Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with business and design

What do you think of "Words Like Notes"?

jlhopes — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:08:32 -0800

I have tentatively given my freelance editing and design business the name Words Like Notes. What do you think of it? I am creating a name and website for my freelance editing and print layout/design business. I would like to have a name that is not just my name, but which covers the different types of work I do (editing, writing, layout, and some translation) and gives a sense of the style I aim for - light and refined, yet professional.

The name I have been going with is Words Like Notes. I like the sound of it, but I realize that it is not a straightforward name, and I'm concerned that it will just confuse people.

What is your reaction to the name? Does it convey anything? Does it turn you off? Do you have any suggestions regarding how to use the name, or modify it, or replace it altogether? Thanks!

Brand me

b33j — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:37:49 -0800

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: jr@b33jdesign.com
p: xxx xxxx xxx

Related

Copywriting Woes

ecorrocio — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:44:42 -0800

The A-B-C's of corporate collateral writing: I'm a graphic designer. How do I communicate to my client that willy-nilly editing procedures, and last minute proof-stage rewrites inevitably makes projects run to the last minute? Is there a "standard" procedure for writing/editing? The scenario: Small Company A takes a haphazard approach to writing key copy for brochures and material - a "design it first, then we'll re-do it again and again" methodology. This consistently makes projects run to the very last second, and incurs all kinds of rush charges from printers etc. Plus, it tends to result in disjointed copy.

Small Company B knows how to write/edit. They write copy, circulate, edit, THEN provide it for insertion into the design. The only edits that tend to occur are typos and layout.

How do I turn Company A's approach into Company B's?

good research materials on the subject of electric cars, 3d modeling and/or entrepreneurship?

groovinkim — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:40:29 -0800

good research materials on the subject of electric cars, 3d modeling and/or entrepreneurship? my boyfriend is the son of a mechanic and dreams of starting his own electric car company (not for the everyday consumer, more like higher end sports cars). he does a lot of online research. he's very intelligent and relatively knowledgeable about cars, engineering, etc. when he gets that dreamy look in his eye and starts rambling about the technical specifics i usually don't understand a word he says. his feelings were hurt initially because i was skeptical about the project. he has viable ideas, but he's more of an archetype of a creative genius/professor than a pragmatic businessman. but i do think that his business has potential.

his birthday's coming up relatively soon, and i'd like to help him by getting him some books and magazines on related subjects.

some things i can think of that i could possibly get him reading materials about:

- electric cars in general. manufacturing processes, the market overall, engineering of them, etc.

- 3d modeling. he's mentioned that he plans on acquiring dual lcd monitors, a 3d scanner and whatever else he needs to make clay models. i don't want to buy him any of that stuff (not that i could afford it anyway) because i'm sure he's very specific in what he wants/doesn't want and probably already has his software of choice picked out. but if there are good books or magazines for a beginner, that could be useful.

i'd much rather have him rent or share a workstation somewhere here in seattle than invest a bunch of money in equipment, but he's weirdly paranoid about using public workstations and the slight possibility of his designs getting disseminated without his knowledge. i really doubt that would happen but haven't been able to successfully talk him out of his paranoia. i'd really like to find local people doing it that would be willing to talk to him about it so he doesn't accidentally buy something crappy, but if there's a consumer reports type magazine that covers related products that could potentially help.

- starting a business, specifically the economic aspects (licensing, getting funding, attracting investors, patent laws and copyright laws, etc.) i do sales/marketing for a voip company currently. although it's not my passion in life and i plan on switching careers, i think i can help advise him on marketing, networking and related topics. but i know nothing about starting a business... i've always worked for other people's small/midsize companies.

also, if anyone happens to know about related college or non-credit programs in seattle, that'd be of interest too. he's currently a programmer making a good living but he never finished his bachelor's. he preferred teaching himself. although he's generally good at self-education, i really feel like it'd be helpful for him to get hands-on experience with 3d modelling, advice from someone knowledgeable on the subject etc. while i don't think you need a degree in business to start one, i've also seen several friends start small businesses that were great ideas that failed miserably. my outside opinion is that they failed in part due to lack of sufficent research/knowledge.

i also feel the need to include a rambling offtopic paragraph about how i <3 metafilter. i work full time and go to school full time so i don't have much time to spend here, but it inspires me that there are still little pockets online where intelligent people communicate in a usually-respectful way. i'm sad that there was no seattle meetup and i didn't have time to organize one myself.

