Transcripts
1. Brand Identity Design Process: Develop an Efficient Workflow for Clients: The idea of this course is simple. I want to help you deliver something that's better to your clients, and spend half the time doing it. Now, why do I think this is possible? Well because over the last 3-4 years, that's exactly what happened to me. The techniques I've picked up and collected, and what I'm going to share in this class, have helped me to spend half the time working on an identity project and I feel the results I'm delivering are more consistent, and overall they're better for the client. Now this course isn't here for me to say that my way of doing things is best, is to let you compare, see if you pick up some insights along the way, and over way through, we're going to look at some tips, some hacks, to help you really maximize the effectiveness of the time you're spending as you go through this process. Something else we will cover over the length of this class, is how to scale the brand identity process down to fit the needs and the budget of your client, particularly if your client is a small to medium size business. I'm going to do this by taking you through my full brand identity process from start, meeting the client, right through to the finish, and that will include research and strategy, concept generation and delivery, and after care. Rather than do that with just one project from start to finish, we'll actually jump between a few different projects and clients. The reason for that, it should help you to adapt to be versatile, and versatility is needed so that you approach each of your projects in a way that best suits your client's needs. The course project, well this is an easy one, simply try to use some of these techniques in the next project you work on for your client. Try this yourself, share the results with the rest of the class, and please let me know because I'm interested to hear your experience. If you actually haven't started your business yet, if you're still studying, perhaps you're considering becoming a graphic designer, well I wish someone had shown me these shortcuts before I got started. If using even a few of these tips and techniques that we go through, makes as big a difference for you as it has for me the last few years. This is going to really make a difference to your business.
2. Bookings Contracts and Meetings: Now this course follows on from the previous course that I didn't skill share. Which was how to freelance graphic design successfully.That covered a lot of other fundamental tips. How to get clients. This course is going to assume you've actually got some projects to work on. If you're interested in how you can attract the right clients, may be circle back what's the other course first, and then come join us in this class. This first section in the class is about bookings, initial meetings, agreements. Now this is something that has to happen before you begin a project. You have to have some communication with a client. You have to come to a certain agreement, and the more detailed and specific you are in those initial chats discussions, agreements, the smooth of a project is going to go. Your key goals and objectives at this stage. You want to give a client clear expectations. What you're going to deliver, what they can expect from you, and make them aware of any additional factors or costs that you won't be including initially. If you charge for extra concepts. If you charge an hourly rate for extra facets to the project, they happen to think of along the way. Just make sure, they know what the costs for that will be. Another key goal when you're having these initial discussions is, is this client a good fit for you and now you are a good fit for them? Now you don't want to secure a job at all costs. You've got to make sure this is something that suits your experience, your design style. There's nothing wrong with perhaps, honestly saying to a client, "I've not got much experience in this industry. I'd like to do some research to get up to speed. But here's what I've done, and I think I can produce what you're looking for because of x, y, and z". That's very different to just bragging your way in. Really in in summary, I'd just make sure you and the client are on the same page, the chemistry between you is good. Avoid a book-at-all-cost approach and value yourself. Make sure the client is a good fit to you. Don't make the aweness on you almost winning a job interview with a client. Make sure the interview's going both ways. Make sure you're assessing them just as much as they're assessing you. Let's say you meet your ideal client. You're both really excited about working together. Do you speak to them over the phone, video conference, face-to-face meeting. Well, I'm actually recording this video during COVID 19, so a face-to-face meeting is actually out of a question at the moment. Being forced to do some Zoom consultations is really convenient. You're helping the environment by not adding to the traffic, commuting into London or the city where you work. There's lots of advantages to it and I don't think you're missing