stop complaining about these bargain basement designers with their spec-work that have been wooing my potential clients with their incredibly shameful pricing. I no longer consider them my competition and they can do whatever they please.

Submit your logos to these $99 sites. Open up a chain of ad sites where companies can download amateurish concepts for pennies. Work your tail off on 50 projects with the hope that somebody uses one of your ideas. I don’t care anymore.
I will now use this same philosophy and strictly go after bigger fish. The clients that want a cheaper alternative to their expensive agencies. The clients that are used to spending big bucks on their projects and are now feeling the economic pinch. I can easily do much of what they need for a lot less. I’m being undermined so I’m going to take it forward. This is my new goal. To undermine those above me, not below.

Until we get some form of organization and rules as to what constitutes a professional, or a set of guidelines that we all adhere to on what should be standard rates and fees in this business, it seems at the moment, in this troubled economy, the cheapest guy will most often win.

Large agencies are in trouble, I’m in trouble, we’re all in trouble. The industry as we knew it has gone down the drain. Try explaining your rates to a clueless potential client whos “cousin knows somebody who designs stuff with a computer” that quoted him $100.

We need to stand up as an industry and say “no more”. To do something and improve what it has become. A governing council if you will. If a client wants something legally produced, it has to come from within the organization. Without it, companies will continue putting out RFPs for $250 and expect this to be an acceptable going rate.

Are my thoughts realistic? No. It’s an old-school way of thinking and it is WAY too late. But I would rather starve than see my education, experience, and credentials worth less in the eyes of a company owner than the guy that serves them their morning latté.

If we’re going to go down, I for one, will go down gracefully.

Until next time, keep dreaming.

Freelancing during the recession.

2009-01-27T12:41:00.004-08:00

My name is Ronnie Lebow. Back in 2001, I became a full-time freelancer because I was sick and tired of packing up my desk every time the agency I was working for lost a big account. Thanks to the economic spiral after September 11th, it was really my best and only option.
I figured, if I’m going to be in an industry where there is no sense of job security, I may as well be a free agent. I already had experience from working full time for almost 10 years, and I also understood how to sell to clients having been in many boardrooms. So, it only made sense to me to go out and find my own clients and stop relying on “here-today and gone-tomorrow” agencies to provide me with a paycheck. I guess you can say that I came to the conclusion that nobody ever really gets rich working for somebody else*.

Flash forward to today.

I’ve been writing articles about my freelancing experiences for several years now and contributed to this blog where I have continuously stressed the fact that this economic storm was coming. Of course, there are many in the industry that thumb their noses at freelancers and consider them not only unworthy, but as those that simply couldn’t “make it”.

My how the times have once again changed.

In the last month, I have received so many emails asking for freelancing advice that truthfully, I am actually starting to despise them. People losing their jobs, people about to lose their jobs. Many scared individuals wondering if becoming a freelancer is also their best and only option? Somehow, I have become the expert that everyone is turning to and I thank you all for it. I truly appreciate the fact that I have become a considered expert in an area of this industry. However, you can kind of understand that I would rather these “freelance” emails come from agencies and companies looking for my services than from those that will end up out on the street as my competition.

So, for those of you now in this boat (or thinking about it), I’m going to (once again) be a nice guy and offer a few bits of advice.

Some agencies do in fact need freelancers at the moment. I am working for one in particular that has kept me very busy. However, the agencies that are thinking about firing staff will keep on a few to handle the work/clients they still have. They don’t need you right now. They may need a freelancer at a later date when things start to pick up. But probably not at this very moment.
My guess is that they are also being inundated with calls from those recently laid off. If you are not already on their roster, you may want to forget this route. You can put your name on their list. But there are a hundred others on it as well. Very rarely do I call agencies looking for work. Most often, they find me.

The one question I get asked the most is “what should I charge”?
There are a dozen factors to take into consideration. What’s your level of seniority? What will you be working on? Which agency/company? Etc. Etc. Etc. I like to find out immediately what their budget is for my services. It changes often. If you are hoping for a set rate/price, and are unwilling to budge, you won’t be working much.

Companies (if they are smart) MUST advertise right now. Your mission is to find them and convince them of this. This is in fact a full time job.
The most important thing I can tell you is this…NOTHING in this business is overnight. If you get a client interested in your services, expect at least 6 weeks (or more) before something is signed and you begin. To put this into perspective, I’ve had a few proposals out since August and I am still waiting to hear if I have a go-ahead. Waiting is absolutely normal. In the meantime, keep going. Keep looking. The proposal you have out there has more of a chance of not going ahead than proceeding. So try and put many out there. I like to equate this to fishing. Keep throwing out baited lines. The more lines you have out there the better your chances. Eventually, one of them has to land a fish. The fisherman that relies on only one rod is going to starve.
Also, keep in mind that once you finish the project, expect 30-90 days before you receive final payment. If you need some immediate cash, insist on a retainer. In all my years I have NEVER received a retainer from an agency. With other clients I insist.

There will be months where nothing happens. If you can’t handle this fact, freelancing is not for you. It took me years to finally understand this. Please read my blog post “Recharging your Batteries”. Develop a serious hobby. You’ll need it. It will help take away from the stress of having nothing going on and hopefully to help find some new contacts. I hand out many business cards on the golf course and at the poker tables. Sometimes these introductions work out, often they don’t. But one thing is certain, you must ALWAYS be selling yourself. If you are shy, or are not good at striking up conversations with strangers, get over this hurdle quickly.

And last, some of us have been preparing for this for quite some time. Think it’s coincidence that some of this industry’s top people evacuated their posts to start up their own companies? Rather than slamming them in the industry forums for having the massive kahonas to take such a leap, you really should have been paying attention to the fact that the rats were fleeing the ships.
Becoming a freelancer is exactly like starting a business. It may take months and even years to get the ball rolling and keep a continuous supply of eggs in your basket. Sometimes, no matter how good the last year was, you will be back to square one and must find new eggs to fill up your basket. It can be extremely rewarding. It can also be a very rough ride.

For those of you thrown recently into the unemployment pool, I’m going to tell you straight out how it is for I have NEVER sugar-coated the truth. Many of you are going to drown. Prepare your game plans. I lost a lot of friends (in this industry) in the last economic downturn.
The light at the end of the tunnel is that when all of this blows over, when things start to really pick up again, there will be jobs that need filling.

In the meantime, I thank you all for your emails and leave you with this final statement as we head into a long downward slide…

Every man for himself.

Good luck.

*This statement does not include those that originally joined a start-up company called “Google”.

The D&AD Awards screening in Toronto

2009-01-27T12:41:00.003-08:00

Last night I attended the D&AD Awards screening in Toronto.
To say I had a good time is to put it mildly.
Once again, Ihaveanidea (and its sponsors) did a great job.
For those of you in the remaining cities - San Francisco, Miami, and Los Angeles, you should go. Simple as that.

Here are some observations from the evening…

Winning a Pencil takes big budgets. Much of the work involved was not produced on a shoestring. If your goal in life is to win one, you really should not work at the little boutique with clients like “Joe’s Diner”.

The timeframe between being 22 and 39 years of age goes by in a flash. For one of the first times in my life, I actually felt old.
With this in mind, I was shocked at how few senior creatives came out. The majority in attendance were young. Juniors and students. I would think that a show celebrating some of the best work in the world would bring the creative teams out in droves.
Somebody made a comment about this to the tune of “If they aren’t in the show, they don’t bother”. I’m hoping there isn’t some truth to this.
Watching a reel of great work (for a very low price) when you are in the industry makes sense to me. Especially when acquiring one of the annuals to peruse is next to impossible.

I had a lot of respect for those that came out. I know I’m going to get some flack for saying this but truthfully, I saw way more enthusiasm in the people I met last night than I did at Portfolio night.
At Portfolio night, I felt I met some students that went through their programs because they thought it was a good idea rather than a lifelong desire to be in this industry.
I’ve met many young wannabes trying to break in over the years. The passion isn’t always there.
Last night, for all those in attendance, I sensed very strongly that the passion IS there. These are kids that want to soak up everything. They want to be in this industry. They want to know what wins, what’s considered great work. They WANT to be inspired.
There was a lot of energy in the room.

I applaud those that came out…and for those hoping to break in, I wish you all the very best of luck.

After some drinks, I hopped a subway home around midnight.
As I analyzed the ads above my head, chuckling at a few, I once again remembered that this industry is supposed to be fun.
And that’s what last night was all about.

Don't let them bend you over.

2009-01-27T12:41:00.001-08:00

Recently, I experienced a very ugly work situation.
This post has been written to share my experience and for you to understand not only the steps I took to deal with it but also how I managed to win the battle.

In this business, you will often work on side projects.
Friends, family, whomever, somebody always needs something creative produced and they will ask you. They say that the only thing certain in life are death and taxes but I can assure you, your friend’s engagement party invitations (or whatever) are also on that list when you work in the creative field.

My side projects became so heavy over time that I ended up leaving my full time position to focus on them.
You will have these projects, and sometimes they will end on a sour note. Some people in this world are assholes. It’s as simple as that. This is a story that I hope will give you some food for thought and will make sure that you take all the necessary precautions to keep the ball in your court.

Here’s the quick story. I was hired to produce a logo and business cards for a company.
We agreed to a price, the work was created, and everything went extremely well.
Until my client took the work to his printer for production.
According to my source (an employee of the client), the printing company (also a design firm) asked who created it and for how much?
When my client told them, they said they could have done it much cheaper and proceeded to bastardize my work by creating their own versions. It’s completely wrong and immoral, but it happened.
They showed it to my client, he liked what he saw (and the price), and decided to go with their version.

There was really nothing I could do about it. I wrote the printing company voicing my concern but they basically told me I was making false accusations and they had no idea what I was talking about.

So, I let it go. I sent my invoices to the client and they went ignored. I then got the reply when I pushed that I figured was coming…

“I really feel that you did not do your job fully in this case. I have a lot of family in this business and your pricing (which I don’t believe I agreed on a final price on) is completely absurd. I had the work completely redone and it was done for a fraction of your price”

Now, here’s the thing, in this day and age, you can’t lie when I have a paper trail as long as my arm with emails (and proposals) stating how much I am getting paid, and numerous approvals with “great work” and “we love it”.

This is where things got ugly.

I sent a final invoice (with the approval emails attached) stating that if my bill is not paid, I will have to take legal action.
The client sent an email back to the tune of “my lawyer can beat up your lawyer”.

Step 2, I sent a “cease and desist” letter. The letter claims that the client can’t use anything that resembles my work since I own it and they had not paid me for the privilege.

They wrote back claiming they came up with the logo by instructing me on what they wanted. They considered the whole matter “closed”.

I had enough. It was time for action.

Many are under the impression that the small guy (in this case me) will simply not bother going to court because of all the trouble involved.
In a way they are right.
Here’s how it works (in Ontario)...

To get lawyers involved is a fortune. To go to court (or small claims court...for unsettled disputes up to $10k) is a joke. You have to go to court, pay, and file papers. You have to make copies. You have to serve them. You then get a date (months later) to meet with a moderator BEFORE the case goes to trial to see if you can work it out. If you don’t, it goes to court (months later). Providing you have all the proof, you can usually win. The courts hate it when the small business owner gets screwed out of their money.
Now here’s the thing, even if you win, the client still may not pay you. This means you have to go through the whole court process once again in order to get your money. Many give up and depending on the amount owed, it is simply not worth it.

I wrote back to the client one last time.
The reply they gave is not suitable for print. Clearly, I was not dealing with somebody of sound mind.

Now, here’s how it ended. That night, I made one phone call. To a collection agency.
I like to think of them as “legal mafia”. I basically called in “Luca the collector”.
For 25% of the invoice (which you can actually write off as a loss) they will get your money for you.
Once the bill is in the hands of a collection agency, if the client doesn’t pay, they risk tarnishing their credit rating. Good luck to them if they would like to take out a one dollar loan on a stick of gum.

5 minutes after I got off the phone with the collection agency, the client received a phone call.
A few days later I had the money.

The lessons…

When you start a project, make sure you keep records. Get the client to sign a written proposal (outlining everything you are giving them) before starting. If they don’t sign, don’t begin.

Keep every email they send you during the project. Every one. This way there can be no arguments. No “he said, she said”.

Never let anyone make you believe that the ball isn’t in your court. If you’ve taken the proper steps and kept records, it’s always in your court.

Some people will try anything they can to get out of paying a bill. It has nothing to do with you. You could have given them a masterpiece. You'll still get the same scenario. It's in their nature. These are usually the same people that complain about the bill at a 5-star restaurant stating they didn't like the food.

You deserve to get paid for your work. Period.

Recharging your batteries.

2008-09-08T08:11:00.001-07:00

It was an interesting summer.
As many of you that read my blog are aware, it’s been a while since I posted.
This summer, work slowed down. As an independent businessman, this year was much different than last. I have heard from several in different parts of the industry (and other industries) saying they were extremely quiet. Right down the line…printers, staffing companies, photographers, etc. That ugly "recession" word is being thrown around.
Many (including myself) spent the summer hustling to bring in some new work or to find the next gig.

I have always compared this to going fishing.
It doesn’t matter if you are looking to break into this industry or looking for that next great project - it’s all the same. You have to keep casting out lines. Right now, you may have 10 lines in the water and a few fish following. But they may not be biting. Maybe one will bite, hopefully all 10, all you can do is keep throwing out more lines and hope for a strike.
Nothing beats 10 lines getting hit at once, but as this year moves along, the fish seem to be in a holding pattern. They are all waiting. Some fishermen will give up, others will probably starve.