We are Professional vs. "Check out this cute kitty photo."

rokusan — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 09:31:01 -0800

Design Filter: Does anyone have any good best-of-field examples of corporate/institutional websites that are well-integrated with blogs? I'm looking for good-looking examples where a (dry, formal, professional, corporate) website is well-integrated with a (topical, chatty, personal-voice) blog, so the blog does not seem glued-on and doesn't conflict with the overall professional look/feel.

I don't mean technically, or how the url(s) are set up: I mean purely from a design standpoint, in terms of how the two coexist within the same navigation or home page links/integration.

My current need is part of researching a marketing plan for a private art school, if that matters, but this is a pretty generic question I've been chewing on for awhile.

In many cases, an organization's "traditional" website has to be safe, professional, non-threatening. But the same time, the vibrancy and marketing power of a blog is important too, in showing (not just saying) why this is a good place to work/live/attend/hire. To make good sense, a blog just cannot seem glued on, in a "click here for our BLOG omgcool" way, I don't think.

So I think this is a pretty general question for any website/blog that needs to both be coolly professional on the one hand, and aggressively marketing themselves on the other, so if you know any great examples in any other fields, that's fine too. A doctor's office, law firm, or private investigator might have the same conflicting goals, I imagine.

I am thinking about it so far as the "voice of the organization", as a sort of more useful replacement for the usual boring "About Our Philosophy" type content. Show us how smart and friendly you are, in other words, instead of just telling us.

I'd like examples if possible, but also general ideas/guidance. Blogs are not my thing.

Help me grow

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:41:15 -0800

So I started my own design company and went into full-time freelancing 6 months ago. It's OK. Not great, but it pays bills. But I'm confused what to do next. I want this business to grow somehow, in any direction. I want to see some progress. I'm not sure how to do this. I guess I don't want to work 8-10 hours a day forever, for an average salary. I am the only employee for now. Should I hire more freelancers to work for me? Or should I get big gigs first and then hire people? Should I save some money, buy equipment and maybe provide printing service along with design? Should I try to design actual products and maybe sell them? Should I try all that or specialize only in one thing? I provide general design/retouching/webdesign services. How to get from one man band to small/middle size succesful business?

Where I can get exquisite business cards that leave an impression designed and printed?

remcobron — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:48:02 -0800

Who knows where I can get really exquisite business cards designed and printed? I'm looking for a company who will help me design a special businesscard for my consulting firm. It should be something special that will leave a real impression on clients. Something like these cards at Creativebits. I'm located in Europe but will work with anyone via the internet if they have the right ideas and references.

Does anyone have any experience with a company who does this or can refer me to anyone?

Help me with my Portfolio!

damiano99 — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:49:29 -0800

Photography Portfolio Filter: I'm finally hanging out my shingle *officially* to do portrait shoots and show my more *artistic* work beyond the few small galleries I've already been in. To whit, I'm putting together two portfolio books. One for prospective portrait clients and another for gallery work. My question is one of formatting the pictures within the portfolio book. (More inside....) I'm currently doing a mockup of my portfolio (until I have time to rescan and edit the chromes, etc) and my pictures are split evenly between square medium format and rectangular 35mm and a healthy amount of digital. Before I go any further, I wanted to clarify a question.

My question is whether it's best to use the whole 8.5x11 space on the portfolio page for each picture and fill it in edge to edge or is it best to laydown a solid background (black/white) and put the picture smaller but as intended with it's cropping correct and in it's correct ratio in the center of the page?

Which would be more pleasing and accessible to both clients and gallery owners? Is it a aesthetic choice or one of standard industry practice?

Since my body of work is small still and I'm relatively new I'm really wanting to use these to attract new people willing to try out a newbie so I can expand my portfolio, experience and knowledge.

What look for a creative small business website?

Marzipan — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 04:47:41 -0800

What look to give a website for a creative but commercial/professional small business? Six months ago I left a large consultancy to set up on my own as a freelance business consultant. I've begun thinking about expanding next year, and I want to build a website beyond the single information page I've got at the moment (I was thinking maybe 5 pages, nothing complicated). A friend who is a dreamweaver whizz will be helping me build the site.