anything. As long as you're having face-to-face communication. Could you do the initial meeting over the phone? You could. That's fine. If you communicate well, and so does the client and you feel comfortable with that. Speaking over the phone, Absolutely fine. Should you proceed with a job if you've only email client back-and-forth. For my experience, I'm reluctant to do that. Why? Well, communication such a key part of branding process. If you can't communicate with your client freely and clearly, and if you haven't discovered that before going into contract with them, you're really opening yourself up to a whole world of pain. Without wanting to discriminate, if you speak a different language to your client just make sure you're able to communicate clearly. You're able to understand each other. You don't want to exclude people just because we're from a different region of a world, and I've enjoyed working on lots of projects with clients globally. But communication so important to this process. You've really got to make sure it's of a standard for it's going to enable you to do your job to communicate with the client freely. Communications is good, chemistry is good, and what comes next will hopefully a contract or agreement. This is not optional. You've got to have something in place to cover yourself professionally to actually provide the client with some kind of proof of copyright of having commissioned you to work on this project and transfer the intellectual property to them at the end. There are all sorts of other details you want to consider and make sure you lay out in a clear contract. Obviously, I'd advise getting legal advice for this stage. But there are many templates you can find online and I'll actually show you now what I'll send to the client. So when we're at the stage where they're asking for a formal quotation, a contract, and they're ready to proceed to book the project in. Let's have a look at what I showed them. Here we have a quote for a full brand identity projects. I've clearly outlined in this quotation part of a contract exactly what's included. Initial research, analysis of competitors. These are actually stages we will be running through in the course together shortly. I detail, you'll notice exactly how many concepts I'm going to provide them. Two stages of development and then the exact deliverables they can expect. A color pallet, a typeface, other visual elements. Free items of business stationery, a brand menu. I've outlined these things in black and white. They know exactly what they're getting at the end of a project. For this particular client, I also included an initial work shopping session and feel free to charge for these things. If you flow in a morning meeting and discussing things with the client and you flow in for free, it might send the wrong message about the value of your time. You don't want to be giving away needless freebies, make sure you factor things in. You charge a fair price for the value you're giving a client and if we move on now, we have the terms and conditions. So we've got the project start day, deliverables are referencing the quotes, so you're covered there. I give specific terms for updates and revisions. I state my hourly rate for fact there'll be a 50 percent deposit for the project and this is another important point. You've actually got to include something that sets the state of play if a project goes badly and if a client's not happy or if the client decides to pull out halfway through for projects. Do you even have to refund them? Have they even paying some kind of balance based on the amount of work you've done? Well, again, because of COVID 19, some clients with the best intentions in the world decided I've got to put things on hold. I don't want to proceed further with the project and having a contract that clearly outlines your positions in that situation that's invaluable. Make sure you outline things like this clearly. There's also a section here on project delays. What's going to happen if one party delays the project? It's not finished, it's not canceled, but it just hangs around. I like to ask for a balancing payment in that case, and then some other factors here. What kind of website support do I offer. My web hosting, the terms of that e-mail hosting, domain hosting, transfer website [inaudible] in six section here on proofing. On copyright being transferred on completion, cancellation. What happens if you have a terrible accident or an injury? What position are your clients in legally. Are they refunded? Do they just lose their money? All these are things you need to carefully outline. Liability, that something you want to be careful to limit, and lastly here I'd like to give myself permission to share things on social media and as marketing material. Make sure the clients aware of that. They can opt out of a section of a contract but make sure you include it, and then of course, there should be some form of privacy statement. Finally, something along the lines of the contract taking effect on signing, and I've got the facility for a client to actually digitally sign the contract online.
