We’ve been busy at here at Sarah Lynn Design. Many great projects have landed on our doorstep and we’d like to share what we’ve been working on.

Here are a few of the projects we’ve got in the works and/or have recently wrapped up.

Recently Launched

NannyShare Connection

View the Site

About NannyShare Connection
The owner and creator of NannyShare Connection is looking to connect families with a nanny that fits their needs. The concept of a Nanny Share helps to cut down child care costs and is becoming more popular in large cities. You would essentially share a Nanny with another family that also needs part-time or full-time care.  At NannyShare, you can now order a free family directory (limited-time) which lists families also looking to share a Nanny that you can contact directly.

About the Design
The client wanted the site to feel fresh, fun and cater to families and children. We used a light color palette of salmon & cream with a blue base. One of the areas of concern when re-designing was to clarify the navigation system and make the ordering process more logical. On the order form we used some highlighting techniques (Firefox/Safari only) to keep your eyes on the field you need to fill-in and keep you moving down the page.

In the about us page, I like to recommend our clients include a photo of themselves or people in the company. With so many businesses online it’s good to know there is a real person you can trust behind it.

Coming Soon!

Life Box Company

About Life Box
The Life Box Company has developed a genius idea! They produce cardboard boxes you can ship your products in, which contain seeds in between the two layers of cardboard. In a few simple steps, you can use the box you received your shoes in (or anything really…) to plant trees in your yard.

It’s the perfect idea for business’ looking for a way to gain carbon credits and improve their environment. Currently in development is a website for Life Box. This includes the mapping technology that will allow you to track the growth of the trees you plant from a Life Box. Is your company looking for a way to show your potential customers how you are helping the environment? Check out Life Box’s current website to learn more. New site coming soon!

Branding Life Box
With a logo already in place, this re-brand was challenging. The goal was to create a natural mark that would speak to a younger, more mobile web-based audience compared to the traditional customer. With an mobile app in the works as well, this logo needed to be simplified to work well in a small space as well as on a printed box. Take a look at their current logo and compare it with the new mark.

Launch Expected: Early Winter 2010

Midwest Eye Laboratories

About Midwest Eye Laboratories
This team of specialists offers excellent eye prosthesis for people of all ages. Located in Eau Claire, WI with multiple offices throughout the Midwest, Midwest Eye Laboratories is family friendly and offers the best when it comes to your artificial eye care. They want to make you feel comfortable in your own skin. Midwest Eye Labs have fine tuned their prosthesis techniques so that you wouldn’t know when you were looking at an artificial eye or a real one.

About the Design
The guys over at Midwest wanted a site that made their customers feel a sense of trust and comfort in them. They did not want to overwhelm them with technical terminology or a extremely sterile, frigid environment. The Midwest is known for their friendliness and this is exactly how Midwest Labs does business. With a helping hand and a smile.

With this in mind, we designed the site to be upfront and simple in it’s display of information. The video that is on their current website, will be placed in the blue space you see above on the homepage. It gives patients a great visual overview of what they are all about right off the bat.

Since Midwest Labs has locations in the city and in rural areas, we used a photograph that incorporated both. The color and texture of the site was meant to feel professional yet friendly with the warm tones used for buttons and smaller details. This blend is important to have as to build trust in a medical-based business you need to have a professional look too.

Launch Expected: September 2010

Sarah Lynn Design is Getting a Makeover!

Here’s a sneak peek at what’s to come!

New Features

• Client Portal - We keep your project on task every step of the way with our project management system. Our client portal gives your access to our exceptional management system where you can also setup, send and manage your email campaigns. A one-stop shop to web success!
• New Design – we’d like to show you that we know the importance of load times, new CSS techniques and an overall stunning appearance. What do you think thus far from this sneak peek?
• New Blog Functions + Focus – Our On Life + Design Blog will be changing a bit in the near future. We are shifting our focus to business’ rather than other designers. Look for our new section this fall “The Impact of Design Guides”, which are guides pertaining to specific industries to help guide your design projects.
• Email Newsletter – We will now be offering a email newsletter to our clients and fans. Keep up on the latest design trends, news from Sarah Lynn Design and special offers on design work as well!