It’s stressful to be in this type of situation. You can make phone calls, you can try as hard as you like, pitch as hard as you can, in the end, there’s only so much you can do.
As the summer went on, my stress started to grow.

Then it hit me. I walked away from a lucrative position because I hated the stress that went with it. Thankfully, I’m paying my bills. I have food on the table and a roof over my head. Why am I trying so hard when summer quickly comes and goes? Many aren’t even at their desks anyway. These are the months when people take vacation.
I switched my thinking. I’m not making progress. I’m simply wasting time.

There’s way more to life than the work that you do. There’s more to life that trying to win all the awards in the world. There’s more to life than waiting by the phone or watching your email. In the end, did I want the summer of 2008 to fly by, and I missed it because I was worried about socking more money into a retirement plan so I can hopefully live long enough to use it?

Screw that!

I have learned once again this summer to simply go with the flow.
You make hay when the sun shines. When it’s slow, you recharge your batteries.

I spent the entire month of August deep in the woods, far away from work.
I hardly watched TV, I made very few telephone calls, I didn’t even shave.
Now I’m home.
Alive and stress free.

I’m going to start casting.

I hope you had a great summer. Tight lines everyone.

Until next time, keep dreaming.

PORTFOLIO NIGHT 6 - The view from the other side.

2008-09-08T08:10:00.002-07:00

On Thursday night, I had the privilege of attending Portfolio Night 6 in Toronto as a VIP/guest. To say I enjoyed it would be an understatement. I hung out at the bar with the sponsor representatives and spoke with several young Hopefuls (Students? Wannabes? what do you call people hoping to get in, but aren’t actually IN the business? Let’s go with “hopefuls”) and CDs that passed our way. In the last period, I got thrown in to review some books and chose to do it at the bar rather than sit at one of the tables. I found that this made for a relaxed atmosphere and the Hopefuls opened up easily and weren’t as nervous. Okay, the truth is I had more room and didn’t want to spill my scotch on their books.

I noticed several things during the evening and there were a few memorable moments that I will now share with you.

I was blown away by the number of laptops in the room. When I got into this industry, it was renderings in your book. Marker comps have been replaced with electronic slideshow presentations. This is not a bad thing, I simply found it interesting as hell. I began trying to envision what would be in 20 years.

I noticed there were a large mix of ages in the room. There were 22 year olds, there were 30-somethings. There was no “look” or stereotype of somebody trying to enter the business today.

One of the Hopefuls came over and I asked how it went? She replied “he was mean”. I asked who she saw? Blank expression. She couldn’t tell me. I asked who she saw for the last two reviews? She couldn’t tell me. I found this unbelievable. I would have not only made sure I got their business card, I would have also had the name of their assistant and the best time to call them in their office to set up another review once I had a chance to revise my book. But that’s just me.

Humber copywriting students were the most outgoing and friendly. They were also the ones that stuck around and had (drinking) CDs looking at their books even after it ended and the majority had left the building. I even got an email from one of them yesterday thanking me for looking at her book. Well done (and much appreciated).

At one point I was speaking to a CD that has worked around the world. He told me that in all his travels, Toronto was the hardest city to break into. Where he was offered 4/5 jobs immediately in the United States, it took him 8 months to land a gig once he landed in Toronto and it was a very bumpy road to do so.

One CD informed me that many of the Hopefuls (when asked) mentioned that they wanted to work at one agency in particular. Call me strange but I would have worked at any agency that gave me the chance that evening. Every table held a CD that was worth working for.

Another CD was quite peeved about something he witnessed. He told me he overheard a few Hopefuls waiting their turns (downstairs) telling each other who to see and who not to see. Here’s a bit of advice guys, every person in the room is there for a reason…even a junior who has been in the business for 6 months. They are in the industry. You aren’t. They obviously know what it takes to get in and you can learn something from them.
I had one of the biggest names (at one of the best shops) in Canada come over and inform me that if I happen to see anybody with potential, to make sure I send them their way because they are looking. See that? Even the guy hanging at the bar that evening can help start your career. We all know each other. Next time, if there is a next time, be open minded.

It ended quickly. Once it was over, 90% left the premises like rats fleeing a sinking ship.
My guess is that it was a long day for CDs that came directly from work etc.
There were several there I would have loved to have spoken to (ex-partners, CDs I’ve worked for) but didn’t get the chance.
We stuck around for a bit, I got kidnapped and taken to another club for some more drinks, getting home at 2am.

On another note, two people during the event/evening (including the bartender) approached to tell me I look exactly like the lead singer from “Tool”. I have in fact been told this before. On at least 8 different occasions, I have been asked for my autograph from adoring female fans thinking I am Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor on “Smallville”). After posting this entry, I will have to go onto Google images to see the resemblance for myself.

Congratulations to everyone that made this happen. I can only imagine what goes into making this event a reality every year and you really should pat yourselves on the back.
I will never forget being invited to the first Portfolio Night (the one where I got the date wrong and missed it) so I was quite humbled to be invited again (and especially, asked to review books). Thank you again. Needless to say, I’ll wear the TShirt proudly.

Until next time, keep dreaming.

Wearing all the hats.

2008-09-08T08:10:00.001-07:00

It’s been a while since I have written an entry.
When you freelance, not being busy means that you have to REALLY keep busy.
Going into my second year working on my own full-time, I have learned that this way of working in the business has many ups and downs. Truthfully, it really isn’t for everybody.
If you aren’t one to pick up the phone, or work extremely hard at marketing yourself (and convincing people to use your services), your chance of success is extremely limited.

I love being really swamped with work. Creatively speaking that is.
The secret to freelancing is to constantly have projects lined up.
I have learned not to wait for projects to come in and I have no choice but to go out and get them.
This involves a load of prep work that usually (being a creative leaving an agency environment) I have never experienced before.
For a while, I had nothing coming in. I had a few little projects keeping me busy but the horizon was empty. I spent 3 long months compiling mailing lists, putting together my new website, making calls, going to networking events etc.
Thankfully, a valuable inside source told me that agencies were trimming down their creative departments this year so I concentrated all my efforts for a few weeks towards calling and getting in touch with agencies.
This paid off. In February, I worked for 3 different ad agencies. 2 as an Art Director and one as a Copywriter. I have learned over the years that freelancing for agencies is great for two reasons. One, they have the workload and two, I don’t have to quote them on a price. They typically tell me what I will be paid for the project. The downside to working for agencies as a freelancer is that you will be paid around 60 days later and often, you will have to place a phone call to enquire about the status of your paycheque. You also can't promote the work as yours (most of the time) and getting copies for your portfolio is not easy (see my blog entry "The Ghost" for more on this).

Anyway, 3 months of business development (which I have absolutely hated) is finally paying off. I have several future projects lined up, agencies using me as well, but there are still some weeks that are empty. If you need that steady paycheque every two weeks, or you don’t want to spend 3 days on the phone or answering emails and writing proposals, this side of the business is definitely not for you.

Yesterday, I learned that I won a gold and a silver trophy in the 2008 Summit International Creative awards. I’m thrilled.
However, as I have just pointed out, there is nobody besides myself to do all the work that this now involves. I have pushed all my creative projects aside for the next day or two and will now spend my time writing press releases for the industry publications, updating my website's “latest news”, my resume (for agencies), including the win on all of my company literature, creating an email blast to send out and then, erasing all the outdated email addresses that bounce back to me. Not fun stuff. But necessary if I wish to make the most of it.
Meanwhile, I have a bunch of ideas bouncing around for a project I’m working on that I would love to put on paper. It will have to wait. When you wear all the hats, being creative ends up becoming only a portion of the weekly schedule. Something I am learning is the reality of being a freelancer.

Until next time. Keep dreaming.

Working for friends. Part 2.

2008-09-08T08:09:00.004-07:00

My last post “Working for friends can lead to battle” dealt with the hazard of working for friends and family.
I stressed that you should always get a contract no matter whom it is you will be dealing with.

There is something however that I did not touch upon, and that is before sending out that written proposal, you should question your client to the best of your ability, know their exact budget, and understand what they expect from you.

In the aftermath of my last post, it turns out that no matter what I quoted my friend to create his project, it would have been deemed too expensive.
As I mentioned, my quote was 15% of what I normally charge as a favour to the company. Far less than industry standard. This was for concepts and production of 2 direct mail postcards which would be sent to households across the city.

I now understand why my friend went ballistic over my quote.
The creative "professional" they have hired to do the project (instead of me) is charging them…

Are you ready for this?

$200.

$200 from concept to completion. A direct mail piece for a company that has a service which probably earns 5 times that amount in commission off one single customer.

I am speechless.

I was told that my higher quote ruined my credibility.
I’m wondering what kind of credibility you have when you charge $200 for a project of this nature?
The truth is, if this is what your potential client is looking for, then should you even bother from the very beginning?

Let’s now look at this in another way…

You buy a house and decide to paint the entire interior.
One qualified painter quotes you $2,000 for the job.
Another quotes you $100.
Who are you going with?
Would you really trust the guy willing to do the job for $100?
It seems some do.

As Red Adair so eloquently put it..."If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur".

In cases like these, I find it’s better NOT to quote based on the information you receive. It saves you the headaches. Also, you have a choice. You can be known as "expensive but worth it" or "the cheap guy".
Simply chuckle to yourself, say no thank you to the project and walk away. Which is a whole lot easier to do when it's not a family member or close friend.

An aquaintance of mine (who is a very successful designer) wrote me and said “you give discounts to family and friends? You should charge double for pain and suffering”.

Wise words. I will forever keep them in mind.

Until next time. Keep Dreaming.

Working for friends can lead to battle.

2008-09-08T08:09:00.003-07:00

As a creative person, you will get asked time and time again to create something for friends and close family members. Somebody opens a business and they need a logo, maybe a business card, a small space ad etc.
Of course, they will immediately call you.

Such was my case recently when a close friend joined a new company.
I was brought in to meet the company owner and they decided they wanted me to produce a direct mail campaign.
I asked their budget and they really had no ideas. So, it was decided that I would simply produce some concepts and we'd take care of it when the time came.

This was a HUGE mistake.

I created concepts for the piece over the course of a week and they absolutely loved it.
They would like to run not one, but two of the ideas.
They asked what they owed me and I gave them my price.
It was 15% of what I would normally charge for such a project (and have in the past).
15%.
They went ballistic.

You would think that one of your closest friends would accept your price as fair. That they would know you enough not to think that you were trying to rip them off with your fees.

My friend questioned me “what do you think you are, an ad agency?”
“You only worked a few days on this”

My head started to boil.

Just so I get this straight, if I take all of my work related equipment, my computer etc., and move it from my home office into some fancy office space downtown with a big view of the lake, hire an account person and a secretary, then I can legitimately start to charge gobs of money? How does this change the quality of the work I produced? Besides, my full fee is only a fraction of what they would pay if they actually went through an ad agency, with me hired on as an art director creating the work.

The “it only took you a few days” is the number one thing that drives me insane in this business,
How many years of experience does one need in order to produce something in a few days that would take a less experienced creative over 2 weeks? Clients always ask why I don’t charge for projects by the hour? It’s simple. If I work twice as fast as a junior, should I make less money?
I like to bring up a story that I love (and I tell often) in regards to this matter and it goes like this…

A man and his child are walking through the park one day and they spot Picasso sketching a picture. The man taps Picasso on the shoulder and asks if he would mind sketching his daughter. Picasso agrees and produces a perfect likeness of the girl in a few minutes.
The man, overjoyed, asks Picasso how much he would like for the sketch?
Picasso replies “$25,000”.
The man (angrily) “But that only took you a few minutes”.
Picasso – “no sir, that took me a lifetime.”

We, as ad creatives and designers, own computer equipment worth thousands of dollars, we have software that costs thousands of dollars, we have many years of experience, some of us at large shops working on recognized brands, and forgetting all of this, people seem to think we have magic buttons that say “make it pretty” and the work simply pops out.
With this in their minds, the conceptual direct marketing pieces I produced (that should increase their sales tremendously) should cost nothing more than a few hundred dollars.
Unfortunately, as they mentioned, there’s always somebody out there that would eagerly produce something for this price.
I told my buddy to go find them.
Upon further discussion, it turned out that he assumed since I was his close friend, I would swallow the entire bill anyway.

Here’s a lesson for you that I have written about before, and I (hypocritically, for the last time) did not listen to my own advice.
I don’t care what you are doing or for whom you are doing it, make sure you get the client to sign a proper proposal outlining EXACTLY what you will be giving them and for how much BEFORE you start putting pen to paper.
Be it your best friend, your aunt, even your sibling.
And save yourself the pain of watching close relationships come unglued thanks to a measly 15%.

The Movie Critic.

2008-09-08T08:09:00.001-07:00

This week, I shoveled snow. When I say “this week” I mean literally…this entire week.
My city keeps getting hammered, and I've loved every second of it.

One of the reasons I enjoy working from home is because every day (at some point), I get out for an hour or two for some exercise and fresh air. Usually in the form of a long walk.
Rain, sleet, snow, heat and humidity, I don’t care. I dress for the weather.
To me, going outside to shovel snow for a few hours is better than going to a gym.
So, I worked out all week.

Now, you’re asking where this is going?

After 4 hours of fresh air and strenuous exercise one day, I didn’t really feel like doing much afterwards. I decided it was a perfect night to laze with a movie.
I walked out to my local video store and asked the kid (when I say kid, I mean 23 years old) behind the counter to suggest something.