3. Research: The research stage, you've booked for client in, you're about to start the project, knowledge is power. The more you can learn about your client, their industry, their consumers or customers, their goals, what are the objectives of this brand identity? The a better a job you can do for them. Really you owe it to your clients to not just provide them something that looks pretty or appease your client with an attractive logo, you should be designing for a purpose. Create something that's going to appeal to their customers. The more you can learn about your client and their business and start to craft the brand identity to help propel this business forward, the happier they're going to be in the end with the work you've done. It also gives you a very clear, brief and a way of proceeding with the project when you've set these things out clearly at the outset. That's where the brand strategy comes in, which we'll also cover in this class, but first for research. How do we gathered this information together? Well, the easiest way is by asking your client. Drill their brains, ask them whatever questions you can think of that are pertinent to the identity project. Ask them what they feel their key messages are. Ask them about the voice of their company and their personality, the personality of their staff. Gather as much information as you can. Now, I like to do this by first sending a project form across and I feel that it's a bit of a primer, it gives them a chance to think these things over. You'd be surprised how many of your clients won't have considered these things before. Perhaps they run a very successful business, they're just good at what they do. But they may not have articulated it this way to anyone before. I like to send a project form head, that gives them a chance without any pressure to think these things over. Then I'll have a discussion or a meeting that's based around the answers they've given on that project form. I find that it's a much more comfortable way of doing what's really almost a fact-finding, an interview process. I like to put my clients at ease while we're doing that. I'll actually show you an example of the project form I send to my clients. Let's look at that on the screen now. Here we are, here's the project form. I like to send this a link, I think that makes it convenient, and it's essentially a web form I've created that the client can complete. Some of these fields will be mail merged in when it's sent. Contact information for the client, that's self-explanatory. Project details, so the deliverables for services they require. It's amazing how often something may come out that's not in the agreed contract, so this is a good chance to just reiterate that to make sure you're giving the client everything they ideally needed. I like to fill in my own marketing purposes, know how they came to me, if they've a referral source, inquiry source. Then here we have a bit information about their business. I've kept this project form quite light, I've seen some much heavier versions, versions that perhaps have even up to a 100 questions on them. But remember for me, this is just a primer, is to get the client thinking about these things and we're going to have a conversation about it afterwards. What can the client tell you about their business, of a product, the services they provide? What are the goals of their business? If I had three goals they'd want the business to achieve, ideally as a result of your brand identity, what are those goals and that will help you to think how they can be achieved. Demographics, this is quite a large part of this process. Who are the target market, or audience? Are they consumers or have a businesses? What can you tell me about these individuals? This is something you usually explore in more detail in the brand strategy, you may even create a consumer profile. But at this stage, and just generally you want to ask from who are you trying to target. Value proposition,, so what's the USP of your company? Hopefully they can tell you that. Key brand messages, are there any key messages they want to communicate through their identity? I like to include this section, do you have any specific design preferences? Sometimes it's good to be aware of that. Competition and inspiration. When they provide this information, if they've gone with one of my usual packages that provides the scope for this, I'll do a competitive audit and I'll have a look at the companies that inspire them, the brands that inspire them, and that's a very insightful process. We'll cover that in a later video. Brand values. Now here I try to get them to give me some indication between fairly, very, or extremely. We've got different sections here, feminine or masculine, although of course, that's becoming more and more difficult to articulate. In fact, it's something I may lose from the top form entirely in future. Young or mature, luxurious or economical, modern or classic, playful or serious, etc. Even if they can't give you answers to all of these questions, it just helps you to really gauge and scope the ideas they have for the values they think the brand should be projecting. Usually what you come back to the client with at the end of a brand strategy, it won't repeat this entirely. You may suggest a few little tweaks to this and you have to explain to the client why you're making those recommendations. But I find this provides an excellent starting point. Something else I show to the client as part of a researched phase, I actually put together what I like to call an industry examples document. At this stage I'll grab logos wherever I can find them from different brands, for they're in the same industry as my client to scope out the other approaches that have been used, and really to give the client an idea of a playing