I use trends to help companies with their strategy, so the business has to clearly be professional and slightly 'corporate' but also display a creative edge.
I want the site to suggest a 'company' - technically I am a registered company - rather than just me in the second bedroom, but I don't want to lie.

I would really appreciate any tips and suggestions on how this might be achieved in terms of the look/feel/content of the site, and any particular websites which you feel might be good inspiration.

Help Me Liven Up Financial Information Design

thinkpiece — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:55:25 -0800

Help me find a well-designed financial services site that is not stuffy! I'm looking to resolve the marketing challenge of communicating executive compensation account information and updates via a dedicated site and also email and epostcards in an innovative, un-stuffy way for a very senior group! Any un-boring financial services bells&whistles that you recommend, much appreciated.

For example I once saw a site that looked like a bunch of notebook pages and you could click and turn the page, or stick it in a old-school manila type file folder ... I would like to adapt that kind of jazzy presentation ...

Apologies if this is too tedious!!

How can I have a couch made?

idledebonair — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 12:43:52 -0800

I have a design for a couch or a bench. Where and how, preferably in or around NYC, can I go about having it manufactured in small or large quantities?

Please help me find the business cards of the big dogs

reenum — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 06:21:50 -0800

Are there any sites that have a collection of pictures of Fortune 500 companies' business cards? I've recently opened up my own business, and I'm trying to find some professional designs upon which to base my own business card design.

It seems like a good idea to see what the big companies/law firms' business cards look like, because that would convey the sorts of business cards an attorney should have.

Whenever I try to look for images in Google or Flickr, the results mostly consist of the cards of overly creative types. Being an attorney, I have to go a little more conservative.

My web search skills have failed me, and I now throw myself upon the mercy of AskMeFi. Thanks for your help.

Offshore design firms?

tpl1212 — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 08:59:12 -0800

Does anyone have experience with an offshore design/illustration house? My company needs a bulk amount of small-but-fairly-realistic illustrations (think the kind of stuff one might see on a children's book cover) turned out, and I think this might be a good job for an offshore vendor...but i'm also just generally curious about working with such firms in the future.

...problem is, i'm not sure how to go about searching for a reputable offshore design or illustration firm (google seems to be turning up...lots of unhelpful results). Do such firms exist? Has anyone had a good experience with a particular firm?

Company specifics can be sent my way via email (in my profile) if you'd like...thanks!

Advice for new web designer(?) webmonkey(?)

IronLizard — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 20:33:14 -0800

The unanswerable(?) questions about rates. RE: Web design, development, photography and the works. There is, of course: And so, I've finally begun turning my hobby of tinkering with the internet into a cash flow. I have my first client's website all but hosted and now I'm being asked for a schedule of fees that can be handed out, by said client, to several new prospects.

I have no idea where to begin. I've tentatively set my base hourly rate, but that's as far as I can get because I haven't a clue as to how long each particular operation is going to take. I'm not even sure what to list (on the web site end of this, e.g. home page, additional pages)

For this last one; I did the photography, design, some writing, a bit of flash (most of which was scrapped anyway) and some fairly hefty e-mail forms with a touch of php. Should I be charging different rates for each?

I think the main problem I'm having is, while this last project turned out rather well, that I'm terrible at this whole art/design thing and so charging regular rates isn't really an option until I improve at it. So, in lieu of asking what rates are charged for this type of work, how do I find out how long each operation should take (we're talking about the basics here)? For example, mechanics have this type of guide for automotive repairs listed in (OK,I forget the name, it's a cd set or shop manual and dealers use one made by the mfr).

So, how the heck do I come up with quotes and pricing for additional items?

Any other advice is appreciated, I'm rather new to the business end of these things. (I do realize that much of this will be highly subjective)

How can I leverage my potential business partner 's interest and solidify a business idea?