Launch Expected: Late October 2010

Give your customers what they expect, when it comes to making their way around your website. With so many online shopping options, customers don’t have to put up with confusing navigation or unintuitive shopping carts. Make sure you’re guiding your customer in the right direction and not causing them to leave your site.

“What does color have to do with it? Everything.”

Some of the most successful retailers use color to help guide their customers through their site. Where do you want your customer to look when they are ready to checkout? Make sure they are looking in the right place by adding color in the correct places. Using colored buttons and contrasting colors in your website’s navigation can dramatically help your user’s customer experience. The same way aisle signs and section banners in a retail store guide customers.

Using Color to Guide Your Customers

Let’s take a look at some examples of how color is used by some of the most successful online retailers on the market today.

Amazon Usability & Color

Amazon, known for their incredibly smart and user friendly shopping experience, uses different colors to gauge the importance of their buttons. As you can see both add to cart buttons are designed to appear brighter and more saturated in color than the add to wish list and baby registry buttons right below. Also notice the blue coloring behind this extremely important panel of options. Not only do the buttons guide the eye in this area because of their contrasting colors, but the blue background helps to break-up the white space and pull the customer’s eye to the right as well.

You’ll also notice in the upper left-hand corner, shop all departments is given a bright orange color. When on any other page besides their homepage, the navigation collapses to make way for a more narrowed list of search results, based on the section of the store you’ve chosen. Amazon wants to make sure their customers are aware that their main shopping categories are still available and easily found when collapsed.

Cafe Press Usability & Color

Cafe Press does an excellent job utilizing color where they want their customers to take action. With a minimalist design style, the other, less important links are presented in subdued colors allowing for less confusion and overwhelming feelings from visitors.

Buy.com Usability & Color

Buy.com follows suit with Cafe Press and allows their products to stand out on their own with a minimalist style of design. Again, green is used for the most important elements on the page. If you look at the print this page, email a friend and add to wishlist buttons, they are a lighter shade of blue and less saturated than the add to cart button above. Usability design is extremely important when it comes to getting a customer to checkout. Your customer should have no problem finding their shopping cart and adding an item to it.

“If the checkout buttons are not visible to the shoppers or they do not stand out in some way from the rest of the page, you will have a difficult time converting many of your shoppers to buyers.”

-eCommerce Optimization

L.L. Bean Signature Usability & Color

L.L. Bean Signature Usability & Color

The L.L. Bean Signature site has an excellent overall design. They use the color orange to showcase when their customer’s should make an action. In the examples above, It is important to keep the color consistent throughout the site as customers will eventually become accustomed to orange and what the color is associated with.

The North Face Usability & Color

Navigating through the North Face website is like riding a bike with training wheels. There are always three ways to know what page you’re on, made apparent by the color red, large fonts and the use of effective bulleting and overly large bread crumbs. Similar to the other examples, only one color is used to represent the shopping cart related actions.

Eddie Bauer Usability Design

Eddie Bauer (above) and First Ascent (below) use color to highlight the background of the active page the user is on. Eddie Bauer also is using color to highlight the active page in yellow. The more consistent you can be with your color choices, the easier it will be for your customer to shop!

First Ascent Usability & Color

Usability Takeaways

• Always give your customers a clear indication of where they are on your website. Color is a great way to do this.

• Make sure there is some differentiation between common buttons and buttons that have specific actions (IE. shopping cart functions).

• Choose one color to use to assist in guiding your customer. This way they know what to expect.

• Use more than one option to show your customer where they are (IE. breadcrumbs, color highlighting and large title headers)

Design Usability Resources

• 10 Principles Of Navigation Design And Why Quality Navigation Is So Critical
• 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines

There is only one key ingredient in any design that will hold it together, make it rise and make it deliver what it is supposed to. Whether the design is for the web, a book cover or a simple business card, there is one piece to the puzzle that must be present for the design to be successful. What is it you ask?