field. For a solicitor or a legal firm, the playing field is likely to be quite subdued, quite a corporate looking field to the logos. Even if they wanted to create something that seemed very vibrant, very outspoken, in that context you wouldn't have to push for about out far to stand out as being quite personable if you were comparing other legal firms. That's the advantage of this document, it just gives them a quick visual scope of the industry they're working in. Now, let's open an example here, this is for Carrara Aesthetics. An aesthetics clinic based in London. You can see here we've got a few pages of industry examples. What I like to do is ask the client to give me three examples and these are all numbered, that they dislike or even hate, and then three examples that they like or if possible love. That's so useful, especially if you ask the client to explain why, which facet is it that you like or dislike? Is it because of the type, the color? Is that the general style of it? Does it seem too modern? However they answer, that's such a useful process before you've started any concept generation. Because although you're designing for the client's customer or consumer, you've still got to take some of their preferences into account. You'll rarely be able to get your client to accept a brand that they dislike, you've got to take your client preferences into account. I find this is a great way of doing that and it helps them to gauge in to articulate their own preferences. Next I'd like to show an example of a little research PDF I put together. I actually linked this, I call it my research and strategy proposal. We'll show you in this video the research side of things and we'll look at the strategy in a video to follow. This is what I put together. A general strategy summary, which gives a little overview to the client, a flavor of what we're trying to achieve by this. Then on the pages to follow just a brief summary of a few competitors for diva I've sourced or they've indicated to me. This is really useful, it's a very I guess a low-level audit of their competitors but you can gain some insights that the client really appreciates. In this section on the right here, I just summarize what I feel these brands are conveying. Some of their advantages and often some weaknesses, some opportunities I don't feel they've taken advantage of. Let's have a look at another example of this, this time a brand called Alpas, which offer luxury living spaces obviously for humans, for students that are based in and around London. Here's the research and strategy guide, again, that same introductory page. We've looked at some of the competitors. I flagged up some key insights from this. For example, on this brand, I've pointed out they've got a very modern look, they seem approachable by some of the styling. I felt the fonts were quite warm and inviting, they weren't to corporate. In terms of positioning, I like to flag up where this client has positioned themselves and often this will be useful when we consider the client's positioning in a later stage. Then inspirations, if a client's pointed out brands that inspire them, I like to perform the same analysis and we just give ourselves an overview of what facets of their branding, what key messages is it your client is actually attracted to? Then how can we use those insights to create something similar to use the same advantages? I hope that's been helpful, that's a very brief overview of the research stage. Depending on the client and the scale of a project, I'd usually expect to spend maybe five to eight hours on this stage. Of course you can scale that down according to your clients budget. But I find that gives you the best results, that really makes you as close to an expert as you can be before you begin putting a strategy in place.
4. Establish the Strategy: Establish for strategy. I know what you're usually thinking this stage because I feel the same. You just want to start creating concepts. You can't wait to start to try out the ideas you've had. You've done the research, you know what the client wants, you want to dive into it, to grab the sketchbook. Resist the urge to do that if you can. Sure. Sketch a few ideas if you have them as you go along. But you've got to establish the strategy first. It's such an important phase. Really this strategy you produce is going to act as the benchmark for you and the client as to whether the ideas you have a suitable or not. Let's jump into this. Now the example I brought up here, this is the same, you'll notice as we looked at in a previous video. This is our pass. Let's just center this, I'm looking at the boundaries of my screen-sharing. You'll recognize the competitive and inspirational audit. Now this is the first page of the strategy section. This is where I like to define the visual style of the tone that we're trying to achieve. There's some flexibility here. It's less specific visa our vague values. Like luxurious, that's quite vague. Approachable, balanced, stylized, but combined together, this does give you quite a clear direction to head with your concept. This is the tone we loosely would like to convey. Brand messages, this really is the key. I like to divide this now into tiers. So we have a primary message and an absolute key message that must come across. Then the key messages themselves. I like to include no more than three of those. It's important they resonate well with a primary message that they enforce it. Then in turn, supporting messages. These now may not come across if you were to look at a logo. Unless you're some design genius to get across all the messages on this page in such a way that anyone would look over a logo and immediately say, "Ah yes, this makes me think of something that's comfortable is high-end, has good customer service