Brand me

November 20, 2009 6:37 PM

What is that I'm doing? Tag my business.

I’ve been working freelance for a couple of years while I finished my degree doing a variety of tasks for academics (4 or 5) who work in the field of Education. Some of the things I’ve done have been to create logos for various groups, diagrams and illustrations for lesson plans and books, some photography,animations, presentations, formatting of material for publishing, transcription, managing an international journal and formatting it, creating databases and entering all the data, as well as analysing it (lightly – I’m no expert in statistics) and producing all graphs and reports.

Now that I’ve finished my degree, I want to increase my clientele. I think I can make a go of this because I turned over around $30K at about 14 hours a week. I have a domain which is my own name and the word design. I hope to launch my website (with a blog -thanks metafilter for earlier advice) in January. I’m working on a design for my business card. My current clients will probably forward my details onto their mailing groups if I ask them – I just need one last thing. What do I do and what’s a good tag line? I would have thought “academic support” except that that phrase tends to mean helping students to survive university. I tested the tagline “the whole package” on one of my current clients, and she was aghast, but couldn’t exactly say why.

So, to summarise my business card, for example...

b33jdesign
Academic Support (?)
The whole package (?)
w: www.b33jdesign.com
e: [e-mail]
p: xxx xxxx xxx


Related

posted by b33j to work & money (14 comments total)

While you might specialize in the education industry, you are in essence a freelance graphic designer. If you feel that you want to focus purely on the education market, that might actually be an interesting way to position yourself as most freelance designers I know will do any job that comes their way.

By focusing, prospective clients might choose you due to your expertise with the subject matter or their target audience, etc. and academic folks love to network and pass names around.

Unfortunately I can't help much with the tagline as I'm not a copywriter but consider something that mentions design and education.

Here's a rough stab at one: "Enabling effective education through elegant design."

Or something like that.
posted by Elminster24 at 7:05 PM on November 20, 2009

Multimedia Design?

Then explain in detail on the website, with examples. And have a short one paragraph or so pitch to have your current contacts send out, much like what you wrote above.

I can see why they didn't like "the whole package" as it doesn't really convey anything, and, well, package has certain connotations at this point. At least for me. I blame Madonna.
posted by grapesaresour at 7:19 PM on November 20, 2009

What about "Educator Support"? Not particularly catchy, but it gets at the same concept as "Academic Support", and is also more clear that it's the instructors you're aiming to help.
posted by shaun uh at 7:33 PM on November 20, 2009

What about "Digital Ink specializing in Academia Support"?
posted by JujuB at 7:51 PM on November 20, 2009

"Academic Information Media"

but, really, I'd go with something longer...

"Academic Information Design, Media, & Support"
posted by taz at 8:06 PM on November 20, 2009

Educational Technology Services
posted by chrisamiller at 8:28 PM on November 20, 2009

"Visual"izing your ideas
posted by birdsquared at 10:18 PM on November 20, 2009

Perhaps academia rather than academic.

Visualization and publishing consultant for academia is too long, but is going it in the general direction perhaps?
posted by krilli at 8:58 AM on November 21, 2009

Information Media for Academia has a nice ring.

Then below it you could put more detail: graphic design, visualizing information, publishing layouts, multimedia development, for academics and educators
posted by barnone at 9:15 AM on November 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

"Instructional Asset Design"

But how much a part of your business do you envision the journal management stuff to be? Because really I think you have two buckets of offering, the A/V and the publishing/data.
posted by mumkin at 9:16 AM on November 21, 2009

Graphic Design and Production for Academia

Personally, I hate taglines. Most of them use buzzwords and don't covey information. Academics still read, so give them words.

JujuBee Design

What we do:
Graphic Design, Photography, Illustration, Animation, Book Design, Transcription, Presentations, Tutoring, Editing

Experts in:
Pagemaker, Illustrator, Flash, Photoshop, Office Suites

Around big campuses, there's a network of smart people doing this work. Develop that network so you can refer out work you don't do, and get work that some editor doesn't do. When you grow, you may end hiring them.
posted by theora55 at 9:29 AM on November 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Visual Thinking
Visual Tools for Communication
Information Design
Instructional Design
posted by carmicha at 11:45 AM on November 21, 2009

+1 for Information Media for Academia
posted by lrivers at 1:09 PM on November 21, 2009

Thanks very much everyone. All great answers, but I think I will go down the academia path. Makes sense.
posted by b33j at 1:12 PM on November 21, 2009