AdInfinitum — Thu, 25 May 2006 07:42:23 -0800

Hello. Here’s the lowdown: I’m the senior sound designer / managing director for a leading international sound library company who’s been successfully running a company that doesn’t belong to me for 6 years. I’ve exhausted this opportunity, as the company is limited in its ability to grow due to the owners methods. In short, although I still have my job (and could have it forever, so to speak), I need to get out. I’m striving to create an opportunity for myself (and potentially for some of the other amazing employees I’ve hired who are looking for better opportunities) by starting a new company, and I must act now as I am not getting any younger.. I’ve been thinking this through for almost 6 months now, and something seeming great has just happened. Can you help me make the most out of it? I rent a house from a very successful business owner / investor who has grown to respect my methods and abilities in many ways. After a long conversation with him a few weeks ago, he became very interested in my situation. After hearing that I was looking to pursue new options, he suggested we consider getting together on a partnership to develop a new enterprise in the ‘digital audio media’ domain. Even though he’s a very well-versed business wiz, he is somewhat limited in his knowledge regarding ‘up to date’ technology, Web 2.0, etc. I’ve been educating him via news clippings and links for a while now to supplement his knowledge.

We met for our first ‘formal’ meeting last week, and the results were confusing. At first, we were speaking about developing a local ‘post production’ audio facility that would utilize our current resource-pool (we have myself an about 5 others who are audio experts all willing to jump in) to get us off the ground. During our meeting, we were going over larger-scale ‘broader’ concepts regarding the future of digital media distribution, user-content models, emerging technologies, etc, and the interest swayed from our initial ‘tried and true’ concept completely. We both decided that we wanted to ‘go bigger’, as he is looking to sell off his current software company and get into ‘the next thing’ anyway, and from our discussion many larger-scale topics were covered. This was great, but actually left me a bit disjointed. He was speaking about getting actual Venture Capital and pursuing financing, even before we had decided on any business strategy or direction. He then suggested that we abandon our initial local post-production audio venture in order to somehow secure our ability to ‘get financing’, as it would somehow ‘look bad’ to potential investors if we were to show a related business pursuit before our larger model was introduced. Firstly, does anyone know anything about this method / strategy so that I can confirm its basis?

Aside from that, I’m…well - confused! I finally have a partner with the resources and know-how to really lift our ‘startup-to-be’ off the ground, but I am totally lost in terms of finding a business idea that suits my skills and satisfies our desire to ‘play in the big game’. All I had initially wanted was to find a way to make enough money without working for my current employer on my own, and now I’m in much deeper then I had expected. I want to make sure I can feed my prospective partner with a concept that he will find worthy of pursuit, but now that we have established a desire to ‘aim higher’ I am getting lost in these larger concept models. How can I come up with a business idea that satisfies my interests and skills while at the same time fulfilling his (and now my own, i think) desire to ‘hit it big’?

Aside from that, can anyone think of a way to maximize my potential within this situation? I want, at minimum, to leverage his resources in terms of business know-how and financing for developing something that will grant my independence from this annoying job. I fear, however, that if I cannot now come up with something lucrative enough to inspire his pursuit I will end up just where I began! I’m looking for advice, ideas, and help. I need to navigate my way out of this (decent) job and into freedom…badly. I feel like I’m right on the edge of having a serious advantage through my ‘almost-mentor’, and I do not want to blow it.

Thanks!

Selling custom t-shirts: alternatives to CafePress?

lychee — Tue, 23 May 2006 18:19:41 -0800

Selling custom t-shirts: alternatives to CafePress? Also, questions about getting off the ground, general advice very welcome. My friend and I are both designers. We have cool t-shirt ideas and would like to start a humble project selling t-shirts. This is a small-time endeavor, and we are not looking to run a full-time business. Therefore I don't think we will be able to set up our own silkscreening operation and manufacture the t-shirts from start to finish. I know there are places like CafePress that take care of the entire thing, but their quality is not up to our standard, and if we're going to be charging $20+, I'd prefer our customers receive a high quality garment.

I wouldn't mind working with a silkscreening shop to print the t-shirts while I handled the inventory and shipping, but I do not know what it would entail. Would I be getting way over my head? Should I look online or to the local shops (Austin)? And if that's too complicated, what are the CafePress alternatives (besides zazzle)? Also, we want to establish a local as well as online presence, i.e., sell through consignment shops, so I don't know how CafePress-like places would fit into that scheme.