that's design led." It's not going to happen. If you've done the logo process properly is a clear, distinct, memorable symbol, it can't possibly convey all these things. How do we ensure at the later stage, these values come across? Well, I note this in the PDF guide I provide the client. You've got to look at the brand identity as a whole. The logo we'll hopefully convey your primary message and it will resonate well with your key messages and certainly it shouldn't clash with any of your supporting messages. But they need to be aware, they need to have a correct expectation that it may be they pull in stock photography. It may be when you come to make color choices, that the choice of color, you're able to address some of these supporting messages. It's really important to establish that, that your client doesn't think they're going to be provided a single logo that clearly conveys all of this. So set the expectations at this stage if you can, and you'll save yourself a headache later. I find often the words that you have on this page, they'll fuel the concept you create later on. You'll see words here that just trigger, spark ideas and that's what we want this to do. You want a page, you can consider when you're coming to concept generation and you see words that hit you and perhaps that fuels ideas you will have, that you present to the client. For example, you can see a few words on this page, rooms, spaces, architectural drawings. Maybe that just triggers the idea that you need. You think of combining something, creating a symbol in a meaningful way. I think this is an invaluable exercise I included in all of my projects. Positioning. Now this really is important. You may have to take care to explain this to the client. What context are we positioning them in? There's no good deciding what kind of High Street fashion brand they might be. They need to decide where are they positioned in the context of their competitors of other similar businesses. I take some time to put this together. I try to use the meeting or the project form they've completed to fill some of this. This is probably the section of a strategy that needs the most back-and-forth with a client. Because although they may have some idea where they'd like to be positioned, often, a client would just assume the more I can charge the better. They'll often say to you, "I want to be positioned at the absolute top end of the market." Well, if you do this part correctly and if you explain to them the client expectations that they'll have as a result of this positioning, then sometimes they realize,"Okay. That's not for me." For example, if they want to be positioned as the best, but they realized then a client expects them to spend as much time or more time than their competitors in giving them personal attention. They may realize we actually don't like to have customer meetings. You can see where I'm going with this. You just want to, rather than just take the information your client throws at you, just make sure they realize what's involved. So that they're not damaging their business. Positioning at the absolute high-end or the bottom end, we offer the best price. That's often not the way to go and you've got to use your experience to guide the client just where they should sit on this scale of positioning. Finally, I like to give the client an idea of the next steps the project phases to come. This is really a loose overview. For my projects deliberately don't include deadline dates for these stages because I found if I come up with something earlier, if I come up with initial concepts ahead of time, the client appreciates that being shared when I have them. At the same time, if a client needs a little bit longer to digest things, to come back to me at some of the decision-making points, having deadlines, I find that really just adds to the tension. Unless the client really specifically needs to launch something by a certain point, in which case, setting goals and deadlines is absolutely a good idea. Personally, I would like to avoid that, where I possibly can. Instead, I find both me and the client is in both of our interests to get things processed in a reasonable amount of time, and we both make efforts to ensure that happens. This completes the strategy proposal. I put this all together, I present it in this PDF, which are fire across to the client. Then after some discussion, hopefully then you're ready for the next stage, which is the initial concepts.
5. Concepts: Sketches: Concept generation, and I've labeled this video, sketches. Now that's because for me, this is a bit of not a controversial issue, but different designers have different methods, different processes. Now I think we all appreciate the need to get our concepts out of our minds and onto something tangible. But do you use a pen and paper? Do you digitally framework things together? Do you pool geometric shapes and pieces of type, and do you throw your almost digital sketches together that way? Or if you're fortunate enough to have something like this, do you create digital sketches using Apple Pencil and tablet or something similar? Really this video is to show you the conclusion I've come to, and that's actually, that it depends on the project. I won't sketch elements that I feel would be faster thrown together, jumping straight into Adobe Illustrator. Or if I do have to sketch something, and I just feel I want a pen and paper, if it's a particular kind of shape, of symbol I'm looking to create, sometimes a real pen and paper just feels better. But at the same time, if you look at some of the examples here, if we scanned something I created on a piece of A4 paper with a fineliner, and then I send you a page that I've created using the Apple pencil on iPad. If you compare the two, I'd be amazed if you can tell