Buyer Beware: Know Your Rights (and Vote With Your Wallet)
Watch this space on Mondays, where I’ll share Buyer Beware Tips.
It’s important to invest in professional quality marketing materials for your business. This is not the place to cut costs by doing it yourself, unless you happen to be a kick-butt graphic designer, photographer and writer.
Deciding who to choose can be tricky especially if they may as well be speaking in another language. Interviewing someone and reviewing their portfolio is absolutely critical. Look for examples of their work that show depth and ideally, knowledge of your business sector. Hiring a one-size fits all graphic artist to develop your brand identity, or a web designer who does real estate, dog grooming services, the local florist shop and feed store is generally not a good idea.
Spend some time researching who’s out there and most importantly, ask other business owners who they have used if you particularly like their examples. There are enough professional services out there that you can find someone who specializes or takes the time to really understand the needs and nuances of your business.
But the point I want to drill home today is what happens next: the fine print. It is vitally important that you protect your investment and watch out for these red flags before you sign the dotted line or exchange money. I know this goes on, because I hear it regularly from business owners who have been sucked in, mainly because they felt they didn’t know enough and took the person’s word for it. Take back your power, people! Vote with your feet, and your wallet.
An ethical, professional service provider will NOT do this:
Develop your logo but refuse to provide the files to you.
Make sure you will receive all formats of the artwork designed. Some designers will take advantage of your lack of knowledge and only provide a .jpg file, which is useless if you needed to get a large or high quality piece printed. The ploy here is to force you to come back to your designer for all future work. It stinks. Don’t do business with someone who does business this way.
Develop your WordPress site, but only give you partial access.
A sneaky trick that has become popular is to sell you on a WordPress site, with the allure that you will be able to maintain the site and make changes and create posts yourself. But, you are only given limited access to the dashboard. So if the time comes that you want to make changes to the appearance or menu items, you can’t do so. The ploy? Same as above. Even stinkier because you probably thought all your website problems were solved!
(Side note: it’s really the best idea to purchase your domain name and host your site yourself. It is not complicated, and your web designer should be willing to install the site for you with the host of your choice.The key is that you retain ownership and control, and have the passwords and account information you need if you have a technical problem or later, you want to change your site.)
Take your photo but retain ownership of the images.
Likewise.
I think by now you get the point. There are many variations on this theme. Make sure you ask all questions up front, check out the person’s credentials (look for longevity and testimonials from people you can check out for yourself – any first name only or initials are a bad, bad sign).
Any tips you’d like to share? Horror stories you’d like to pass on to save others from making your mistake? Please comment below.
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Leanne Fournier on Tue, 1st Mar 2011 12:23 pm
Hi Sherri, This article could have been more balanced with some examples of graphic designers who deliver quality work and focus on the best interests of the client. It’s an incredibly tough market out there for these professionals whose work has become largely commoditized and who like many of your clients are also having to constantly reinvent themselves. While you’ve given some excellent tips on what to watch for, providing an understanding of the areas in which a graphic designer can provide value and for which clients should expect to pay a fair price for professional services would have been helpful.
Sherri Garrity on Tue, 1st Mar 2011 1:02 pm
Hi Leanne, the purpose of this editorial is solely to provide the tips of watch to watch for. There are graphic designers, marketing consultants, etc. who do great work and this is why I don’t advocate doing it yourself! However in the last 2 weeks I’ve had 4 examples of the kinds of tactics described here. Clients are getting ripped off or at the least, getting surprises. I have written many articles on branding and what a good designer or marketer can do. Here is an audio that was a good walk through of how to work with one: http://sgarrity.audioacrobat.com/download/84e5b5e6-013f-e98b-88cc-81a18cd081d3.mp3 As far as the commoditizing of the work, I think that is the same as any industry. Competition and change keeps us on our toes and ensures we are providing value. It is the job of the business owner to constantly show that value and adapt to the market. Great designers do not need to take advantage of their clients, and why would they? Making working with them a simple, effortless, easy experience so that it is a pleasure to route all work through them, now that is what keeps them in business and keeps their clients more than happy.
Jennifer Bourn on Tue, 1st Mar 2011 4:28 pm
Sherri -
Boy did you say a mouthful here! As a graphic designer and website designer, this is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. Designers who hold their clients artwork hostage give our entire industry a bad name.
Years ago, this was a standard form of practice for some designers to keep business and income coming in – it was a way to guarantee repeat business. But this approach is unethical and it saddens me to see that people are still doing business this way today.
I hear horror stories weekly from new clients who hired a designer to create artwork ranging from logos to websites and the designer won’t give them the files they PAID FOR! We then end up having to recreate art from scratch for them so they can continue to move forward and market their business.
I choose to empower my clients to stay in control of their brand and their website at all times.
All final artwork we create for them is provided in several different file formats and the original PSD of website designs are uploaded to the site via FTP for future reference/access. These steps ensure that my clients are bot only able to use their art for any purpose they need, but they are able to work with anyone they choose.
Does this make it easy for them to use someone else in the future? Yes. We’re not the cheapest on the block by any means and sometimes our clients need to work with a more affordable designer for things like flyers and postcards, but want us to provide the brand and style guide.
I also think about what would happen if I was in a car accident or killed tomorrow – they would need to keep moving forward and if I had all their artwork hidden away, they wouldn’t be able to do that!
I don’t want to do business with people who are only working with me because they have to… I want my clients to continue to work with me because they want to, because the experience was fantastic!
I agree with your response to the comment above… Great designers retain their clients because they are talented and they put the clients needs before their own. Great designers receive repeat and referral business continuously because they choose to serve. Those that need to hold art hostage to ensure repeat business get an F in my book.
As always, thanks for steering your readers down the right path!
Best – Jennifer Bourn, Bourn Creative
Transforming Businesses into Extraordinary Brands
Leanne Fournier on Wed, 2nd Mar 2011 12:47 am
Jennifer is a great example of the brighter side of graphic design as I hope our company is as well. Sad to see there’s those kinds of non-professionals out there. We as a practice give our clients high res working files and an archive of all the work we do for them. We do however charge a fair price to provide this which is discussed at the outset of any project.