When reading through the many design blogs and books out there today, you’ll find showcases of beautiful designs, tutorials on how to make or use a specific design program, what certain colors mean and where they should be used and many more things. But no matter how much you learn, there is still only one element that truly matters. Designers must ask themselves one question:

Is the design appropriate for the target customer?

The website or brochure may be designed with the most stunning colors, stylish fonts, and newest trends. But this doesn’t mean it’s great design or appropriate for your viewers. There are certain trends that are age, industry and location appropriate. Simply because you are utilizing them doesn’t mean the design will be successful.

What to Consider When Designing for a Specific Target Market

How will the product or service improve the customer’s life?

Whether you’re selling food, a new tie or a trip to Europe you have to showcase the reasons to why the customer would want any of these items. You’re not going to reach the customer by relying on a slick navigation, pretty pictures and an easy to use shopping cart. There needs to be a clear reason why they need or will benefit from the product or service. Design is a great way to guide the customer through the reasons why, in a particular order or way.

Product Example

Photo by Aaron Alexander

Say for example your selling a new tie. Why would someone want to purchase that specific tie over another? Maybe you’re showing imagery of a man wearing the tie on his wedding day. So what? That man looks great in that tie, but so does every other man that happens to be photographed with a fancy tie. What makes this tie any better?

Maybe the tie is made of special material that is meant to feel comfortable and breathable during high-stress occasions like a wedding. A good way to connect with the customer through the design knowing this detail is by increasing the size of the text and overlay it onto the photograph. Not only will the “pretty” photograph pull your customer’s attention into the page, but the large text with the tie’s fabric benefits will give the customer a reason to buy that tie over another. Highlighting specific details can really improve a designs overall success rate. And yes, it can be as simple as pulling out a product detail that already exists.

The key with products are to avoid leaving beneficial details to waste. Bring out the little details, especially when you’re selling something as common as a tie. Once your able to focus in on the benefits, use colors and other design elements to bring the viewers eye even more towards these little details.

Service Example

Photo by Alberto P Veiga

In this example, let’s say a travel company’s website is selling a trip to Europe. The client wants to push the ultimate travel package versus the basic travel package. How will the design help sell more ultimate packages for this client? A solution for this scenario could be to compare each package side-by-side without price involved, graphically. Highlight the ultimate package and the details that would make that choice better than the others. Show a video/written testimonial of a customer who has chosen this package in the past and why they liked it. Customer reviews are proven to be more beneficial and trusted by viewers than company recommendations alone.

Customer Review Focus

Customer reviews are becoming more and more common to online businesses. As a business owner, you should be aware of Google’s SideWiki. It allows customers to write their own reviews on any website and publish it. When another customer visits the website with a SideWiki, they can then see those reviews made by other visitors on the SideWiki. The power is in the customer’s hands. This technology may not be utilized by very many customers today, but it is important to be on the lookout for similar releases & technologies that will give customers the upper-hand on your websites. The last thing you want is a customer complaint shown to all your potential customers.

Checkout this useful article reviewing the SideWiki:

Google’s SideWiki Shifts Power To Consumers –Away From Corporate Websites

The target market in this travel example is likely a customer that has a mid to high income level and could afford a premium travel package. If the targeted customer was of a lower income bracket, the design would be entirely different. Maybe the company would be trying to sell travel packages during a non-peak season to Europe. You might highlight the discounted price with a sale burst or a bolded tag-line saying “Now you can visit Europe too, for half the price.” Instead of comparing special vacation packages, you are emphasizing with the design the urgency of traveling now and the benefit of saving money and being able to afford a trip.

The key is to pull out the details that are most important to highlight within the design. This takes both efforts of the designer and the business owner/project manager.

Tip for Designers: Most clients aren’t going to offer up all the details you need to know to target their specific market. Chances are you’re going to have to dig deep and ask! Your clients are the experts of their market. Is the business a start-up? Maybe you can do some research as well to help your client pull out essential details they might be missing. Show them you want the design to help improve their business.