which is the authentic paper and which has been created on the iPad. I mean, it really is fantastic. It's a designer's dream. Which method to use? Well, really, that's up to you, but I like to decide the following way. The first example we're looking at here, this is Carrara Aesthetics clinic based in London, and for this client, we definitely wanted a symbol. A strong symbol. I'm showing you this page, it's a little embarrassing, but just to illustrate how roughly it's acceptable to get these concepts out initially. You can see my business details at the bottom of every other section. I actually grabbed compliment slips and I sketch these ideas out onto the compliment slips. It's just what I felt like doing at the time, and when I realized some of these actually worked, I scanned them all and then pasted them together, and actually showed them to the client in the end. I think you've got to be careful. You may have seen Instagram feeds or YouTube channels where the designers there, they've got so many followers, they've got maybe 100, 200,000 plus followers, and remember, they're making their money by showing their logo design process, and you and I likely we're making our money by presenting the designs to the client. So for us, all the value is in getting from point A to point B and getting the result for the client. These guys on Instagram and YouTube, as fantastic as the work looks, and you can't deny they get a fantastic end result as well, you might be doing yourself a disservice by following that. By doing these very intricate, beautiful sketches, that's going to take such a long time to gain traction, to get the ideas out, and then to start to flesh them out, to spend some more time on them. That's exactly what I do, as quickly as possible and as roughly as I dare, I'll get the ideas onto something, and in this example, yes, compliment slips. If we flick forward, you can see here, I've grabbed some of the ideas from the sketches and the most promising ones I start to just digitally place very simple geometric shapes together, and start to see what form these take. For me that counts as almost a digital sketch. It's very raw, it's very rough. You wouldn't usually present this to the client. In this case I think I did because I wanted her to see the process and some of the work that has gone into this. If I show you another example now, so this is one, I worked on it, I made it a little bit neater, you can see here this is Rivka Singer. She's a renowned photographer in the US based in New York. For this, really, she was so keen on having a decorative floral element of a design. For this project I had to spend some time sketching these concepts out so that I could pitch this to her. Although I fleshed the best of these out digitally, really, there's no other way, I don't think I could have used geometric elements to get these concepts together. To see whether the concepts have potential and had legs they had to be sketched in this way. This, I would say is an example of a project that had to be hand sketched, there was no faster way and no better way to go about this. Equally, at times, there will be projects where perhaps your client is quite keen on a type only logo, and for the initial concepts rather than sketch that type by hand, which for me personally would take quite some time to do professionally. I will grab existing fonts that I feel fall into certain categories, I present that to the client, and then once they've given me more of a feel for what they're looking for and once I've identified the direction I want to head, then I would start to invest some more time, perhaps developing custom type. That's how I go about the first rough sketches. As I say, I try to do them as rough as I need to, and I make the decision at the end as to whether the client might see any of them or not. But I think it's important at this stage, just let your creativity run free. Don't give yourself any limits. Get the ideas out of your mind onto the screen, or paper, or tablet as quickly as you can.
6. Concepts: Logotype and Composition: So this video, you could almost view it as a part B of the initial Concept Development Process. I've called this Type and Composition because to me, these are often set for elements, and I combine whatever symbols, whatever brand marks I've conceptualized. I'll then take them and I'll pair them with type I've sourced and see if the two marry together. That overall composition, for me, that's almost a third stage of the concepting process. So let's dive into some of the examples I have here. If we go back to Carrara Aesthetics, so you saw in the previous video this with a very rough sketches that I threw together and then some of the symbol or brand marks across the pages here that I've digitally fleshed down. The fonts for Type, I look at that separately. I wanted to explore every possible variation of Type. Obviously, I want to make a beeline for those I feel will work. But at the same time, it helps when presenting something to the client. I find it's useful to give them options that are different enough they can distinguish the differences. So give them a serif typeface, but then also throw in a sans serif so they are able to compare the two. If you've only shown them serif options, you've only shown them the classics. When they put them side-by-side, they might find it quite difficult to see the new once is in that. If you show them enough variation, well, then they can look and they can say, "No, this looks too old fashioned or this looks too modern." You're just helping your client through the process. In this example here you can see, now when it comes to composition, I'm taking some of the elements and I'm pairing them together. So this is very roughly drawn together digitally. We just fleshing out some of the sketched