Running a Design Business Series

Running a Design Business is a series of 10 courses that answer the common problem faced by designers and the design business in general.

Running a Design Business: Freelancing

By:Petrula Vrontikis

Most designers will be freelancing at some point in their career. This course gives an overview of the financial and creative advantages and disadvantages of being self-employed, along with methods, tools, and insights for starting out. The course will help you create a strategy for your unique situation, from setting up accounts and tracking business expenses to entering into contracts and invoicing for your work. The last chapter contains advice on how to stay motivated and inspired.

Running a Design Business: Grow Your Business

By: Justin Ahrens.

Business owners make a lot of mistakes because they don’t understand what they do well. For any industry, this is true. Identifying your strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for expansion are important questions to ask if you want to grow and sustain your design business. Rule29 is a design firm that is recognized by AIGA, Communication Arts, and more. He shares stories and tips for determining what you do best, leaving the things that you don’t do well to others, and finding areas to grow. His advice is to build culture, brand uniqueness, and better processes. Learn how to build your team and promote your business to potential clients.

Running a Design Business: Leading a Creative Team

By: Stephen Gates.

A creative team needs to navigate a unique set of challenges in order to be able to perform at their best. Stephen explains the principles of impactful leadership for creative professionals in this course. He covers how creative leadership is unique, why it is important, the ways leaders can improve what they are doing, and how to help foster the kind of culture that is most beneficial.

A creative team needs to navigate a unique set of challenges in order to be able to perform at their best. Stephen explains the principles of impactful leadership for creative professionals in this course. He covers how creative leadership is unique, why it is important, the ways leaders can improve what they are doing, and how to help foster the kind of culture that is most beneficial.

Running a Design Business: Self Promotion

By: Sean Adams.

You are probably familiar with the names of design greats. They are: Chip Kidd, Marian Bantjes, Debbie Millman, and Sean Adams. What do they have in common? Designers know how to promote themselves. It’s important for studio heads to self-promote. Designers and creatives can get the word out about their businesses through a variety of ways.

Running a Design Business: Starting Small

By:Petrula Vrontikis

In this part of Running a Design Business, you’ll learn how to transition your design career into a business one step at a time. Figuring out the legal options, business licenses, and tax ramifications that come with starting a small business is something that Petrula Vrontikis, founder of her own design firm, explains. Virtual partnerships that allow you to nimbly collaborate, and common small business challenges that you want to avoid, are some of the important trends in the industry that your office might want to embrace.

Running a Design Business: Pricing and Estimating

Terry Lee Stone.

Do you know what to charge for your work? You risk scaring away potential clients if you are too much or too little. Terry Lee Stone, a design manager who has priced thousands of design projects, can show you how to calculate the true worth of your work. She explains how to keep good records, set an hourly rate, create estimates, transform them into contracts, and successfully approach financial matters with your clients. Like all the other courses in the Running a Design Business series, this course includes free templates for evaluating your expenses and calculating your fees.

Running a Design Business: Creative Briefs

Terry Lee Stone.

In this edition of Running a Design Business, learn to write a creative brief for client-commissioned projects and ensure you have a plan for developing great design. Terry Lee Stone explains what creative briefs are, what they look like, and how to use them throughout the project. The drivers, audience, competition, message, and other critical success factors can be established. The lessons cover interviewing, researching, drawing out consumer insights, and synthesizing all of this information into a cohesive and actionable document.

Running a Design Business: Presentation Skills

By:Petrula Vrontikis

A good designer needs strong presentation skills. How you present your ideas affects how willing clients are to make financial and emotional investments in you. The Art Center College of Design professor will help you convey your ideas with confidence and clarity. Learn to organize, format, and time your presentation to fit your audience, craft a great message, gain credibility using research, develop visual aids, and deliver the final presentation. Staying organized and calm, connecting with your clients, and getting the approval needed to move your project forward are some of the tips that Petrula gives you throughout the course.

Running a Design Business: Designer-Client Agreements

Terry Lee Stone.

You need to know how to write contracts for work. Writing consulting agreements that are good legal and financial insurance is something you can learn about. Terry Lee Stone shows how to manage complexity of client relationships, especially when it comes to defining an acceptable number of revisions, and introduces a pricing equation that helps you estimate your costs and charge appropriately for your work.

Running a Design Business: Selling Design to Clients

By: Sean Adams.

The frustration of having a singular, elegant solution rejected by a client is experienced by many designers. Solid design skills are important to selling your work, but understanding how to collaborate with clients is just as important. Learn how to win design projects, convince your clients to go with the best solutions, and cultivate lasting working relationships in this course.

Sean Adams shows how to begin a working relationship with a potential client, explaining how to sell yourself, present previous projects, and set appropriate expectations. He gives tips for communicating during the design phase, crafting and delivering an impactful presentation, and dealing with a variety of common conflicts. He talks about how to maintain lasting relationships with clients, create more work, and determine when it’s time to part ways with a client.

Get Download Lynda – Running a Design Business Series at nextskillup.com today!