Tip for Business Owners: To end up with a successful design for whatever you happen to be selling or showcasing, it is important to open up communication as much as possible with your designer. Make sure they know your end goals and your target market. Also make sure to give them the details you want to highlight or what is most important about your promoted products and/or services. Not sure what else to prepare? Read ” What to Prepare Before Hiring a Web Designer“.

Share your Expertise…

Designers: In what ways have you used design to successfully target a specific market?

Business Owners: How has design help to improve your business? What reports or analysis have you put in place to track the success of the design on your website? (if applicable)

Photo by lotyloty

What should you prepare prior to contacting a design and/or web developer? Having most if not all of these items listed below will greatly increase the success of you website. There are many areas that should be planned out before setting foot into the design. If you don’t plan ahead, chances are you’ll have trouble down the road when you decide you want to add pages, reach specific business goals, edit content to improve your SEO and much more.

Phase I: The Basics

Marketing Plan
What is your target market? Who are you trying to reach with your new website? Do they even have internet access readily available to them? These are a few of the many questions you should be asking yourself/team before even considering talking to a designer. You’ll want to make sure you can answer everything you possibly can about your potential customer.

Questions to Consider

• Why would your customer want to use your website? How will it aid them with making a purchase or using your services?
• Is your customer web-savvy? Will they understand how to use your site easily and efficiently? Consider interactive elements and hiring a designer that is competent in user interface design to make sure the site is easy to use.
• How do you plan to market your website to your customers? (Consider: Email marketing, PPC  advertising, affiliates, television, print and direct mail pieces, product packaging)

Web Hosting
Is your business able to host the website on your own servers? Will your designer be able to setup hosting for you? This is a great question to ask your potential designer. It’s good to be open to suggestions, as certain hosts provide different things that could be more beneficial to your website.

Site Goals
What goals do you want your website to achieve for your business? Think of goals you can measure. IE: I want to bring “x” number of visitors to my site by the end of 6 months. I hope to bring in “x” amount of dollars from my website after one year.

If you’ve already got a website, re-design goals are also great to have ready for your designer. Solving your current site’s limitations are what designers are here to do for you!

Style, Color & Other Design Elements
You’re probably thinking, “Isn’t it the designer’s job to figure out all of those elements?” Yes and no. It’s good to go into a discussion having some idea of what you’re looking for. Whether you know a few things or a lot about developing a website, you should know what style of design appeals to you and more importantly, your customers.

Not sure where to look? Here are some great web design showcases to help you along

• 35 Beautiful E-Commerce Websites
• Delish! 30 Successfully Designed Food Websites
• Top 20 Illustration & Type-Based Websites
• Checking in Hotel Web Design: 50 Cosy Hotel Websites and Trends

Budget
How much money do you have available to spend on your website? This can be a large factor in what you’re able to have developed on your new site. Always remember, the more functionality to a website, the more time involved and the more it will cost you. A professional developed website can cost thousands of dollars.

What elements are necessary to have? Which ones can you live without? Make sure you know what you are able to put into it without getting too far along and have to cut back on essential elements. Discuss your budget right away with your designer (Even though I’m sure they’ll ask right off the bat).

• Interested in a project quote? Submit your project details on our project quote page.

Phase II: The Content

What ideas do you want to drive home to your customer? Are they essential to your business’s success? Who is going to prepare the content for the website? Do you have a copywriter or should you consider hiring someone to help with this aspect of the site?

SEO Planning & Copywriting
The content of your website deserves plenty of attention. You’ll also want to consider SEO (search engine optimization) when developing the content for your site. An SEO advisor can help you target keywords that will help improve your search ranking when a potential customer searches for you or a keyword (product/service you might offer). These keywords should be found in your site’s content as much as possible. It’s important to think about SEO before building a site as the URL structure can play a large role.  Not everything can be done prior to contacting a designer, but consider having a rough plan for your copywriting and SEO.

