Image: Flight of the Conchords

In this past week I’ve continued to meet up with more talented designers and started talking more about my future ideas when it comes to THE FDG. Knowing that there is plenty of support from good designers and developers to move THE FDG vision forward, I am still concentrating on the job at hand.

I haven’t been working for myself for very long but it all seems to be slotting into place very nicely. All those years of working for design agencies, listening in on business strategies and design best practices are now paying off. By example I’ll quickly run through my first business meeting with a client in Auckland (New Zealand’s big city). The team for the project is made up of 3 people; 1 Graphic Designer, 1 Web Designer, 1 Web developer.

It was a long day and very draining but all worth while…

• 5.00 am: Wake up and prepare for the day ahead
• 6.00 am: Drive from my home in Upper Hutt to Wellington to meet Caspian the Graphic designer
• 7.30 am: Check-in at the Airport for our flight to Auckland
• 11.15 am: Meeting with the client
• 4.30 pm: Flight back to Wellington
• 7.30 pm: Design conference in Wellington
• 11.00 pm: Finally home to bed

Both myself and Caspian traveled to Auckland for the meeting where Caspian started off by running through the branding. I chipped in after that with how the process will work for the website side of things by briefly going through what they’d like in the website, including any of their future goals.

The client was nice and everything moved along very well. Even though I’d been in design agencies where I’ve given my ideas and set goals for projects, this was a different environment. Now I was the one in charge and like a preprepared speech, the words flowed out without stutter or confusion. I knew exactly what I needed to say and my audience was very receptive.

After the meeting I felt two things…

1. Confidence in the future :

Being in that meeting gave me a slight insight into things to come for THE FDG. Before I was a designer, but now I am a business man (and a designer, I always will be )

2. I was buggered!:

I think after an early morning flight with no breakfast (well, a McDonalds muffin), and lack of sleep really took it out of me that day. I love the idea of catching a flight to see a client but the reality for now is that I’m not so good at the whole flying part.

So in summary, I’ve now had a taste and I want more! Here’s to good thing!

It’s early days yet, but what I’ve found, is that I love what I do. It’s not to say that I didn’t previously enjoy my work, but now I have a passion for it.

In earlier years of working for design agencies, I’d found it hard at times to get motivated while working on client projects. Sometimes a really good one would come along and I’d perk right up again, but for the most part it seemed to be about cutting out images, updating gif or flash banners that advertised some new bank interest rate, or trying to stay awake while writing documents for developers to ensure the design I’d lovingly crafted doesn’t get hacked to pieces.

In saying all of this, and not to appear ungrateful to previous employers, it wasn’t my own work!

Now that I am bringing in my own clients and managing my own projects, I feel a sense of meaning in my work. I’m not sure if I’ve said this before but its a “child & parent relationship”. I will never do to my clients what I have seen previous employers do to theirs. A prime example of this is the number of jobs I’ve been involved in that turn up late on the client’s desk due to poor project management. I’d never done this before so I couldn’t comment but now that I handle the relationships of clients, the “project management”, the design, the management of development, relationships with my team and at the end of the day have the ability to network to find more opportunities… well come on! those guys had no excuse. Rant over!

I’ve always thought I’d be good in business but I made a promise to myself to go out into the industry and get the best experience I could before I jump in the deep end. I’d say it’s starting to pay off, not financially at this point! but the rewards right now are how fulfilling this can be. Don’t worry though, I know you can’t have sunshine every day and I’ve packed a decent umbrella.

At the end of the day, I’m doing what I love, I’m making enough money to lead a comfortable life, and I’m energized by the work that I do. I don’t think I could ever turn back, if I did I’d lose the passion!

Face to face contact is by far the best way to get to know someone. Being in the web design industry you find that there are no boudries when it comes to who you work with and where they are in the world. But in saying all of this it’s great to know someone in your backyard.Today I made connections with three new people. 1 – by referral, well actually I was sitting talking to a client about his personal business website (at his day job can you believe, but that’s another story) and his boss over hears us talking and asks me about designing his own website. 2 – a friend of a friend who I had a coffee with today that is a graphic designer and funny enough knows some guys I’m looking to do work for in the UK. 3 – connecting with a fellow school mate from years ago on Facebook via YouTube video (who is a Director/Motion graphics designer).

…I was sitting talking to a client about his personal business website (at his day job can you believe, but that’s another story)…

I think to be effective in my field, I must embrace both on and offline contact with clients and designer alike to grow my business. I’m not sure if it’s luck or fate, but right now I’m finding the right people at the right time in the right place (my backyard).

So my advice, if I’m offering and you’re taking… is that you should make sure that you are open to any type of contact even though some might seem small and insignificant, because there is always a diamond in the rough. You just have to keep your eyes peeled, ears open and fingers typing.

Having just arrived back in New Zealand after being away for 5 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to work for myself. Unfortunately, I’ve decided to do it at a pretty hairy time where the world has gone into one big recession. Sure some countries are hit harder than others, but I believed that I would be just fine in “Good Ol’ NZ”. Well I was wrong for a while, but I’ll explain.I arrived back on the 7th Jan 09, all was well and I’d brought back my beautiful English girlfriend to live with me. At this point we were bullet proof, having saved up our British pounds and converted them to the kiwi dollar. We traveled around NZ for a month and enjoyed the tail end of a great New Zealand summer. It never dawned on us to settle in for the winter!

By February I decided to buy a car plus all sorts of wonderful things including some nice diving equipment. Money soon ran out and I still didn’t have a job, but not to worry because I’d been planing to work for myself while in the UK. So I finished off my web portfolio and sent out a nice “hello please hire me” email to over 40 Wellington web design agencies. The number 1 response was…

Thank you for getting in touch, we really like your portfolio but unfortunately we aren’t hiring at the moment. We would like to keep your details on record for future positions and/or contract work

At first I enjoyed the compliments of my work (nice little ego stroke is always welcome, all designers love it! , but after a while it became apparent that I couldn’t just sit back and ask the agencies to do all the work for me. I then decided to dust of an idea I had been hatching from when I was living in the UK. At this time, no one wants to spend money, but people still need websites… roll up “THE FDG”.

Back in the UK I’d sat down with my flatmate James, who now works for himself as +Good and talked about starting a “design collective”. There are people out there doing it already and it seems to work, so the big idea was to work on projects both in the UK and NZ together. Although we still havent worked on any projects together, knowing he’s there to work with is enough to go looking for bigger fish.

Anyway, getting back on track… THE FDG has a staff count of 1 thus far, plus 4 partners (1 Flash Designer, 1 Graphic Designer, 2 Web Developers (one of which is a rockstar). I have now won 3 small contracts and have pitched for 3 big ones. Although I’d said that times were tough, friends and referals have helped me to get on my feet. I’m not sure what the future holds but even though it’s hard work getting started by myself (lots and lots of paper work) I really enjoy working my own hours and having complete control of my work (well almost, clients can be crazy sometimes).

At this point THE FDG doesn’t have a website. I have designed it but it waits to be built when I have a spare moment between jobs.