I've read 3 or 4 AskMe threads about selling t-shirts, but any further information and advice is most welcome!

books about art direction?

amtho — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 19:53:22 -0800

Good books (textbooks?) about art direction? I'm interested in learning what there is to know about art direction: where art directors typically find resources, how they work with artists, art direction process models, what else art directors need to know. Can someone recommend a really good textbook (or other resource) on all this?

I did do a Google search, and a search on Amazon.com, found a couple of articles (nothing answering my questions), but I'd really like an authoritative and thorough source. Thanks in advance.

Oh, and I'm not really interested in art direction for movies or films, which is what mostly comes up when I search.

Where can I find some good "arguments" online for paying more for web design?

jeremias — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 17:37:29 -0800

I'm looking for factual arguments to my boss that paying good money for a good website is worthwhile. My boss is a very successful entrepreneur and his latest project has taken off in a big way. He has decided that the current website needs a redesign and went ahead and hired a freelancer to do everything from developing a strategy to building the site. I happen to know that we could do much better than this designer- there are small design firms that could really make our site great- but they will inevitably charge more than this fellow. Additionally, my boss seems to have a distrust of design studios or branding teams and prefers an individual.

So where can I find some good "arguments" online in order to persuade him to change his mind? I need clear cut facts about successful design and ROI that speak to a businessman's way of thinking.

What's good software for a small service firm?

oissubke — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 21:50:39 -0800

Looking for software to run a small design firm...any suggestions? The basic problem I'm facing is that there are tons of packages that provide partial solutions, but I haven't found any good ones that handle the whole workflow (crm, project management, invoice tracking, etc.).

I'm getting tired of entering the same information into a half-dozen different applications to keep track of things, so I'm looking for an integrated package that I can use to keep track of my customers and projects from beginning to end.

Here are some of the apps I've tried in the past:

* Basecamp: It's cute and sexy, but it only does a fraction of what I'm looking for. It's also more oriented toward client collaboration, and most of my clients would rather stick to e-mail and telephone.

* SugarCRM: Great for tracking leads, opportunities, sales, etc., but project management functionality is very limited, particularly with regard to tracking fees, invoices, etc.

* dotProject: Better project management than SugarCRM, but lacks the sales-tracking functionality.

* Quickbooks: Can track customers and invoices, but can't tie that in easily with anything else, so I've got to duplicate everything elsewhere.

* Blinksale: Sends invoices. Another very sexy application (similar to Basecamp), but only provides the caboose of the project train.

* eGroupWare: Interface was so clunky that I didn't stick around to analyze everything it could do.

* More.Groupware: Also very clunky. Functionality not very robust.

* phpCollab: Lacks good sales/CRM functionality. (And whose bright idea was it to have to enter a max file size on every project?)

* phpGroupWare: More collaboration-oriented than tracking/management.

* PHProjekt: Not much sales/CRM functionality.

* Studiometry: This is close to what I'm looking for, but I'd like something with better sales/CRM and financials. I'm also specifically looking for web-based (ideally PHP/MySQL) solution.

* Changepoint: This covers the general range of functionality I'm looking for, but is enterprise bloatware. I'd like something much lighter and more suitable to a shop with only a few employees.

Here are the ideal characteristics I'm looking for:

* Web-based (PHP preferred)

* Covers at least sales, CRM, project management, and billing/invoicing. I don't need a heap of functionality in those areas -- just something integrated to help us keep track of things without having to enter it in a half-dozen different applications.

* Not awkwardly translated from German

* Relatively easy to use (i.e., not designed on the fly by the programmers)

There's definitely room for a sexy Web 2.0 application in this area, but so far nobody seems to have stepped up to the plate. When is all this rapid development with Ruby on Rails supposed to kick in? :-)

I'd really appreciate any suggestions you guys have. If there's anything you've used and found to work well for this kind of thing, I'd love to hear about it!

How should an amateur artist price a CD cover design?

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 20:33:47 -0800

Amateur artist needs help setting a price... I'm a Canadian college kid and an amateur artist. I got an email a few days ago from a musician in England asking me to design a CD cover for his band, based on him having seen a picture online of the only commissioned artwork I've ever done (a small painting that I sold for $125 American).
He's asked me to set my price, and I've got no idea. I'm not a professional by any means, and I'm just a kid, and pretty broke anyway, so I'd be happy with relatively little, but I don't want him to think he's getting some kind of bargain-basement deal. What should I take into account here, and how should I go about negotiating a price with him? Is there anything else I should know about this kind of transaction?
Thanks in advance.