SEO & Copywriting Resources

• Beginners Guide to SEO
• Ways to Increase Traffic
• 11 Best Practices for URLs
• Copywriting 101: An introduction to effective copywriting
• How To Improve Your Branding With Your Content

Page Layout
Consider the different pages you’d like to have on your website. How many will you need to have? Can you combine pages to make the navigation as simple as possible? Will you need to add more pages on in the future? These are all great items to think about when planning out the pages of your new site.

Special Features
Do you want to incorporate a shopping cart feature on your website? Do you plan on having a blog section so you can connect with your customers and share knowledge on the topics that affect your business?

There are many special features that you can add to make your site more dynamic and engaging. Many of them can dramatically make a difference on the way your site is built, what technology it uses, and the cost of the site.

• Shopping Carts & Online Stores
• Product Reviews & Customer Testimonials
• Blogs
• Forums & Discussion Boards
• Email Subscriptions
  

Phase III: The Future

CMS (Content Management System)
If you’re going to have an interactive website in which the content is updated regularly, you’ll want to consider a CMS. This will allow you to easily manage your website and make changes to it when necessary. Most websites nowadays have a CMS unless the changes to the site are minimal. This can increase the cost of a website somewhat, but is necessary to improve your user’s experience. The more often you’re changing your content, the more you’re users will want to visit your website.

CMS Examples:

• Magento Ecommerce Platform – A popular CMS option for online retailers
• WordPress – Publishing platform which caters to bloggers. A robust & free CMS option
• Joomla – A popular CMS for websites of all sizes

Goals for the Future
Do you plan on adding pages to your website in the future? Who is going to manage your website’s content? The fastest way to lose your viewer’s interest is by leaving your website by the way-side. Have a plan for the future. Make sure your keeping your site’s content fresh and giving users a reason to visit it on a consistent basis.

Sarah Lynn Design offers website management packages as well as copywriting, SEO, and business marketing to help you get your planning started. Check out everything we can offer you to help you business succeed on the web.

• Sarah Lynn Design Services

Dayne Shuda is the founder and main contributor at Hunting Business Marketing – a resource for hunting businesses that includes tips, tutorials, and a question & answer forum where hunting industry leaders can learn to market their businesses effectively. Dayne is also the author of the Hunting Business Marketing | The Book – Simple strategies for marketing your hunting business on the Web. Connect with Dayne at HBM or on Twitter @DayneShuda.

Having a positive relationship with your designer can lead to big sales

One of the problems I have as an entrepreneur is that I believe I can do everything necessary to operate my business. The truth is – I can’t do it all and where this fact becomes painfully apparent is design. Whether it’s creating a small banner ad, Website elements, print design, packaging design, logo design, or any of the thousands of other design elements necessary for business – I simply do not have the expertise to create effective designs that will make my business successful.

If you’re like me and you have little design skill then you’re going to need to hire a designer to create the wonderful designs you’ll need to grow your business.

Once you hire a designer there are some things you can do to ensure the relationship is successful for both you and the designer.

Here are some things you can do as the client to make sure your designer creates the best images for your successful business…

5 Things to Ensure a Positive Relationship

1| Measurable Goals Including Timelines/Due Dates

As a marketer, I setup a lot of tests. Each time a test is setup there are expectations, timelines, end dates, and measurable variables.

To ensure success with your designer, make sure you are clear with each project you ask them to do for you. Explain what your vision is for the creative. Provide a concise timeline including the details of how this design projects affects other areas of the initiative you’re working on. Also share your measurable variables and goals even though the results may not directly be a result of the design (as there are other variables that play into the success of initiatives).

Sharing your goals up front will give your designer the insight necessary to assess what they’re being asked and it will allow them to plan out their work.

By Abnel Photo

2| Freedom

Some of the best business advice I ever received was from a talented merchandiser with whom I work. We were going over photography for new spreads showcasing the products we were selling. The merchandiser, photographer, designer, and me (marketer) looking at a particular spread and we couldn’t agree on one layout. The designer finally gave his opinion on which one he thought would work best. Unconvinced I looked at the merchandiser and he said genuinely:

“Let’s let the designer, design. He doesn’t tell me how to choose product and he doesn’t tell you how to market the products. Let’s let him do his job.”