Being in advertising, I pay attention to (a movie’s) art direction. I enjoy great writing and brilliant cinematography. If it gets me thinking, I’m all for it. I don’t want fluff or something adapted from a crappy TV show. I’m not looking for a movie most of the time, I’m looking for a film.

Back to the kid behind the counter.
His suggestion sucked large.
Yes, “The Matrix” was awesome. “Fight Club” is in my top 5.
But that 23 year old behind the counter may not relate to you…the artsy ad creative.
He’s generally not going to know about something a little bit older, that has great art direction, Oscar worthy performances, one of the first “Sixth Sense” style endings and metaphors galore throughout. A movie that will stick in your head as you ponder it. One that you’ll have to watch over and over again just to catch things you missed the first 4 or 5 times around.

Because of this, I take it upon myself to suggest such a movie to you.

Fellow deep thinkers…
On your next movie night, rent the 1990 film “Jacob’s Ladder” starring (academy award winner) Tim Robbins.

Pay attention, and I mean to EVERYTHING.
Every detail. Every sentence. The wallpaper.
Even the name.

Until next time, keep dreaming.

The Ghost.

2008-09-08T08:08:00.001-07:00

It’s 4:00pm on a Friday.

My call-display indicates that the incoming call is from an ad agency I’ve been really pushing to work with. I strap on my phone’s headset and hit the talk button. I’m happy as hell they are calling and I think I can guess why.
Their question is immediate.
“Hi, we were wondering if you are available over the weekend for a quick turnaround project?”
Of course, as a freelancer, I am available for every project. As the saying goes, “make hay when the sun shines”.
The agency sells me on how “quick and simple” the weekend project is. Once I agree and start finding out the details, I realize that I just sold my entire weekend and any plans I had are now changed or most likely cancelled.

This is typically not a problem. Weekdays, weekends, it’s all the same to me. Unless I have some solid plans, I’ll simply take Monday and Tuesday (once the work is done) to do whatever I was planning to do over the weekend. My days of the week are generally blurred.

What I least enjoy about this side of the business is the fact that I work hard but once the project is turned over to the agency, I no longer have anything to do with it.
I equate this to delivering a beautiful baby and then handing it over to some other parents that will nurture it and watch it grow.
Unless I am getting paid to take the project all the way to final production, the agency will usually see my ideas through to completion and in the end, the work will get promoted as theirs. It’s like I was never there.

After this week, I will have completed several projects for 3 different ad agencies this year (2 as an art director and one as a copywriter) and besides the paychecks (and possibly a future mention on my website’s client list), I will have absolutely nothing in my hands to show for it.

Last week I was contacted by a CD who asked why I haven’t put some new work on my website. I had some explaining to do.

As a freelancer, I sometimes feel like I have a secret identity. Besides my viewable work, I also have the secret portfolio. The one that stays hidden unless its appearance is requested.

So, I continue skipping along the freelance path.
I’ll jump back out there with both feet tomorrow looking for a project that I can hopefully add to my website. And of course, this ghost will eagerly await the next Friday phone call.

Evolve or Die.

2008-09-08T08:07:00.004-07:00

The holidays came and went and with it, a new year began. 2008 marked my freelance company’s rebirth. A time to clean shop. A time to explore new directions and forks in the road. Out with the old and in with the new.

Truthfully, I was never happy with my website. It was clean and displayed my work nicely but that’s about it. I created it myself after taking a 6-week introductory Dreamweaver course and it didn’t really project the company image that I wanted to convey. There are a zillion advertising agencies and design studios competing on the internet. When I pitch new clients, I want to stand out. The internet is exploding with possibilities and there are many opportunities out there if you know how to market yourself properly. I decided that 2008 is the year that I grab that bull by the horns and hold on tight.

First, I decided on a complete make-over and spent over two months working on my new website. I proudly launched it last week. The question that remained is how to pitch it? How can I get word out that I have a new site and draw attention to it? Something I read while exploring this very site inspired me. In a recent “Ask Jancy” answer, they suggested that one should now look beyond “traditional media” for marketing solutions.

With this is mind, I basically went back to school. I spent a few weeks online, exploring internet marketing. I subscribed to webinars and read blog after blog about this subject. I took a course about doing business online. One thing that kept popping up is “bouncing sites”. There are several sites out there that will get picked up from other sites. A virtual domino effect for your entries. Let’s face it, the more pages you or your company display on Google, the more successful and important you are in today’s world. I started researching the competition. I started researching agencies. Many have not yet even begun to take advantage of this and according to a few internet Gurus, it IS the future of marketing. Don’t advertise your product directly to one audience. Advertise to all. Let people find you.

So I decided to take advantage of all this free internet marketing. The question remained…How should I do this? How should I market myself on the open airwaves of the world wide web?
I went back to the roots and created a 30-second, self-promo “TV” commercial. Nothing fancy. No million dollar production. Just something really simple that explains what I do. I figure, what’s better than a commercial running 24/7 on several worldwide “stations” with free air-time?

At the beginning of last week I sent out an email blast with the announcement of my new site and my promo video. I also uploaded the spot to a few of those bouncing sites I mentioned. I’ve already seen it “bounce” onto sites where I haven’t submitted it.
The same hour I sent the email, an American ad agency (that was on my list) called me with a decent sized project. One hour after that, a new client I’ve been trying to win over quickly signed to create a few ads.
Internet marketing works and I only scratched the surface.
I had a greater response off this quick blast than a direct mail piece I created last year and mailed out at a cost of over $1500.

Lately, I’ve been getting some business off “Facebook”. At my age, there are many old friends and connections that own companies and need work done. Yesterday I went onto the site and submitted my video to a few business groups I belong to. It seems that once you have a video created, you can upload it anywhere on the site and to any group with a simple click of the mouse. As soon as I uploaded it, I started getting hits on my website. Time will tell how this will pay off.

In the next few weeks I will explore these marketing possibilities even further. In many ways, I feel like a junior in new territory again. 2008 is still fresh and I’m slowly taking baby steps down this new path. I’m hoping that by the end of the year, I’m at a full sprint.

Here’s the promo…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp4jwngm0q8

Until next time…keep dreaming.

Opening week.

2008-09-08T08:07:00.003-07:00

Happy new year.
My last post was the first week of December and I’m starting off 2008 with a quick recap.
My first year as a freelancer working strictly from my home-office was a successful one.
I had a variety of companies and agencies sending me constant work however, once the Halloween decorations came down, the workflow seemed to slow down (to a mere drip) for the year.
My biggest client finally hired somebody in-house so my services weren’t really needed anymore (except on a few rush jobs) and a marketing agency that was feeding me projects finished all their print work and started concentrating on the radio portion (which didn't involve me).

This simply goes along with the territory.

This can be seen as a negative or a positive depending on how you look at it.
November came along and I had the metaphoric angel and devil on each of my shoulders. The angel pat me on the back while claiming that the benefit of working on my own is 3 months of vacation time each year (so I should relax and enjoy it), while the other yelled at me that the next paycheque is a while away and I should be working my tail off to get the ball rolling for 2008.
I listened to both of them but the devil seemed to win the majority of the time.

People didn’t really want to talk business over the holidays. Most of my phonecalls were met with a “call me in the new year”.
Interesting enough, I had 2 calls from agencies and 1 from a headhunter each wondering if I was interested in a creative director position. I met with two of them (I always go to hear what they have to offer) but the holidays quickly took priority and one of the positions involved moving to another city so that was out of the question.

On the same note, I also know of an art director’s position to work for an ad agency in Bermuda.
Now, if I was young and had no roots in this city THIS would intrigue me.
Drop me a PM if you are in Toronto and interested (and have over 5 years of agency experience) and I’ll forward you the info.

Back to ME (after all, it’s my blog).
I started doing all the nitty-gritty details involved with running a business…

Making phonecalls.
Getting my tax information organized.
Creating a new website (which should be hopefully launching this week).
Making sure all my marketing materials were up to date.
Creating a PDF portfolio of the work I did in 2007 and sending it out to potential leads.
Entering some pieces into award shows.
Writing an article (which is hopefully going to appear in the next issue of a major industry magazine).
And finally, networking.

Networking is the absolute best way to promote yourself. No matter what business or industry you are in. Full time, freelance, it doesn’t matter.
I used to buy tickets to the industry award shows just so I could walk up (with a drink in my hand) and schmooze with creative directors. I even got hired full-time at an agency once because of this. If they like your personality in a social setting then you already have one foot in the door.

I went to 3 of these events. One took place in a nightclub and to my delight, it had a poker table (my favourite hobby).
So I sat at the table and rubbed shoulders with Presidents and CEOs of companies while we played and exchanged business cards. I sometimes even lost purposely just to put a big smile on their face. I guess you could say I played the game AND played the game.
As an extrovert I find these events very enjoyable.
It's like speed dating but for business.
Now I’ll have to wait and see if any of it pays off.

6 weeks of solid legwork with no immediate results.
I really, really have a new appreciation for account people.

As I type this I have been cold calling all day, following up with all the business cards I collected. Thanks to voice mail, I think I spoke in total to 2 human beings.

That’s the only problem with having a good year. You have to follow it up with a better one.
And the ugly word "recession" is starting to get thrown around again.
I have my work cut out for me.
As they say in the business world...“feast or famine”.

If anyone knows of an agency in need of a freelancer, you could always save me some time.

Here’s to 2008.
Hope it’s a happy, healthy and prosperous one for all.

Until next time. Keep dreaming.

The year in review and the lessons I learned.

2008-09-08T08:07:00.001-07:00

It’s been almost 1 year since I made the jump and left a cushy office environment to work from home full-time. For those of you that are just tuning in, my first blog post "A New Beginning" was the start of this career fork in my road.

I find, on this last week in November, that everything is slowing down.
This is the time of year in the business world where interest in the upcoming holidays prevails over other matters.
In the past, I’ve always taken pleasure in hearing the first Christmas carol because it means I would have a more relaxed schedule in the next 6 weeks.
As a freelancer, I have to admit, it’s an anxious, unnerving feeling.
Even though it has been a successful year for me, I’m not as relaxed because of all the questions running through my head…

Did I meet my goals and expectations this year?
Were my clients happy and will they come back?
When will I get my next paycheque?
Etc.

I guess what I have to do is simply accept the fact that by not being on a payroll, I have a bit of time to kill at the end of the year. I have tried quite hard to get the ball rolling in the past few weeks, and there is some potential for some upcoming work, but for the most part, I have been met with the same answer…”We’re winding down…call me in the new year”. So, it seems that I’m really working on my schedule for the second week of January at the moment.

I’m going to spend the last month of the year entering some pieces into award shows, burning backup DVDs of work and all the personal video I shot this year, and hopefully improving my website and business materials.
I also have the I-Tunes gift certificate I received from this website as an award for this blog. I-Tunes just released the entire Led Zeppelin collection so I’m finally going to spend some of it. Once again, I thank you. It was great to be recognized in this manner.

I’d also like to thank many of you for writing me personally. I got emails from all over the world originating from this site with questions, comments and even praise.
Winning an award for the work you do is great. Having strangers tell you that you have inspired them is even greater.

So, I guess the only thing left to do before I hit the holiday party circuit (and its free-flowing single malts), is to tell you what I learned working from home this year…

When it comes to business (and for the most part, life), there is typically no such thing as “a sure thing”, no matter how sure it seems.

A high paying rush job will always come in after you’ve committed to a lower paying rush job.

Have some respect for your account people, it’s not an easy job.

The project you spent all night on won’t be needed or looked at for at least 2 days.

The client that calls you needing a quote because they want to get started right away will then sit on your proposal for a month.

The new client that sounds like they will be a pain in the ass will in fact be a pain in the ass.

A 45-minute walk outdoors at lunch each day is great exercise (I lost 20lbs and I’m a small guy to begin with).

Charge the client that wants a discount because they “know people and promise that you’ll get more work out of it” the same as anybody else.

Do not keep all your eggs in one basket and if you do, make sure you take very good care of that basket.

Your hobbies and relaxation time are as important as your career.

Spec creative contests are unethical and undervalue our profession.

A client you enjoy working with is worth its weight in gold.

Nothing in the world is more enjoyable than being at home the moment your child gets back from kindergarten armed with a painting they made for you.

Free press-release websites and online listings are powerful marketing tools.

There is no such thing as rush hour in the city of Toronto anymore. It’s always rush hour.

Get everything in writing, and signed, even if you're doing a project with your best friend.

People driving through my neighbourhood don’t seem to care about stop signs.

Have your business card on you at all times. Even at the Supermarket.

The internet and it’s forums are like drugs. Make sure you limit your intake and don’t let them take over your life.

Writing a blog is a very enjoyable recess.

The clock runs quickly. In an office, it was always “I can’t believe it’s only 2:00pm”. Working from home, it’s “I can’t believe it’s already time for dinner.”
Life goes by fast. Real fast. I can’t believe an entire year has flown by.

And finally, Family comes first.
Always.
No matter what.

Have a happy holiday season (whatever you celebrate), and may 2008 be a great year for you and yours.

Until next time. Keep Dreaming.

PAY THEM ALL.

2008-09-08T08:06:00.002-07:00

Since we were old enough to leave the house without our parents, many of us worked at a variety of jobs to earn some extra spending money. We marveled at the little bank-book we were handed when we deposited our first paycheck, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of purchasing something for the first time without the help from mom and dad.

My first job was as a paperboy for the Toronto Sunday Sun at the tender young age of eleven.
Those Sunday papers were damn heavy. I had two routes, one through the streets of my neighbourhood, and the other, in a “government assisted” building not too far away.
If you want to toughen-up a kid, make him shake down people in the projects for $2 each week.

