Hello, my name is Jhames

Note: see first entry in the series for more information. Last Saturday I received an e-mail from one Robert Burns, the subject line read “Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re your pictures.” I hadn’t the foggiest clue who this person was or what the message entailed, so I opened the e-mail and read the following:

Back in the day (puff) a friend of mine* started an online project called 5 Things New York, based on the original 5 Things in Washington, D.C. Now it seems everyone has a 5 Things list of some kind. So, naturally, I have to jump on the bandwagon. Here is what I am currently absorbing on the world wide web: Richard McCoy is a freelance designer in the UK who wrote a rather brilliant post how The 10 Commandments apply to design. I like how Richard blends advice with a healthy dose of affirmation in this post, and I would love to see it as a poster. Ian Stewart is a graphic artist that is presenting a 12-day/post course How To Create a WordPress Theme. I’m willing to overlook his grammar and syntax for what, so far, has been an incredible resource. I only … Continue reading →

During brand discovery, the client answers a series of questions about their mission and company values which the designer uses to produce myriad design directions. A visual identity (or brand) will take shape and eventually form somewhere between the client’s personal investment and the designer’s professional objectivity. When designers are tasked with creating their own brand, a challenge arises: how can one remain objective when the designer and client are one and the same? I certainly was not immune to the situation, it was only yesterday that I created my visual identity after working as a designer for 12 years.

A tweet from Paul Mayor brought me to Just—My—Type™ where one can download various typeface designs in Illustrator format. The site brought back memories of college and how I would constantly draw letters in my sketchbooks & notebooks. Classmates would look over my shoulder and remark, “that’s cool!” I wanted to intern with a typeface designer during my senior year but, alas, my department chair wasn’t able to make it happen. For two years I bought graph paper, sketched as many letterforms as possible, and then recreated the sketches in Adobe Illustrator. I used a lot of ruler guides.

Charging by the hour tells your clients that you mean business. Time is money and you’re keeping the meter running with every meeting and phone conference. No matter how many times I set limits on design iterations or halted work when clients didn’t respond in a timely manner, I learned (the hard way) that flat-fee bids gave clients license to extend projects well beyond reasonable deadlines. Yes, I had client work, but I wasn’t making any money on my projects and found it harder to line up future work with project milestones that slipped often. I took a look at how I managed my projects. Communication with clients was always good and I provided changes to the work in a timely basis. I couldn’t figure out why so many of my projects were taking forever to complete. Cue Miriam Aarons.