This statement hit me right in the middle of the head and I took it to heart. I needed to let go of the control and let the talented designer make the decision. And looking back, the designer made the correct choice for the layout.

The lesson is to let your designer have freedom to use their talent and creativity to see your vision through effectively. Let go of your control over certain areas and let the experts do what they do best. This will also allow you to focus on what you do best.

Everybody wins.

3| Share Results and Feedback

When the project is complete and your initiative is in action for your business, it’s time to look at your goals and measurable variables and assess the success.

Share the results of the campaign with the designer. They worked hard on the design for the project and they like to know what kind of impact they may have had on things like sales and branding. Sometimes as marketers we tend to think the results part testing is boring for others in our business, but it’s important for everyone involved in the process to understand the impact their work has on the performance of the company.

Also analyze the impact you feel the design had on the campaign. Share the feedback with the designer. This feedback is important for future projects you may undertake. Your designer will want to know what elements of their creative worked and other areas that they may need to adjust or take into consideration for future projects.

4| Compliment in Front of Others

Compliments go a long way in the world and even though they’re generally easy to give, we all seem to have difficulty finding the right time to compliment someone when they do something positive.

When it comes to business, employees and professionals you hire to work for you are going to generally work hard to help your business become successful. If you are silent (even if you recognize the hard work) the employee or hired professional may feel their work is going unnoticed and this can lead to a difficult working relationship for future projects.

I’ve found that complimenting one on one to the person works well, but what works even better for morale is complimenting the hard work of professionals involved in projects and campaigns by sending out an e-mail that publicly recognizes the work of all involved.

For example, if you have a successful email campaign, send out an email to all employees in the company that highlights the success of the campaign. Compliment the work of those involved by saying how the product was a perfect fit for the customer thanks to the talent of the merchandiser. Also compliment and thank the designer for their efforts in coming up with eye-catching graphics and simple and functional layouts.

It’s not much work, but the positive morale goes a long way to making everyone involved at your business feel good about the work they’re doing.

5| Stay in Touch

Even though many successful business relationships require contact on an as-needed basis, I’m a fan of staying in touch with those you work with including professional designers.

If you hire a professional designer for a one-time campaign and like their work, stay in touch with them even if you don’t need their services until the next campaign. Send them an email or even a short written note in the mail once and awhile to let them know how their designs are having a positive and lasting impact on your success.

If you have an e-newsletter, have them sign up for updates so they can see the progress of your company. They might also like seeing how you continue to use their designs.

Staying in touch is good for positive morale and when designers are in a good mood it leads to remarkable creative for your business campaigns.

Summary

Effective design is vital to the success of any business.

I’ve learned that I can’t do everything when it comes to my business. In order to become successful, entrepreneurs and business managers need to let the professional be effective with their areas of expertise.

When it comes to design, letting the designer have freedom to bring your visions to life will lead to growing sales as the creative connects with your customers and entices them to purchase.

Foster strong relationships with your designers by doing five things:

1| Measurable Goals Including Timelines/Due Dates

2| Freedom

3| Share Results and Feedback

4| Compliment in Front of Others

5| Stay in Touch

Take a look at a few of the businesses you see as successful. Look at the design of their products, packaging, Website, print, photography, etc.

Is their creative design remarkable?

It likely is remarkable and it plays a large role in their success.

Ensure your success and foster a positive relationship with your designer.