That first job was followed by a number of other jobs, until I finally landed in this industry that I chose for my profession.

It was a busy time and there were many changes going on in the industry. I went to school for four years and in that very first year upon graduation, many of the skills that I learned were about to go out the window with the introduction of computer design programs. One thing seemed clear, CDs weren’t about to take a chance at that moment on an inexperienced kid.

Drastic times call for drastic measures and I dreamed up a clever little idea. I approached some of those agencies again and told them that I would be willing to work for free, to gain some experience. They had absolutely nothing to lose.

One agency took this chance. It was a tiny shop where I got my start. I sat all day with the two seasoned partners, brainstorming on an office furniture account, listening to them bicker over the concepts like an old married couple while I sat at the drafting table drawing up layouts with an array of markers. It was a load of fun.

The partners felt that even though I offered my free service, they should at least buy me lunch and we went out every day to a different restaurant.
About a month into this arrangement, one of them dropped a bomb on me that would forever change my life.
“I was out at an event last night and was mentioning your situation” he began.
“A reporter for the Toronto Star is going to do a story on you and how you are working for free to break into your industry”.

It seems what I was doing was unique at the time.

My story ended up on the front page of the Sunday “Business” section later that month and my phone rang off the hook. Several different industries came calling but thankfully, I was able to take advantage of this new found “fame” by securing my first paid position as an Art Director for a much larger agency working on clients such as “Burger King” and “Budget Rent-a-Car”.

Since that day, no matter how grateful I am that I became a part of this business, I have always felt a sense of remorse. A deep disgust with myself that I was part of something that I believe, has become a plague in this industry. Unpaid internships.

When juniors come looking to get into this business, many are at a point where they are ready to leave the security of their parents for good. They are renting their first apartments, they are dating, partying, buying their first cars, doing everything that comes with a hefty price tag.

We should be ashamed for taking advantage of them.

As I have grown older and wiser I have come to the conclusion that no matter what type of work you do, you deserve to get paid. If you dig a ditch, you get paid. If you deliver pizza, you get paid. If you create an ad, you should get paid.

What kind of self absorbed, egotistical, "holier than thou" industry are we that we believe that working for us is a gift? Something that these kids should appreciate and savour until their three months are up and we send them back out in the street, no different than a drug dealer that gets them heavily hooked and then cuts them off.

We’ve all seen these kids. They call and email us every day. “Please take a look at my portfolio. I just finished an internship at “XYZ” and need advice so I can get back in…I HAVE to get back in”.

Of course, they are also completely strapped for cash because they just spent the last three months working for free, paying their expenses out of their savings, and haven’t had a second (while they were trying to impress) to do something else to make some much needed money.

It saddens me. And I will forever be sorry that the industry has embraced this practice.

Because of this, and going back to my conclusion, when I hire a junior to work with me (which is a rarity), I pay them. Period.
I’m a very small fry in this industry. Not some multi-million dollar ad agency making a tidy profit off the sweat of these individuals.
If I can afford to pay them, everyone else can too.
Let us change this horrible practice. For good.

As a kid, even some of the known prostitutes and drug dealers in the projects tipped me for delivering their papers every now and then.

The fishing trip.

2008-09-08T08:06:00.001-07:00

As a freelance creative working from a home studio, I have a lot of creative work to do. Unfortunately, I also have a ton of NON-creative work to do. You have to keep constantly on people. I work in my office with a phone headset wrapped on my head. I'm either dealing on the phone with current clients, or looking for more clients. Looking for new clients is the part I dislike. It's a never ending search because you never want to be left without eggs in your basket. This is why I always appreciate working with agencies and marketing firms that bring me the work.

A friend of mine who's a corporate salesman just left his job with a major player last month.
We went for lunch a few weeks back and I told him that now that he's off, we should take a day and go fishing together on an autumn lake.

Later that week we are in a boat in North Ontario, in full rainsuits on a perfect, crisp, overcast, still, misty, drizzly morning.
It's early on a quiet Friday, the leaves are in full colour, the fish are biting, and we even watch a deer swim straight across the open lake.
Not a sound that day except for the light rain falling on the water every now and then.
He mentions that it doesn't get any better than this.
I look over at the relaxed smile on his face.

That's the exact moment when I decide to drop the bomb on him.

"Ever thought of going on your own and making your own schedule?
Here's an idea...you keep doing your sales thing, bring me clients and I'll give you a percentage of all the work I bill them."

Now, I've written about this in my blog in the past, if I had 3-4 of these guys working to bring me new business, directing potential clients to my website, from whatever location they want, virtual account people...it would be beautiful.

He quickly agreed and we continued fishing. We never spoke a word about it again that day.

I'm meeting with the first client tomorrow.

Until next time. Keep Dreaming.

Enough with the SPEC Contests already.

2008-09-08T08:05:00.002-07:00

Today I am seriously angry.
It turns out that our leading industry magazine in this country is turning 100 years old.
100 years of being the voice of our profession.
This morning, I logged onto their website to read the daily news and staring me in the face was something I could not believe.
They are promoting their anniversary by holding a logo spec contest.

I felt like I was slapped in the face.
All my trust, all my respect is now gone.

How can a magazine that speaks for us, that stands for us, turn it’s back and promote an unethical competition that undervalues our profession?

As designers, we get paid for our creative skills. If every company had a contest like this when they needed some creative work, we may as well hang up our hats.

No professional designer with some self-respect should take them up on this opportunity.
We have years of schooling (and thousands we have paid in tuition).
We have expensive computers with design programs (that we once again paid thousands for) and we have years of experience under our belts that we would use to design their logo. All for the chance for them to print our artwork in their magazine, pat us on the head and say “nice work”?
Disgusting.

A colleague of mine, Neil Tortorella of “Tortorella Design” (Ohio, USA) says it best…

“Would it make sense to ask your mechanic to work on your car for free? Would you look him in the eye, with a straight face, and tell him that his compensation would be the ability to have his work shown to others as you drive down the street?

Would you offer a neurosurgeon the “opportunity” to add your name to his resume as payment for removing that pesky tumor? (Maybe you could offer him “a few bucks” for “materials”. What a deal!).”

100 years old. And still they have much to learn.

Suits with a pair.

2008-09-08T08:05:00.001-07:00

I often meet with people that have various positions and titles.
Usually, we end up speaking over breakfast at the mid-town restaurant of my choice while the waitress pours endless cups of coffee.
The majority (that aren’t potential clients) are various industry people.
Freelancing copywriters wanting to team up on projects. A print broker pushing his company. a web company looking to merge with a creative specializing in print etc.

In all my years of full-time freelancing (going on 8 now), I have met with dozens and dozens of creatives that have recently left the security of an office environment.
But the other day, I got an unusual call. I say unusual because these phonecalls are few and far between.

A suit has left to strike out on his own.

For a freelancing creative, this is the call you wait for.
The Holy Grail of opportunity.

Creative people get into this business to do creative work. Period. We love working in an agency environment where scores of people with MBAs are working their tails off to bring in more projects. We are not business people by nature. We simply want to create.
Someone doing this part of the business is worth it’s weight in gold.

When a creative strikes out on their own, either by choice or because their agency swan song has finally played, they have no choice but to become a business person or they will fail miserably.
Because of this, suits have an incredible advantage over us.
They are already business people. They have the knowledge (and usually the contacts) to make gobs of money on their own. Yet, by my observations and experiences, they are also the last to try such a thing.

Why is it that some can bring in millions of dollars a year in projects while working in a cubicle for an agency, yet believe they can’t bring in $150,000 on their own from the comfort of their living room couch?
Besides the fact that they have much longer careers in an agency environment than creative people, maybe it’s that they just don’t want to.

Maybe us creatives take this chance more often because we are more laid-back types. We don’t care for the rat race in the same way. A sunny afternoon with a sketchbook in the park, conceptualizing for a client, is a fantastic way to make a living. Martini lunches, golden handshakes and power suits (although nice) are not part of our make-up.
We need creative freedom. And what better way to have creative freedom than to have complete freedom? Therefore, eventually going out on your own in many ways makes sense.

Back to my phone call.
A suit (I freelanced for in an agency a million years ago) has left the agency world to strike out on his own. He has left with some clients in tow and is going after some more. He will need creative work done on an ongoing basis. On each project, he will give me the budget for the creative. I don’t need to give him an estimate and lose to the lowest bidder, I don’t need to do anything but wait for the briefs and do the work. For a creative person, what could be a better working arrangement? I now have a runner bringing me empty white canvasses and some subject matter, while offering me money to do whatever I want (that’s of course, on strategy).

Account people have stress, they have the higher-ups watching their every move, the office politics, the creative teams stuck on 12 other projects, and even their dry cleaning bills because they can’t come in wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
For simply going out to breakfast with a client, or by making some calls from the location of your choice, you can make some serious money by outsourcing the work to a freelance creative. Once your client appreciates the work, they will continue calling you. You pass along the project information to your creative person, and wait for the concept JPGs to arrive while you book a round of golf for the next day…or make some more phone calls.

I have known many creatives that went on their own and had to give up.
I have never known a suit that did the same and didn’t succeed.
Thankfully, my business thrives because of some of these gutsy individuals.

As the saying goes…”Fortune favours the bold”.

So ask yourselves…how many companies (worldwide) needing creativity are out there?
How many qualified and talented creative freelancers (with the same agency experience and background as you) would bend over backwards to have you working with them?

How many suits willing to take a chance?

My Summer at the Supermarket.

2008-09-08T08:04:00.002-07:00

This summer, I was hired by a Marketing agency to work on several projects in an area that I am not too familiar with…Supermarket promotions.
I learned that it is as much art direction as graphic design so it really appealed to me…and I would never say no to a bunch of large projects that fall into my lap. Especially when I have the opportunity to learn something new.
The clients were huge names. The products as well.
I felt like I spent the summer back in school.
It turns out that there is a huge difference between print ads and promotional pieces...even if they both fall under the category of "advertising".

It has been proven in studies that in order to stop a consumer dead in the aisle, everything we learn from the print advertising side basically goes out the window when it comes to this type of work. Large chunky fonts and colours that would make most art director’s cringe are a must when it comes to creating these ads. At first, I tried to produce layouts that were sleek and clean.
Then I learned that white is horrible at attracting attention in a bright Supermarket full of different products.
The more colour the better. Purples, greens, reds, bright yellow fonts etc.
If you can make it what we in the advertising world call “a dog’s breakfast”, it seems to have more stopping power to those racing a shopping cart down the aisle.
What it boils down to is this…you don’t whisper to the Supermarket consumer, you scream at them. “DON’T BUY THAT ICE CREAM, BUY THIS ONE. You can save money and win a DVD player”.

Last week, I was scanning my shopping list at the Supermarket, when out of the corner of my eye something quickly caught my attention. It was one of the promos I worked on.
I learned how to make an unfamiliar category work.

Variety is supposedly the spice of life.
I tend to agree. Especially when you can learn something new and get paid for it.

Until next time. Keep dreaming.

The great gig in the sky.

2008-09-08T08:04:00.001-07:00

It is now Tuesday morning and I am still thinking about this past Saturday night.
Usually, when you anticipate something for months it has a tendency to disappoint but this was not the case when I experienced Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd fame) cover “The Dark Side of the Moon” live at Rogers stadium in Toronto.

I believe I have seen all the great acts live in concert at one point in my life but none of them held a candle to this show. It was by far the greatest musical performance I have ever seen.

You are probably thinking, why is this appearing on an advertising industry website?
What the hell does one have to do with the other?
It’s all about creativity and the power we have. Music, like advertising or any other form of art, has the ability to hold its audience. To seize control of the listener and invoke in them a wide range of emotions.

Simply listen to the song on the album...“The great gig in the sky”.
One song.
One single song that emits every emotion known to man.
Joy, sorrow, anger, ecstasy, etc. it’s all there.
It seized control of an audience of over 30,000 and nobody spoke a word during its performance. The deafening standing ovation wasn’t even close to as powerful.

If only we could somehow manage to do that with our ads.

Retire? Why?

2008-09-08T08:03:00.002-07:00

There has been an interesting discussion in the forum lately regarding how much money one would need to put away for retirement. In fact, I belong to several forums and this topic was brought up on another one as well.
It got me thinking...at what age would I want to retire? The answer that I keep coming up with is simple.
My answer is never.

I entered this business always knowing what I wanted to do. It wasn’t like I woke up one day and thought “hey. I should go into advertising and design”. I knew since I was a kid where I was going. I knew that drawing and creating were going to be my life.
During high school, when people stressed out about their marks and getting into University, I was attending nude drawing classes (the models, not me) and working on my portfolio. Art school wasn’t just an idea in my head, it was my destiny. My stepping stone to a career in this business.

Later, after working hours at the agencies where I was employed, I was constantly bombarded with requests to create a logo for a company, a mural in a comedy club, a poster for a charity function etc. I took on every project I could get my hands on. I more or less still do. Everything I got into trouble for at school (daydreaming and drawing on my desk) makes me a very decent living and I have always enjoyed the vast variety of different projects.

I love the thrill of signing a new project. I get a high when the client tells me they absolutely love what I created for them. I feel a sense of completion writing “paid in full” on my client’s invoices. And most of all, I take great pride in seeing my work in a magazine or on the side of a building.
To me, retiring is when you have a crummy desk job that you can’t wait to bail from.
When you’ve spent 35 years watching the clock.
When you can’t wait to tell your boss to bite the big one.

I look at it like this...

Does a painter ever stop painting?
Does a musician stop making music?