What should I charge for web design work?

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:33:49 -0800

I am in Wisconsin and forming an agreement with a company interested in oursourcing some web design. I'd like to charge a flat fee per project. What is a fair percentage of the profit they make for me to ask for? 40%?

Small-business Web Design

Hankins — Thu, 13 May 2004 07:57:53 -0800

When my company discusses web design service with potential clients, they generally *always* balk and get ornery about the cost. Most of the time, we're working for small businesses, so understandably, $5-$10k is a substantial chunk of change for people to shell out. We don't get upset when we lose bids for being too expensive because we've always been taught that compromising our rate is not the solution... you simply can't meet everyone's budget. That being said, we turn away enough people who expect websites to cost $500-$1500 that I think there might be a market supportive enough to create solutions for. [come inside, won'tcha?] That being said, we turn away enough people who expect websites to cost $500-$1500 that I think there might be a market supportive enough to create solutions for. The most important factor for us, however, is that it also be affordable for us to pursue as well, meaning minimizing deployment time and customer support issues (i.e. hand-holding).

In that light, we've thought about creating a template-based system that we could use to pop a company's logo in, change around the color scheme a bit, and add the site's text. We could then resort to a more "my nephew on geocities designs websites" tactic of charging for "website packages," like "4 pages, contact form, site statistics for $500," or "6 pages, news blog, contact form for $1000," etc.

As designers, we'd have to suck up our pride for not being able to put our custom design work to task, instead rolling out templates like a line-cook at Denny's, but I don't think we'd have a problem with that as long as it proved fruitful. Though perhaps preachy in perception, we fundamentally enjoy working with people and helping them solve their problems, so being able to help a wider audience without having to sacrifice our rent money is essentially the true nature of the beast. Additionally, it would allow us to improve our customer acquisition, which would benefit us in the long-term as well (selling to existing customers is easier than getting new customers).

Has anyone ventured into a similar pursuit? Would it be advisable to stick with the "less customers / higher-paying jobs" perspective, vs the "More customers / less-paying jobs?"

From a technical standpoint, can anyone recommend a good way to minimize the work at the development stage? I've thought about using MT and creating new blogs for each new client, but I don't know if that's overkill. Additionally, mambo & Typepad look like they would provide easier user interfaces for those unfamiliar to online publishing, but I'm not sure that either of these are the best for assembly-line site rollouts. Are there any CMS-like applications available to hosting providers that let them cross-sell web services along with hosting?

How to acquire clients for a new web design business focusing on Flash design?

banished — Tue, 16 Mar 2004 21:29:17 -0800

I want to start a web design business focusing primarily on Flash design, but I need some tips on how to acquire clients. [More Inside] It has always been a dream of mine to start my own web development firm, and I am finally going for it. I have tried freelance web sites such as rentacoder.com with little luck in the past. The few projects where my bid actually won were completed at hardly any profit, and did little more than to improve my résumé. My new strategy has been to seek partnerships with successful design firms, offering them 25% of the cost of any project I complete, simply for the referral (I will extend this offer to anyone, including the MeFi community, by the way). Although I have e-mailed a few dozen firms, I have received little response so far. One advantage I think I have is that I am willing to take on small projects that wouldn't be worthwhile for a larger firm. Projects in the $500.00 range are ideal, but I will take less just to get the work. Is all of this a waste of time? Are all of these jobs being shipped out to India and other places, or are there still ways to find work? How does one go about getting big name clients?

Moving Domain Hosts

dobbs — Tue, 13 Jan 2004 23:07:00 -0800

I've been asked to redesign a medium-sized corp (60 employees) web site. The current host is dreadful and I want to switch it to Dreamhost, who I use for all my small clients without problem. How will moving their web site/domain to a different host affect their email? [MI] I guess i'm not even sure what I'm asking... they have a networked office. When I move the site, do I then just create a pop3 account for each person, the same as I would for a small client or does the fact that they have a network affect this? Do I have to go through their IT dept? I don't mind asking stupid questions here but I think if I went to them with this question they'd think I wasn't capable of the job. Suggestions, or do I need more info before I'm able to properly ask this question?