Related posts from On Life + Design

Ways to Keep Your In-House Designers Happy & Productive

What to Expect from a Freelance Designer

Key Elements for a Successful Website Design

Related posts on the Web

Freelance Contracts: Do’s And Don’ts

In Defense of The Jack of All Trades

The 10 Most Common Mistakes Web Designers Make

Original Photograph by IdeOwl | Altered by Sarah Lynn Design | Altered by Sarah Lynn

The word on the street is that you should know-it-all when it comes to being a web designer. This is not entirely true. When looking to hire someone to say remodel your home would you want someone that is so-so at electrical, painting, plumbing, and carpentry? Or a professional who is excellent at one of those skills? Finding a niche’ doesn’t necessarily mean only designing for a particular market, but it does mean putting more of your marketing efforts in a particular direction. Say for instance you really love designing for beauty salons or maybe you’d like to, but haven’t had the chance yet? Here are a few ways to get connected with the correct markets by blogging and networking.

Work your Blogging Magic

Read blogs that focus on the market you desire to design for. Give you two cents and comment on posts and be a regular. Get to know the authors of your favorites and network!

To be most efficient at blogging, start off by targeting smaller blogs that have less attention in the blogging world. This way the author should give more attention to your comments and it will be easier to build a relationship in this manner. The larger the blog, the less likely the writer is going to have time to connect with you.

Attend Events

Interested in designing for the automobile industry? Attend a car show and network yourself in their market. By doing this you are not only inspiring yourself, but you can learn more about the industry from an inside perspective and become more of an expert in the field. Only focusing on design conferences only allows you to see other’s work and not build your own ideas by experiencing an industry in a new perspective.

Online Networking Sites

These are a few sites I use on a daily basis for networking. They not only offer a place for you to show off your work, but also are widely focused on all types of businesses. You can stumble upon different auto websites and twitter your findings to make contact with the company.

Twitter is an easy way to make connections. For example:

This morning I was replying to a comment on my post Top 10 Designed Travel Websites and visited their camping website. After recently designing for North Bay Trading, I thought their camping focused readers might be interested in their products. So I used Twitter to send a long my thoughts. Now we both made a new connection and I helped my past client with a little bit of marketing.

Within a few minutes I had a response and sent along the information. Never hurts to help clients out even once you have finished designing for them. Once a client, always a client! This is a great technique to utilize if you have done a few projects in your niche market and would like to find a few more. Give it a try!

Create Projects

Show your targeted market what you can do, even if you haven’t had the chance yet. If you’re a young designer, like myself, you probably don’t have a lot of projects in the area you’d like to design for, if any. What are you waiting for? Make up a few of your own! There is no reason to have to tell someone “Sorry, I don’t have any examples of that specific business to show you.” Be creative, it’s what you’re supposed to do best. Give your project guidelines and stipulations to keep things interesting. Create a target market and a feeling you’d like to see that specific business portray to the world.

Self Promotion

Try creating a marketing piece specifically geared towards your targeted market. Send out postcards to businesses you know don’t have a web presence telling them about the reasons they should and how you can help them achieve their goals. Remember not everyone is design oriented when promoting yourself. Think about things that might capture their attention and integrate it into the design piece. Make sure you clearly state how to contact you and include a business card if possible to make it easy as possible.

When promoting yourself, try focusing your skills as well. Say for instance you are good at WordPress, logo, flash and book design. Focus in on what you want to do and what you do the best. Show your customers that you are in fact the expert in that area.

Brand Yourself

When promoting yourself you need to keep your brand consistent. Like your targeted market, you are your own business as well. Show your customers that you practice what you preach.

You are the most difficult client you’ll ever have. Do some soul-searching and learn about yourself and what makes you tick as a design and as a business professional. Currently I am in the process of branding my design business. It has been a tough journey thus far, but things are shaping up. I hope to have my new portfolio/blog up by late October along with all of my other marketing materials. A big goal but an important one to put in place.

I suggest you create the following and brand accordingly:

Online Portfolio
Print Portfolio
Resume (show off your typography skills!)
Business Card
Letterhead
Invoice
Design Contract (Minimal design, perhaps your logo will do)
Design Briefs
Email Signatures (Attach your one-line blurb here – Make it personal)

Marketing Resources & Tid Bits

AIGA for both businesses and designers

Art Bistro for all artists

Taste Spotting Delicious Food Resource