Why would I ever stop doing what I’ve always done?
It’s in my blood.

I don’t want to worry about retirement. Right now all I want is bigger and better.
A bigger fishing boat and to constantly play better golf courses.
And as I age, bigger and better clients.

Until next time. Keep Dreaming.

The puzzle builder.

2008-09-08T08:03:00.001-07:00

It’s been a little while since I have written an entry.
I had 2 weeks of severe food poisoning which basically knocked me out.
I have to admit, as bad as it was, there was some good to come out of it. I have shed the majority of my winter pounds and now, once again, look pretty decent in a bathing suit.
But back to the life of a freelancer...

Work went from being insanely busy up until May to slowing right down to a trickle. I spent most of the month doing some stuff around the house that needed to be done, playing a few rounds of golf in the mornings and making a bunch of cold calls in the afternoons.
For those of you that do this on a daily basis (cold-calling), I don’t envy you one bit. It really is a tedious and exhausting process.

I also find that creatively, I’ve been jumping around a lot. I went from creating a bunch of ads to doing promotional work, and as of this month, I am mostly creating logos for companies and doing a bunch of graphic design. If you truly only want to do ads, freelancing is probably not for you. You basically take whatever projects you can get but this has never bothered me. I like the variety. I’d rather be getting paid some decent money to go sit at the cottage with my laptop and design a corporate logo in the evenings than be stuck in the city working on an ad in an office environment.

Recently, somebody asked me what I do for a living? I used to say (working as an advertising art director) that I brainwash people.
I have since changed my answer. When people now ask, I now tell them that I build (jigsaw) puzzles.
No matter what I am creating, this metaphor stays the same.
The client sometimes gives me the pieces (the copy, the logo etc.) and my job is to put the puzzle together. Some puzzles are rather small, some are very large and they all have one thing in common...there is no picture as to what the final looks like on the lid of the box. It is simply a blank. I have to figure that part out.

I don’t really know how much work I will get in the weeks ahead. I have had one client tell me that I am in for a very busy autumn. This is the beauty of freelance work. I’ve been told that fall is going to be crazy yet my summer (right now) looks like it could be somewhat slow. Truth is, I’m toying with the idea of taking the majority of the summer off.
The fact that I have that option available to me makes me realize that going out on my own has some tremendous benefits.
Now, bring on the sun.

Until next time. Keep dreaming.

Creativity and other ventures.

2008-09-08T08:02:00.004-07:00

Creative people have creative ideas. This applies not only in our profession but on the side as well. Sometimes these ideas can swell so big inside your brain that it keeps you awake at night as you mull over the details. This was the case with me over the last few years. A small spark ignited in my head and eventually festered into an inferno.

I loved high school. I had the time of my life. I graduated in 1988 which means my 20th anniversary is coming up. I always thought to myself, wouldn't it be incredibly cool to throw the party?
Not just a party but THE party. One that people would talk about for years to come.
Living in Toronto, I attended a mix of schools growing up (both private and public) as well as a few summer camps, so my friends during my late teen years were spread out in several of the different schools in the city. Because of this, I decided that if I was going to throw a reunion, I’d want to see everybody. Not only from my school, but everyone that graduated that year.

My idea started with focus groups...discussions amongst my friends who all looked at it with a sense of excitement.
One night not too long ago, I sat down and created an ad for the event. This followed through to creation of the website.
Just one question remained…how would I spread the word easily and free of charge?

Just over a month ago I found my answer. The gates flew open.
An internet networking site that everybody was talking about. It made the newspapers recently because even members of Parliament were logging in during work hours. The newest holy grail of communication. A virginal advertising medium that could be used effectively and for absolutely nothing.

My idea became a reality.

Yesterday, the site went live. In the first half hour I had 20 people sign up. By days end, over 50. Fifty 38 year old professionals in a wide array of positions and companies. Naturally, I also placed a link to my company website. The hits spiked on that site too…and this is exactly the target audience I want.

Today is the morning after and the sign-ups continue at an incredible pace. I have until the New Year before I take the next step. In the meantime, I’m going to go with the flow, sit back, and watch the idea that started as a little spark inside my head hopefully blaze beyond my wildest expectations.
I may be in for a serious ride. Only time will tell.

www.88reunion.com

The Power of the Press Release.

2008-09-08T08:02:00.003-07:00

You entered some work in a competition/award show and you won. You have just taken on a new client. You teamed up with a new partner or joined a new agency. Maybe you left an agency. What do you do? You tell the world about it.

In today's day and age, the internet is a very powerful marketing tool for your business and your brand (the brand being you).

Free advertising is the best advertising and nothing is better than your website and contact information travelling across the globe while you sleep. One press release can increase your name or company visibility on web search engines by several pages. The more pages you have with your name on it, the more important you look.

It seems like a tough thing to do but it is in fact, the easiest way to get you noticed.
There are many free press release sites online that work...and they work well.
You simply fill in the information and they do the rest.

Some free online press release sites...

http://www.free-press-release.com/
http://www.prlog.org/
https://www.prleap.com/

Now go and start making a name for yourself.

$300 goes a long way.

2008-09-08T08:02:00.001-07:00

This morning I went to my mailbox and found a fancy envelope with my name on it.
It was from an award show across the pond and contained a beautiful, glossy, die-cut brochure announcing a call for entries.

Now, having done a few pieces that I am proud of this year, I decided to log onto the site and check it out.

I looked at the list of judges and they were quite impressive. I looked at the rest of the site and was leaning towards entering a piece or two until I checked out the entry fees.

What I saw turned me off immediately. $300 in American currency for a single entry.
Now, some may call me cheap but I am beginning to understand why we don’t see more work from “the little people” being entered into award shows.

In reality, besides the power of a winning entry’s press release, I really don’t see the need to pay $300 USD to have somebody tell me they like my work. I liked my work. My client liked my work. Hopefully, if I did my job well, the general public liked my work.

I started surfing the web and found that for $300 USD, there are plenty of ways I can skip the shoulder pat from someone else and reward myself.
A flight to Vegas is roughly the same price. So is the new barbeque I was looking at.
I can enjoy a day playing the top golf course in Ontario for less money. I can spend a weekend at a spa, or once again jump out of an airplane to feel that rush I obviously crave. There are hundreds of things I can buy or treat myself to with that kind of money.

I tossed the beautiful brochure in the recycling box. I think that for now, I’ll skip this type of show and continue entering smaller ones that make more sense.

In leaving the agency scene behind, I am beginning to accept the fact that I will probably never see an award on my shelf from an extremely prestigious show. Even if I created work that I feel could have a chance, as a freelancer, I will forever find it hard to pony up the cash to enter the piece. In my mind, I might as well take $300, walk over to a casino’s roulette wheel, randomly pick a number, and lay it all down.
Unfortunately, I am beginning to understand, that’s just not me.

Until next time. Keep dreaming.

Rest in Peace.

2008-09-08T08:01:00.002-07:00

This morning I found out one of my favourite clients had died.
I had worked with Hans to brand his business in the last two years creating everything from a logo for his company to ads for various trade publications.

In your career you will work on a lot of projects. Some of these will be for large corporations and some will be for small business owners like Hans was.
I have always found it quite satisfying to help a small guy get his name out there and watch his phone start to ring because of something I created for him. Great clients that are a pleasure to work with are quite rare and losing one is hard in many ways…both personally and professionally.

I got a call right before Hans died from a family member who was trying to tie up any loose ends. He called to find out if I was still owed any money. Even facing death Hans was concerned about his business relationships and not leaving anyone hanging. A true old-schooled gentleman.
I will hopefully attend the funeral this week and say goodbye to not only a great guy, but one of the greatest people I have ever had the pleasure to do business with.

I WON...yet I failed.

2008-09-08T08:01:00.001-07:00

Today I found out I won another creative award.
A bronze in an international show.
Thousands of submissions from twenty-three countries were submitted and my piece scored among the very best.
The judges consisted of professionals from shops around the world. Shops like TBWA, Ogilvy & Mather, etc.

It’s a bittersweet win.

We place so much value on awards in this industry. We try so hard to create work that stands out. Work that others look at and wish they had created. Work that gets noticed.
I did that.

However, this was not my goal. My goal was to design a piece that did what it was supposed to.
Bring in some more business.
I had never attempted something like this before. My projects have always come through word of mouth. I decided to experiment and see if this would be money well spent.

Not too long ago, I placed a forum topic on this website asking for help. I asked in a poll what would be the most effective way to advertise myself as a creatve freelancer.
Should I take out an ad in an industy magazine? Should I make cold-calls? Should I send out a direct mail piece? The latter was the one that the majority recommended and agreed upon.

My piece was a self-promotional postcard. A surgically-clean design sent to 1000 companies informing them of my services.
I bought a large, updated list from a (hopefully) reputable company and narrowed it down to companies I would want to target. Companies that typically need creative work done.

It took a few weeks to produce. Coming up with the concept. Art directing the piece. Finding the perfect shot. Tweaking it over and over again. Checking and rechecking my list with the names and addresses. Getting the labels right and placed perfectly on the postcards. Stamping each one by beautifully aligning them in the top corner. A real work of art. I sure thought so. Everyone that I showed it to thought so. It seems a jury of my peers thought so too.

The result?
I’m still waiting.

This should be proof to everyone out there that just because something wins an award doesn’t necessarily mean that it worked. Our jobs are not to win awards. Our jobs are to create a piece that does exactly what it was meant to do. Win business. Sell product. Make us and our clients money.
In this instance, I believe that I failed.

However, some good can come from all this.
I will now turn it around and make it work in another way to hopefully achieve my original goal…to win the attention of individuals and companies that may want to work with me.

I will take advantage of the very reason we bother with these award shows.
It’s not simply all about the work. It’s not about how much money we made our clients or how much product we moved.
It’s all about us.
The award will be added to my resumé and in the next few days, I will send out a press release informing the world of my win.
I will shamelessly promote my self-promotion and once again let the world know about me and my services.

Hopefully, this time, the piece will generate some work. That is all that I really care about. That is what I originally set out to do.
But while I’m waiting, I can make room for another shiny trophy on my mantle.

Until next time. Keep dreaming.

Artists and Businessmen.

2008-09-08T08:00:00.002-07:00

Recently, a forum thread appeared and it was titled "A hunded little ad fucks".
The following question/statement came up...

"I’ve looked at the portfolios of hundreds of agency websites and see the same thing, 90% of the work they’ve done is just pedestrian work, ranging from good to just okay. But then I come to the creative forums and read repeated comments about Ads and CDs only looking for creatives who can come up with the “CONCEPT”, and I’m like, “Okay, maybe I’m missing something here."

Here's was my response and thoughts on this...

Agency CDs are always looking for the "Concept".
Kids that are new to the business only care about the "concept". The concept is what they teach in school because that is what CDs are looking for when they are hiring.
There is a very good explanation for this and why 90% of the work that is produced is "pedestrian".

There are 2 sides (in my opinion...and all of this is strictly my opinion) to this business. The "artist" side and the "businessman" side.

A large percentage of the stuff we work on is mainstream. We don't admit it but it's true. Work at any agency and you won't be creating ads everyday that are award worthy (even though we'd like to believe so).
We try to push the envelope as creative people but the majority of our clients are very conservative. They have reputations to protect, and sometimes old school values and ways of thinking. Also, the salespeople are usually not creative people. They don't see things from our perspective. To them, "outside the box" means we strayed from their usual formula and moved their logo to another corner.

Now granted, every now and then we get the odd piece approved (miraculously) from these clients that warrants attention from our peers and award juries, but there are many proven formulas that work and drive sales that we usually have to stick to.

For instance, right now, I'm creating something that will go in a supermarket environment. My client knows through studies that certain colours and fonts we must stay away from. Certain looks attract the consumer and get them to make the purchase. I will not win any awards with this type of work but I will drive sales for my client. This is (bottom line) what the sole purpose of my job is about.

Another example...it would be difficult to win awards creating an FSI for a client like a big-box superstore. However, they are a client that repeatedly advertises so as a "businessman", they are a great client to have.
I know that if I create an FSI for a huge boxing day sale, it will bring people into the stores in droves and I will sell millions of dollars in product. As a businessman, I'm thrilled.
As a client, they are thrilled. Awards in this case don't mean much. As an advertiser, I'm doing my job. And I'm probably going to be able to buy that Porsche I wanted.

Then there is the "artist" side.

The part of us that is highly creative, we can't simply do this "pedestrian" work all the time. We need to free the artist in us. We need to create. We need to push boundaries. We need to be expressive.
This is why agencies look for "dog walking clients".
They allow us creative freedom. A martial arts studio has no reputation to protect. They have no strict branding. You simply need to bring people in by making them think that this place is kick-ass. You can have alot of fun with this type of client.
These clients (as businessmen) earn us very little in the way of revenue.
What they do is bring us attention.

In this business, the most important thing you can do for yourself (and your company) is win awards because awards bring attention.

Awards allow us something worth it's weight in gold (excuse the pun). The power of the press release. The press release gets us noticed. It puts our name out there.
It gets people talking. It gets our agency in industry magazines. It gets us hits on our websites. And the best way to get this recognition is by winning. We can only usually win by being "Artists". Winning makes us look important. It sets us apart from the rest of the competition and gets the big-box superstore clients to take notice. So we can go after their business.

Young creatives only grasping the Artist side never make it long in this business. They do great work and then have to move aside for the new batch that will work cheaper and longer hours. The ones that understand the game and become businessmen, have very long and prosperous futures. I can name several agencies in Canada that opened when the artists became businessmen (and women).

So as a businessman (and CD), When I hire, I'm looking for artists. The "hundred little ad fucks" as it was put. The ones that can do great work and also win awards, which I will then PR the hell out of, so I can put my agency's name all over the map, to do what I am here to do...win pedestrian clients that constantly advertise and make tons of money.
Both for them and for me. By sometimes having to contain the artist in me and use formulas that have been proven and work.
A happy client that sees results is a client that sticks around.

To sum up...
Be an artist and you'll get in the business and make a name for yourself.
Then learn to be a businessman and continue doing what you love, but with a lifestyle that many would envy.

It's just one of those days.

2008-09-08T08:00:00.001-07:00

Here I sit, during the middle of the morning in the middle of the week, staring into space, wondering what I should do?

Truth is, I don’t feel like doing much of anything. I’m in a total funk. I’m fighting a nasty head and chest cold that hasn't allowed me to get much sleep and has drained me of any desire to make a phone call, work on anything, or try to conjure up some new business.
It’s all part of the joy of having kids. As soon as one of them comes home sick, you’re eventually doomed.

I'm not thinking much about work at this very moment. I have 13 projects that are in limbo right now. Some are in for French translation (for the Quebec market). Then there are the others…the clients needed them “yesterday” and of course, after pulling a few all-nighters, they have sat on them for 2 weeks because they “just haven’t gotten around to looking at the proofs yet”.

They should all get back to me by 3:00pm on Friday telling me they need the final changes done, the files burned to disc, and sent to the printers or uploaded to FTP sites etc. by the end of the day.

What do you do on days like this? I could watch a movie. I could creep around on Facebook.
I could put $20 on my VISA and join a few cheap online poker tournaments.
I could shop for music on ITUNES with my $250 after winning the IHAI March blogger’s prize (thanks everyone) or shop for deals on Kijiji (what an awesome site).
I could even read a good book.

But I really don’t feel like doing anything.
As one of the lines in one of my favourite songs goes…

“I like watching the puddles gather rain”.

Every once in a while, you simply need a day like this.

Until next time. Keep dreaming.

Tax Time and Freelancing

2008-09-08T07:59:00.002-07:00

This is the time of year that I receive emails asking how one goes about filing their taxes as a freelancer.
(Do I need to get a T4? etc.)
It’s really quite simple. While freelancing, did you invoice the company you worked for or did they pay you the same way as a full-time employee and automatically take the taxes from your pay?

Hopefully you invoiced them. And hopefully, you kept every receipt from your purchases for the entire year.
Everything you spend money on during the year is a potential write-off. For example...your car, the gas, parking, insurance, a portion of your home, your meals, even your newspaper and cell phone are (potential) write-offs.

For those of you just starting to freelance or opening your own business, it’s really not rocket science.
Each month, start a new envelope. Nothing fancy, just a regular #10. Throw all your receipts for the month into the envelope. At the end of the month, separate the contents into categories (parking, gas etc.) and add up the totals. Write the totals on the front of the envelope.
At the end of the year, you simply take the 12 envelopes and add the category figures onto a spreadsheet.
Then add up and include your income and all other expenses. Anything and everything you spent money on (rent or mortgage payments, car insurance, hydro, etc.) Put these totals onto the spreadsheet as well. As a rule of thumb, when in doubt regarding a purchase or a payment you made, simply add it to the spreadsheet.

Finally, you have to get yourself a great accountant. Not mediocre. Not one of those kiosks that open in the malls this time of year. A private accountant that has been around the block a few times (you can even add his bill from this session to next year’s spreadsheet).
In my opinion, there are 3 things you should never cheap-out on in life...bedding, shoes, and a great accountant.
Think of it this way, you wouldn't hire an average designer to work on your business so don't hire an average accountant. Their job is to save you money so it's worth it to pay a little more for someone that's great at it.
Bring the accountant the spreadsheet. They will use their expertise and figure out what you can and can’t use.

That’s basically it. It takes a little getting used to but is one of those things that will become a normal part of running your own show. I really believe that this should be taught in every school regardless of the industry. Even as a one day lesson. Why it’s not has always puzzled me.
Hopefully this has helped.

Until next time. Keep dreaming.

Hey Man...YOU SUCK.

2008-09-08T07:59:00.001-07:00

“It takes courage to be creative...” - E. Paul Torrance

These words ring very true.
I’ve been waiting for it - the first anonymous post on my blog (funny how they never sign their names) telling me how much they hate my work. I’m quite surprised, not because I actually received that type of response, but rather because it took so long for one of them to appear.

The poster targeted one ad on my site in particular, and I find this quite funny. The ad they told me they thought was terrible, won bronze in an international show. CDs from known shops around the world liked the ad enough to award it and anonymous thinks it’s “The worst ad he has ever seen”.

Of course, he is entitled to his opinion. Everyone is. No matter how much we like to argue this, our business is a form of art. Some will like your art, some won’t. You can enter a piece in one award show and it will win and in another it won't. This is the norm.
I remember many years ago, while shopping my portfolio around town, a CD told me that my book wouldn’t cut it and I would never find a job in the industry. The very next day, I was hired at a better agency after the CD told me he thought my book was one of the better ones he's seen.

With that, I learned to simply develop thick skin and let the negativity slide.

Personally, there are only two things I care about...what my client thinks and if the ad sells his product.
I never entered this business to win awards. They are simply a bonus. I also never entered it to please others in the industry. I entered it to make money. Period. Both for the client and myself.
Not all award-winning work achieves this goal. And sometimes, ads that aren't deemed award-worthy have achieved excellent results and have made the client millions of dollars.

Now, back to the poster’s comments...Isn’t it sad that we work in an industry where our peers love to belittle us? Can you imagine this in other industries? How about in the medical profession...
“Hey man, you suck. That surgery you performed yesterday was terrible. How did you ever get hired? You should go back to dissecting frogs you hack”
When you look at it this way, it sounds ridiculous. That’s because it is.

I actually want to publicly thank Mr. Anonymous. Thank you for taking the time to comment. I respect your opinion. I don’t agree with it but it is your opinion. And like I said you are entitled to it.
However, if you think it would upset me, you are wrong. I’ve been in this industry a long time (you’ve never seen my agency portfolio because I can’t feature it on my site) and it’s not like I’m quitting anytime soon. Do you really expect me to hang up my hat because you don’t like my work?
If anything, your comments benefit me. Like the quote at the beginning of this post, it will only make me try harder. It may take courage to be creative, but it takes a weakling to trash talk somebody while hiding behind an alias.

Until next time. Keep dreaming.

When your creative staff take vacation...who's your backup?

2008-09-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

This is the time of year when the golf courses open, people make the trek up north to open the cottage, and employees everywhere start planning their summer vacations.
As a freelancer, this is not my favourite time of the year. It’s a limbo period. Like a skier in late November waiting for the first sign of snow, I am patiently waiting for the first (advertising agency) phone call wondering how quickly I can make myself available.

People take a vacation at some point during the summer. Usually taking an entire week off. As a freelancer, it can be a very busy and profitable time of the year. Having learned from years past, I try not to make any solid weekend plans in the summer that doesn’t involve my laptop because the telephone usually rings on a Thursday afternoon, with a CD asking me to come in to be briefed on Friday morning, so I can have concepts or layouts for Monday.
Why many agencies wait until the last minute before calling someone in I will never understand, but many times I have specialized in this last minute, weekend scenario.

This year I have decided that instead of sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring, I want to let the agencies and CDs know that I will be available when their staff are away in the months ahead. However, I haven’t pitched creative directors in a very long time. They have somehow always found me.

So here I sit, wracking my brains on how to proceed with this plan. The following are my thoughts on what I should do...

Send out an email blast.
Personally, I hate spam emails. The last thing I want to do is add one more to the mix. They probably won’t get opened anyway.

Mail a creative postcard.
It may work well. It could also simply get tossed into the Blue Box after I spend a few thousand dollars on it. Then there’s a month of work finding the addresses and proper names for the labels to go along with it.

Make cold calls.
My least favourite way, yet probably the most effective. It’s so much fun spending hours talking to voice mail.

Place an ad in an industry magazine.
It will cost as much as the postcard, maybe more, but will reach the masses quickly.

Shamelessly paste my website/portfolio link at the end of this blog post.
www.lebow.ca/ronnie

It's a start.
See you this summer.

I'm sorry, how much?

2008-09-08T07:56:00.002-07:00

The other day, I got a phone call from the president of a company to come in and discuss the opportunity to create a corporate identity package for them. I researched the company beforehand and it turns out that they are a multi-million dollar company, with offices in other cities.

We sat down in her fancy office and she told me what she was looking for…a logo, stationery in the form of business cards and letterhead, and a company website.
I wrote down all of the details and then while still looking down, asked the most important of questions “what is your budget?”
She answered immediately, matter-of-factly “$500”.
I continued writing, still looking down at my pad of paper, and with a chuckle asked “no, really?”

Silence.

I stopped writing, I looked up. She wasn’t smiling. She was serious.
I capped my pen, I told her what she would be looking at for just the logo, her mouth dropped open, and with that the meeting was basically over.
Now, this was not somebody that was trying to get me to work for pennies, this was simply another client that had absolutely no idea what something like this should cost.

$500 to create all that material. For hours of concepts and endless revisions. For a web presence and a card they will be proud of, to hand out to investors worldwide. This same person probably dropped more than that this week on their Mercedes’ oil change and tire rotation yet for some reason, my time, experience, and the entire look of the business that is their very livelihood is worth less. I have never understood this rationale.

Do they really think that we simply push a button and out everything comes?
To my knowledge, computers do not yet come with magical buttons on the keyboard that read “logo”, “make it pretty” and “this instant”.

I often hear the same thing in these meetings...”my friend’s neighbour’s kid has a computer and can do this for $500 so why are you asking much more than that?”
I always answer with the same story. It is a favourite of mine...

One day, a man is strolling through the park. He spots a famous artist sitting on a bench busy sketching.
He comes over, introduces himself and tells the artist he is a big fan of his work and asks if he could please quickly sketch him? The artist agrees and sketches the man. It takes about two minutes. He hands the man the drawing and the man is pleased. It is a perfect likeness. He then asks the artist “how much?” to which the artist answers “$8,000”.
The man is furious...”$8,000?, but that only took you two minutes”.
The artist looks at the man and answers “no sir, in order to produce that in two minutes, it took me a lifetime”.

Graduating Rejects.

2008-09-08T07:56:00.001-07:00

It’s almost the end of the school year and once again, dozens of kids without a clue are emailing and calling me looking for work. I can’t believe some of the phonecalls I receive. Today I answered the phone to the worst display of phone etiquette I have ever experienced. It went like this...

“You have any positions available?”

Me: That depends, what are you looking for?

“Production assistant, layout, art director, copywriter, designer, whatever”

Me: Ummmm.....you’re calling a freelancer.

CLICK.

What the fuck?
What academy of social misfits did this reject just graduate from?
First of all, how about a “hello”. If no hello, at least try to throw me a pleasant sounding voice instead of the gruff bark I answered to instead.
Do I have any positions available? Yes, you can come over and clean my fridge. I have some snow that needs shovelling. Go get me a friggin coffee. Never once did he ask who I was, where I was, or if he even had the right number.
What amazed me even more was the fact that he had no biases on what he was looking for. Production assistant to copywriter? Wouldn’t that be like calling up the Board of Education and telling them you’d like to clean the gym and if the vice-principal position is available, that’s good too?
How about the courtesy of a simple thank you and goodbye?
I shook my head in disbelief and shrugged it off.
Another call. Another day closer to the graduation of the class of 2007.
Another day closer to that guy wondering why nobody was willing to give him a chance.

A confession.

2008-09-08T07:55:00.000-07:00

I have decided to come out today.
After many years I have decided to admit that I am a serious addict. I have been for a long, long time. In fact, it started when I was around 5 years old. I had a serious Coke addiction. As a child in the 70s, I was vulnerable. I watched a commercial with the catchy tune “I’d like to teach the world to sing” and I was hooked. I needed more. A daily fix. I started watching television religiously. Not for the shows but for a glimpse of the peace-on-earth-singing hippies with long hair drinking Coca Cola. My addiction was further fuelled by the environmentally conscious spot featuring an Indian looking out over Manhattan and crying for what we had done to his homeland.
Years went by and I dove deeper and deeper into my advertising addiction. I scribbled ideas and storyboards all over my desk at school and my work suffered because of it. I couldn’t wait to get home. I would stare transfixed at the television until bedtime, flipping channels endlessly on the converter. I sank each evening into a zombie-like state. “Ancient Chinese Secret”, “Where’s the Beef?”, “Hold the pickles hold the lettuce…”. If TV wasn’t available I would flip through magazines for a quick fix. I discovered that I could feed my head with billboards and a subway car was the equivalent of a crack house. By high school I knew where I was going and what I had to do. In order to seriously feed my addiction I had to take it to the next level. I had to graduate from addict to pusher.
Upon graduation from ad school I sank to the lowest level in an addict’s life, I’m ashamed to admit it but I whored myself to dealers around town for free to feed my addiction. Hope was just around the corner. I had a large dealer offer to take me under his wing. He brought me in and showed me the ropes. I became a full-time pusher. We usually stayed up until the wee hours of the night, sometimes for weeks, preparing our product until it was ready for the street. Times were good. People were getting hooked everywhere. The computer brought it to a whole new level. It was so good that a new breed of addicts were easily becoming pushers and coming on to the scene. Competition hit us hard and my mentor left town. Last I heard he moved out to California and set up shop to push on a much grander scale. I moved up the ranks, pushing for some big dealers. They were usually just as hooked as I was although I have met some over the years that had enough and left to get clean, or they were persuaded to do so because their addiction was so strong that they forgot about their families. As of 2 years ago I realized that if I went solo I could provide the same product to the masses at a much cheaper rate. I feel that the guys running the game today are getting too big and greedy. Sometimes when they aren’t paying attention I move in and sell to their clients. I’m hoping they’ll deal with me exclusively. Maybe eventually I”ll take over the neighbourhood and become a kingpin. An addict can only dream.

A New Beginning.

2008-09-08T07:54:00.000-07:00

This morning, after going through my usual daily routine of showering and eating breakfast, I poured myself a shot. I have never done this before but it seemed like the right thing to do. It’s not every morning that one wakes up and decides that today is the day they will change their entire life.

The vodka was ice cold from the freezer, just the way it should be.
I raised my glass high in the air and toasted myself…"L'Chayim".
For those of you that aren't Jewish, "L'Chayim" (in my opinion) is probably the greatest "Cheers" worldwide. The translation from Hebrew is "To Life". After all, is there anything that we should be celebrating more while hoisting a glass? Is there anything more important?

Which has brought me to my decision.
This year, I had trouble celebrating my birthday. I kept asking myself, is this it? At 37, after acquiring everything I could ever want in life, am I stuck simply working in the same old way until retirement?

I’ve worked on everything in my creative career. In every medium.
I put in almost 10 years in ad agencies (on many prestigious clients) climbing the ranks to the position of senior Art Director, and I’ve worked for 5 years on the client side in a large corporate communications environment. For those that really don’t know me, I started working at the age of 11. I have a very strong entrepreneurial spirit. I have always been able to make money and even ran an extremely successful disc jockey company when I was in college.

So, I’ve been freelancing in-house for one of the world's largest companies (as a Senior Art Director), 3 days a week, for the last 5 years. 2 days a week, I worked from home on other clients…and it’s been great. I’ve even won a ton of awards during this time (8 internationally (including a gold), and two consecutive first-place finishes nationally, beating all the multi-million dollar ad agencies and design studios in Canada that participated). I’ve been published, I had the Dean of a foreign University contact me to use an ad campaign I created in their curriculum. It’s all been good. But recently, around my birthday, something has been bothering me.

Today, after my celebratory drink, I went in and ended my in-house contract. I walked away.
I told them if they need me, I'll be available at home by the project.
I walked away from a guaranteed paycheck.
I'm gambling with my life and I just pushed all my chips on the table.
No more office structure and politics. No more 9-5. No more fighting heavy rush-hour traffic. I don’t want to relate to the “Dilbert” comic strip.
Life is too short to not enjoy going to work every day...to not take chances and say "what if?"
If I don't go out and freelance full-time, on my own, playing by my own rules, at this age, I'll never do it.
After playing serious poker for the last few years, I learned one very important thing...
FORTUNE FAVOURS THE BOLD.
I want more. I want to concentrate mostly on advertising creative and logo design.
I want to go shopping when the stores are empty. I want to be at home in a great mood when my kids get home.
I want to play golf when everyone else is at work. I want a flexible schedule and the ability to decide what I am working on, from where, and for whom.
The future is completely virtual. I can work on a laptop from the cottage, while on vacation, or at midnight. The sky is the limit.
So I'm starting new.
My goal for 2007 is to find clients that see the value of hiring a creative guy with tons of agency and corporate experience without red-tape, bullshit, or overhead.
As of January, I'm back to hustling business full-time.
I’m regenerating my entrepreneurial spirit.
It’s time for excitement in my career once again.
I'm ready.
Here I come.
To Life.

Why Freelance…part 2

2007-05-18T06:39:00.000-07:00

Today, I woke up to sunshine after 4 gloomy, rainy days.
I ate a leisurely breakfast, read the newspaper cover to cover, and walked my daughter to school. I came home, made a pot of coffee, and sat down to peruse my email and make some phone calls.

Today is one of those days where I am in transition. Some projects are already in for French translation (for the Quebec market), some are still waiting for the green light, and then there’s the one where I am simply waiting for feedback on my work (I’ll bet my client is out on a golf course).
Basically, I realized that I didn’t have to worry about much today.

I looked towards the sunshine in the window, switched to my cell phone and walked out into the city and warm sunshine (with my coffee in hand) to run a few errands.

Walking up the street, I smiled to myself as I passed all the cars sitting in traffic on a main artery in the city. There were people of all backgrounds trying to make it in to work (it was 9:30 and they were most likely late). Very few of them looked happy.
At one point, I stopped into the drugstore to pick up a birthday card for my grandfather.
I allowed an old gentleman to skip ahead of me in line because I was in no hurry.

I made a few more stops and came home around 10:15am.
I logged back onto my email and a new brief had come through. I had a conversation with the marketing agency about the project I will be working on.

Left around noon to have lunch with my grandfather at a card club. Several of his friends came over to sit down and chat with us while we ate. There’s nothing like hearing old stories about the Great Depression and how they were there to storm the beaches in WW2. The card room was remarkably packed for a Thursday. I lost track of time while I cherished the moment, acknowledging that there are only a few grains of sand left in the hourglass before that generation and their stories are gone forever.

I made it home from lunch at 2:00pm.
Back onto my email. Back on the phone. Speaking with clients, trying to find some new clients, typing up and sending a proposal for the brief I had received with some quotes...I dedicated a serious 2 hours.

4:00pm…my buddy rolls up into my driveway. I switch to my walking shoes and we head for the Toronto Ravine System. We walk a number of kilometers through the urban forest and wetlands listening to a spring symphony of birds looking to start a family. The sounds of dozens of Red Winged Blackbirds, Robins, and Woodpeckers (hammering on trees) made it seem almost sacrilegious to speak. We walked without saying much. Thinking our silent thoughts.

It was at this point that I looked towards the office buildings in the distance and thought about the people stuck in cubicles under fluorescent lighting. Barking into the phone, running downstairs to grab a quick sandwich, climbing each day of their short existence on the rat race treadmill and I began to somehow reminisce about the old days.
The idea crosses my mind about what it would be like to go back but disappears quickly as I walk in the front door of my house and into my office.

The signed proposal for the project I sent out earlier is sitting on the fax machine.

They are calling for more sunshine tomorrow.

How much should I charge?

2007-05-18T06:38:00.000-07:00

“Dear Ronnie, I have just picked up a freelance job and was wondering what I should be charging for this type of project?”

I receive many emails that begin this way.
If you have ever worked on a project on your own, you have tackled the hardest part of the business...what to charge? If you haven’t, you eventually will.

There are so many factors involved that it is almost impossible to narrow it down to a science.
What kind of client will you be working for? What kind of product? Will the project be big or small? Local or national? What do you consider a decent hourly rate? Are you a senior or a junior? Where are you located (small town or big city)? Will the client want to purchase the full rights? Is there the potential for more work with this client down the road? Of course, I could go on.

Fortunately, there is help out there.
The freelancers bible...

The “Pricing and Ethical Guidelines Handbook” produced and updated every year by the Graphic Artists Guild

http://www.gag.org/pegs/index.php

This book contains EVERYTHING...and I mean everything.
Pricing guidelines for newspaper illustration to CD Jackets. From web design to concepts for television commercials.
If it has to do with advertising, design and illustration, it is in there, including all the paperwork and samples of legal documentation needed to run your own business.

Of course, like salary guides produced every year, numbers range depending on the factors I stated above. However, as a starting point or even just for reference, nothing beats it and it is the first place I turn to when I am stumped.

Mixing Pleasure and Business

2007-05-18T06:36:00.001-07:00

One of the greatest things you can do in life is marry your hobbies with your business.
If you enjoy something tremendously, it’s even better when you get paid to partake in it.
One of the reasons I freelance is because I have many hobbies. The open schedule allows me to enjoy them more often than most. As I grew older, I started strongly believing in the philosophy of working to live rather than living to work. Many weekday mornings I have battled rush hour traffic to sit not at a desk, but rather in a golf cart or on the bank of a trout stream. I have been fortunate enough to mix my hobbies with business and I have produced several projects for people I have been paired up with on the golf course.

In the last two years, I started playing serious poker several evenings each week. I’m not a gambler but an adrenaline junkie and there is nothing like the rush that is felt when you’ve beat over 100 players and are heads-up at the final table.

I’ve since won several tournaments and poker awards. I’ve even earned a nickname around the city's tables and have been profiled on a poker site.

To me, playing poker is very much like working in the advertising industry. It starts with a vast number of players trying to quickly move ahead, not knowing exactly how long they will last, hoping that others are getting eliminated thereby allowing them to reach the big money at the final table. Chips are the equivalent of (industry) awards and the more you accumulate, the easier it is to move up the ranks and compete with the best players.
During the entire course of the game, you make your own decisions which can make or break you. This is why you will find many business owners around the tables and because I have a very strong entrepreneurial spirit, I relate to it.

I quickly realized, if I’m going to have this hobby, how can I make money to support it doing what I do best?
I started approaching the organizers of the poker clubs and tournaments. Dropping my business card, bringing them some samples of my work, and asking if I can produce their next project.

The result:
In 2 years I have designed dozens of logos, posters and advertising campaigns for several of them. I won a creative award and have some pieces being published in 2 upcoming creative books/annuals. I had a poker ad campaign included in a foreign University’s curriculum and I've seen it grace the walls of a casino’s high stakes poker room across the border.
To top it all off, I’ve hung out and played with the world champion (DN), and been given free buy-ins to many large tournaments because I rub shoulders with those that run the industry. All this by simply taking a chance.

Then of course comes the word of mouth. People at the tables being recommended my services by the dealers, the operators, even other players, and I have worked on other projects thanks to this domino effect.

So, because of some initiative, I get to be creative working on something I really know and enjoy (in a VERY open minded industry towards creative solutions) and the perks and results have been outstanding.

No matter what your hobbies are, there is the potential with what we do to make money in it. You like fishing? Speak to fishing lure companies and lodge operators. You enjoy playing golf? Start calling the pro shops and clubhouses.
The next thing you know, you’re not only making money creating work for them, you’ll hear the words that I love best...
“You should come play tomorrow. It’s on me.”

God and Advertising

2007-05-18T06:35:00.000-07:00

Recently, a CD gave some book reviews on an industry site. In my opinion, he gave some very interesting picks.
There was one book in particular that caught my attention. Out of the 10 selections, it generated a lot of feedback in the form of a debate. I have wondered if it was a mere coincidence or intentional that it appeared as his last review?

The book was titled “The God Delusion” and the author was Richard Dawkins.
As this CD stated in his review, “The biggest problem facing mankind isn’t global warming, it’s religious fundamentalism. This book will make a non-believer out of you.”

“It will make a non-believer out of me”. As somebody that already has mixed feeling on the subject this book sounds like my cup of tea. However, it seems that not everyone shares this sentiment.
The angry replies came in (as expected) about the existence of god and why would any of us want to be made into non-believers? Why would this CD suggest such a book?

On an advertising site I find this rather humourous. We are supposed to be open minded to suggestion in this industry. In fact, our very jobs are TO suggest. To brainwash people into buying things they probably don’t need. To fear that reading a book might make you into a non-believer means that you are as easily persuaded as those you try to manipulate every day. A few words and theories in print could erase any beliefs that you may have had throughout your life?
I intend to buy this book. To read it. To perhaps look at things from an angle I may not have explored in the past. Does that make me an atheist? Will I suddenly change my beliefs? Maybe, but probably not.

I spent over 10 years in private school as a youth studying the old testament. I had the existence of god pounded into my brain. Being open-minded on the subject, even as a child I questioned all of it. Over 5000 years have gone by and in this day and age we still take primitive beliefs and understandings as truth? Isn’t there the slight chance that we could be wrong?
Battles throughout history have been waged over who's invisible friend is superior. They still are today.

With all this in mind, I won’t argue how can this CD suggest this book. I’d argue, as an open-minded creative leader in today’s modern world, how could he not?

The Power of the Press Release.

2007-05-18T06:34:00.001-07:00

$300 goes a long way.

2007-05-18T06:33:00.001-07:00

Hey Man...YOU SUCK.

2007-05-18T06:31:00.000-07:00

Tax Time and Freelancing

2007-05-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

Artists and Businessmen

2007-05-18T06:29:00.000-07:00

Here's was my response and thoughts on this...

Agency CDs are always looking for the "Concept".
Kids that are new to the business only care about the "concept". The concept is what they teach in school because that is what CDs are looking for when they are hiring.
There is a very good explanation for this and why 90% of the work that is produced is "pedestrian".

There are 2 sides (in my opinion...and all of this is strictly my opinion) to this business. The "artist" side and the "businessman" side.

A large percentage of the stuff we work on is mainstream. We don't admit it but it's true. Work at any agency and you won't be creating ads everyday that are award worthy (even though we'd like to believe so).
We try to push the envelope as creative people but the majority of our clients are very conservative. They have reputations to protect, and sometimes old school values and ways of thinking. Also, the salespeople are usually not creative people. They don't see things from our perspective. To them, "outside the box" means we strayed from their usual formula and moved their logo to another corner.

Now granted, every now and then we get the odd piece approved (miraculously) from these clients that warrants attention from our peers and award juries, but there are many proven formulas that work and drive sales that we usually have to stick to.

For instance, right now, I'm creating something that will go in a supermarket environment. My client knows through studies that certain colours and fonts we must stay away from. Certain looks attract the consumer and get them to make the purchase. I will not win any awards with this type of work but I will drive sales for my client. This is (bottom line) what the sole purpose of my job is about.

Another example...it would be difficult to win awards creating an FSI for a client like a big-box superstore. However, they are a client that repeatedly advertises so as a "businessman", they are a great client to have.
I know that if I create an FSI for a huge boxing day sale, it will bring people into the stores in droves and I will sell millions of dollars in product. As a businessman, I'm thrilled.
As a client, they are thrilled. Awards in this case don't mean much. As an advertiser, I'm doing my job. And I'm probably going to be able to buy that Porsche I wanted.

Then there is the "artist" side.

The part of us that is highly creative, we can't simply do this "pedestrian" work all the time. We need to free the artist in us. We need to create. We need to push boundaries. We need to be expressive.
This is why agencies look for "dog walking clients".
They allow us creative freedom. A martial arts studio has no reputation to protect. They have no strict branding. You simply need to bring people in by making them think that this place is kick-ass. You can have alot of fun with this type of client.
These clients (as businessmen) earn us very little in the way of revenue.
What they do is bring us attention.

In this business, the most important thing you can do for yourself (and your company) is win awards because awards bring attention.

Awards allow us something worth it's weight in gold (excuse the pun). The power of the press release. The press release gets us noticed. It puts our name out there.
It gets people talking. It gets our agency in industry magazines. It gets us hits on our websites. And the best way to get this recognition is by winning. We can only usually win by being "Artists". Winning makes us look important. It sets us apart from the rest of the competition and gets the big-box superstore clients to take notice. So we can go after their business.

Young creatives only grasping the Artist side never make it long in this business. They do great work and then have to move aside for the new batch that will work cheaper and longer hours. The ones that understand the game and become businessmen, have very long and prosperous futures. I can name several agencies in Canada that opened when the artists became businessmen (and women).

So as a businessman (and CD), When I hire, I'm looking for artists. The "hundred little ad fucks" as it was put. The ones that can do great work and also win awards, which I will then PR the hell out of, so I can put my agency's name all over the map, to do what I am here to do...win pedestrian clients that constantly advertise and make tons of money.
Both for them and for me. By sometimes having to contain the artist in me and use formulas that have been proven and work.
A happy client that sees results is a client that sticks around.

To sum up...
Be an artist and you'll get in the business and make a name for yourself.
Then learn to be a businessman and continue doing what you love, but with a lifestyle that many would envy.

I WON...yet I failed.

2007-05-18T06:26:00.000-07:00

Logos of Ronnie Lebow to be featured in upcoming BIG BOOK OF LOGOS #5

2007-01-21T14:55:00.000-08:00

Ronnie Lebow has been recognized for logos created for 5 different companies and organizations. The designs will be featured in the BIG BOOK OF LOGOS #5, which will be published and distributed internationally later this year.

Logos to be included were created for the following:

• Fourth Street Poker Tours - a poker tour company in Toronto
• Granite International - an executive recruitment company with offices in Toronto and New York
• The Institute of Real Estate Studies - Toronto
• Tiger and Dragon Arts - a martial arts studio in Toronto
• The USA vs Canada Poker Series - A casino poker tournament event.

Advertising campaign created by Ronnie Lebow to be included in the upcoming 36th Creativity Awards Annual.

2007-01-21T14:53:00.000-08:00

Ronnie Lebow has been recognized and awarded for an advertising campaign created for International Poker Tours of Toronto. The 3 ads will be featured in the Creativity 36 Annual, a 400 page book which will be published and distributed internationally through HarperCollins later this year.

First held in 1970, the Creativity Annual Awards has developed into one of the most respected design competitions woldwide. This year it received nearly 3,000 entries from around the globe: 38 states and 29 different countries.

POUNDING THE CREATIVE PAVEMENT.

2005-12-22T09:58:00.000-08:00

It’s rough out there. A weak economy, layoffs and stiff competition are making it harder for a creative to find work. Based on my experiences over the years, here are 20 things that I have learned while peddling my portfolio.

1) Your book will always suck to some Creative Director, unless you have an award for each ad.

2) Pharmaceutical advertising in your book, no matter how great the creative may be, is only good if you want a position doing pharmaceutical advertising (this goes for food accounts, retail etc.).

3) If you make a cold call, chances are they aren’t hiring and will only see you because you could be the next David Ogilvy.

4) Leave messages but don’t expect a return call. Creative Directors have meetings to go to, people to see, and hundreds of people just like you calling them looking for a job.

5) Use call display-block when making a call. *67 works in Ontario. It hides the number of times you have called and usually gets Creative Directors on the phone if they are at their desks because you could be a client for all they know.

6) Don’t come across as a jack of all trades. If you want to do print ads, show a book full of your best print ads. Don’t go to an agency that does outdoor with a book full of direct mail.

7) If you think it’s great, put spec work in your book because it shows how you think.

8) When they say keep in touch, call them every month to remind them who you are. It’s all timing and for all you know, their creative team just jumped ship.

9) Stand up for your work. If you can’t sell yourself, why would they hire you to sell creative for a million dollar account?

10) Just because someone didn’t like your book doesn’t mean the next person you see won’t love it. It’s art. Everyone has an opinion.

11) Put what YOU think is your best work in your portfolio. You will get conflicting suggestions from every Creative Director on what you should and shouldn’t have in your book (see #10).

12) If you drop off your book, it will probably take forever to get it back (see #4).

13) Creative staff, working at an agency, who don’t know you, usually fear that you will take their job and will not help you.

14) Make sure you have two copies of your portfolio (see # 12).

15) Because you are creative, make sure you have a creative resume.

16) Make nice to everyone you encounter. It really is a small industry and chances are you’ll meet again or even be working together someday.

17) Buy tickets to award shows. You can corner and network with everyone who didn’t return any of your calls and they usually feel guilty about it (see #4).

18) If you score an interview, call the day before to confirm the appointment. There’s a very good chance they will have to cancel (once again see #4).

19) Leave your ego at the door. You’re unemployed for heaven’s sake.

20) You have nothing to lose. Be persistent. Be a go-getter. Keep calling. Keep doing new ads. Keep thinking. Keep a folder full of ideas. Keep on their asses because in this industry it’s as the old saying goes…It’s not what you know but who you know.

YOUR RESUME IS RECYCLABLE.

2005-12-22T09:57:00.000-08:00

As a freelance creative, one of the things that I do on an ongoing basis is promote my services. This is done in many ways and one of them involves having my website address and company name listed on several industry sites, such as this one. Because of this, I receive resumes from graduating students and designers looking for work on a regular basis. In fact, in April (when school lets out) I receive a ton of them. Now, I’m no authority on this subject but I can honestly tell you that most of the CVs I encounter have at least one major problem and if I was in fact hiring they would immediately be placed in the recycling bin I keep under my desk. I’m sure that most of you have noticed that when you send out your resume to an agency/studio it is incredibly rare to receive feedback, therefore I feel it is my duty to share with you some of the problems I’ve encountered with resumes that come my way.

1) Spelling mistakes are a major no-no.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have encountered resumes with typos, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. It is something that aggravates me every time I see one, especially from those looking to become copywriters. Being a creative in this business is all about being a perfectionist. Let’s face it, this industry hires a very, very small percentage of those that come through its gates. There is no room for error. One mistake and your CV is sure to go to the bottom of the pile. Think of your resume as a finished ad for a product that you have spent months, even years on. Imagine what it would feel like to find an error after all the printing has been done and the media has been bought and placed. Keep imagining, knowing that it will have to be redone, time and money were wasted, the client will be pissed, and your employer won’t be too happy with you.

Well, if you’ve sent out a resume with errors you’ve already been in the situation I just described, only you didn’t know it. The product you were selling that you screwed up on was you.

2) Research the company you are applying to.

It amazes me how many people write a cover letter indicating that they would love to work for me and that they see themselves as a great fit and asset to my creative department. Sounds great. Only, they got my email from a website, and that website has a link to my website, and if they spent even three seconds checking out my website, they will have seen my biography page which states that I am a freelancer who works alone.

I have no creative teams (except for a rolodex full of friends in the industry that I like to bounce ideas off of every now and then) because I don’t have an office. I work wherever I want and even if I like you, I’m not taking you to the cottage with me if I am working up there for two weeks. Research the company you want to work for, know the work that they do, and understand why you would want to be there. Also, it is generally a good idea to find out where the company is located. Do you really want to travel to Cambridge every day when you live in midtown Toronto? Recently, I had a resume sent to me from India. That would be one hell of a commute.

3) Know to whom you are sending your resume.

On many occasions, I have received what I know is a blanket cover letter with a resume attached. The cover letters are very generic and I can tell that they know nothing about who I am or what I do. The email starts with “To whom it may concern” or “Dear Sir/Madam” and probably went out to every agency listed on this site (all several hundred of them). Sometimes, believe it or not, they will even have all the email addresses showing. Those that do this show a lack of effort and poor attention to detail. Find out to whom you should be forwarding your resume and learn who they are. If I see Dear Ms. Lebow on the first line (and I have), it will seriously piss me off. Addressing a cover letter “To whom it may concern” (and that’s “whom”, not “who” for all you copywriters out there) is fine if you are responding to a want ad where the contact name isn’t given.

4) Leave off everything that doesn’t apply to the position.

You want to be a copywriter, an art director, or a designer. Then why list your past experience working the till at a dry cleaners when you were 16? Will it benefit the creative department? I know many seniors in this business that still have a one page resume. It’s usually all you will ever need. If it’s useless information that doesn’t apply to the position, leave it out.

5) Don’t expect a reply.

As I already mentioned, I am blown away by the number of emails I receive from people looking for work given that I am nothing more than a small fry in this industry…. if that. I can only imagine the quantity that the top CDs are bombarded with each day. It must make their heads spin and it’s understandable why they don’t reply or return calls …they would never get any work done.

Remember that writing a resume is not rocket science. It just takes a little time, patience, proofreading, and some research on the company to put together a decent resume and cover letter. If you need some help, visit your local bookstore or search online for websites that deal with this subject. Hopefully this has helped even just one person out there. To you I say good luck, and may yours always be at the top of the pile.

GETTING CLIENTS

2005-12-22T09:55:00.000-08:00

In my last article, I discussed why I became a freelance creative. Since the article ran, my inbox has been filled with emails asking the same question…so how do I get started? This is not a simple question to answer. There is no one magic method and I believe that if you asked other freelancers, they will tell you different strategies that have proven successful for them.

I of course can only speak from my own experience. I don’t produce spec work and go looking for suitable clients (although I have), I don’t place ads in various publications (although I’ve done this too and nothing came from it) and I don’t personally shop my book around to ad agencies anymore because that takes way too much time and effort. I have found that networking is the most successful way that I can get work.

I believe that the one thing a designer (or anyone) should carry with them at all times is a great looking business card. Anytime I leave the house I know that I may come in contact with someone that could use my services. If I go to a party, I take cards. When I go on vacation, I take cards. When I am going to play golf, I take cards. I have met my clients in every place imaginable. The truth is that everywhere you go, everyone you come in contact with, be it the woman you are sitting beside on an airplane or the older gentleman you just got teamed up with on the golf course, works for (or better yet, owns) a company that may be in need of your creativity.

Now, it sounds like I must be one hell of an extrovert…and I am, but the pitch is easy and it works. When you meet someone new, ask them what they do for a living. They will automatically ask you the same question. After telling them say “Here’s my card, you should check out my site”.

It’s that simple. The pitch is made and it takes mere seconds. They will pocket the card (I have yet to see anyone crumple it up in front of me and drop it on the ground) and if it makes it back to their home or office, they will eventually check out my work strictly out of curiosity. You would be surprised at the results.

Another tactic is to attach your website address to every email you send out. Many people will forward emails without deleting all the information on the one they originally received. Every great joke you send, can and will be forwarded around the world with your website attached to it…and it may get hits.

Now try not to be too picky with the first projects that you take on. As I have said in the past, I got into this business because I couldn’t legally spray paint a wall. Any way I get to do that is all right with me. You can and should design everything and anything. Every small client is a potential big client, or they know someone to whom they will recommend your services if you do a great job for them. Satisfied, they will also become a repeat customer. Many times I have produced something small (a business card perhaps) for a client only to have them add on a few more projects because they liked what I did on the first one. There have also been many times where they have told their friends what a great job I did and the next thing I know, I’m creating a huge outdoor branding campaign and getting paid extremely well for it.

I will also take on a small client that doesn’t have a huge budget if I know that the potential payoff will be great. For instance, every year I produce a magazine for one client. 70% of the magazine’s advertisers don’t have a designer to produce their ads. I give my client a slight break on the rate, and in return, they happily recommend me to their advertisers and the next thing I know I’m designing 25 ads on the side on top of producing the magazine. That’s 25 more clients that will think of me next time they need something creative. It pays to be resourceful.

There are many, many ways to find work. For example, the web is full of networking sites, forums, and freelance work sites. I take an hour out of each day and frequent these. Sometimes they pay off. Through this method I have produced work for US companies and had the bonus of being paid in US dollars. Out your door are thousands of companies that need work done. There are also many companies that have in-house creative departments that may be short staffed and need to fan out some work. Finally, when you get confident enough, there are the large corporations that may be unsatisfied with their ad agencies - and not exactly pleased with the fact that they charge$25k for one magazine ad, an ad that you could do for a quarter of the price. If you have an agency background they would probably be interested in talking to you. Sound impossible? Think about it this way…it is far easier to shop your portfolio to the heads of these large corporations than it is to get in to see an agency creative director.

Now get out there. With some initiative and perseverance the world can be your showcase.