concepts from earlier to see if there's any merit to them. Really, the goal at this stage is not to create the winner immediately. It's within a reasonable frame of time to put something together that's good enough to see if it has potential, good enough for you and the client to assess it as a potential winning concept, but you don't want to agonize on the details at this stage, at least in my opinion. I've refined the process down to being as efficient as I can with these initial concepts. The reason being, you may be far away 90 percent of the work you create at this stage. So to me, I don't want the majority of a project to have been portions I've thrown away. I like to get this down to a fine art, efficiently get these concepts fleshed out, and then in the next phase, I can really agonize over balancing and the details. That's my tip at this stage. If we look at another example here, this is Rivka Singer photography. I think we looked at the page of sketches I put together and you can see in this stage, I'm now looking at the different type options, different fonts that I feel are appropriate, but some different variations, some different styles. Then I very roughly fleshed out some of the concepts digitally to see if they have legs. Sometimes I'll combine a sketch if it's good enough with a digital portion. My tip is, initially whenever it comes to fonts, and I'm in the initial concept stage, I'm pulling fonts that I've sourced from somewhere else and I'll throw them together, sometimes combine them digitally with sketches, with the other geometric shapes we're playing with. For me, and I think for the client, that's the best way of seeing, "Does this concept have potential?" If we then need to create our own version of something truly bespoke, well, we can spend time doing that in the next phase, but once the client has given me some assurance, this is what's right for them, and once I've seen that it's got potential. You can see quite a few examples here. I've employed this for Rivka. So when it comes to the fonts, these are all digital. I'm then combining some of his sketches with these font lockups that we're beginning to explore. When I feel I've got enough to present to the client, we would then go onto the next phase, which is preparing my presentation. Before we do that, let's just show you one more example. This is Alpas Housing. You can see I've explored some varied options, and I'm not just showing fonts, I'm showing them as I would look them up, as I would put them together. I'm adjusting, spacing, and composition. I'm making sure the client has something that really shows this fonts working for the brand, doing their best. So I will spend a little time ensuring these lockups look attractive. Again, we have some digital composition of the sketches. Then I work through, and this is still the initial concept phase, and I'll flesh out the ideas that I feel have the most potential. Sometimes I'll create something like this. Well, actually it looks quite finished, quite polished. If I really want to get that concept across to the client, I'll perhaps explore some variations. Remember this document, this is just for me. The client doesn't need to see this. Although as I'll explain in a later video, quite often, I think your client will be open to seeing parts of your development process, and that can add value. It can help them to appreciate the work that's gone into presenting these different options. Hopefully this gives you some idea of the scope, the lengths I go to, the lengths I don't go to just to get these initial concepts together. In the next video, we'll look at which portions I pick, what I present to the client, and if I do decide to show them some of this, behind the scenes development work, how do I do that? How do I stop the client becoming overwhelmed with the options? Well, more about that in the next video.
7. Presenting & Pitching Concepts: Now we come to pitching the concepts to your client. You'll notice if you watch the previous videos, everything is black and white at this stage, I think that's an important tip. Keep as few factors that will confuse your client as possible. All the over concept work up to this point is just about shape and form, and we'll introduce color at later stage. This really is a subject of great debate. This is definitely a stage where presentation counts. But not all designers agree. Do you meet your client to pitch your concepts for the first time? Do you reveal them live on a video conference or do you just send an e-mail and then wait for the client to even discuss with you or provide feedback? Well, I'll tell you the approach that has worked best for me. You can always share in the comments, your thoughts and feelings on this. But this is what I found and from my experience, seems to work best for me and for the client. Personally, what I'm looking for is not a knee-jerk reaction from the client, what do they think as they first see the concepts. I think you get a very different reaction if you first provide the client with the concepts, give them some time to sleep on it, to think it over. Then you have a discussion once they've been able to collect their thoughts. Again, the goal behind this is not a time-saving exercise, it's to make the client feel more comfortable. It can be terrifying for a client to be presented with something they've invested a lot of money in. If a designer is staring at them, they're feeling this pressure to react a certain way, and it creates an unnecessary tension, in my opinion, which you could diffuse greatly by just preparing them, giving them some time to collect themselves. I do e-mail across the concepts to the client beforehand. I'll deliberately give him some time to look that over first, and then I'll arrange to discuss, to speak through the concepts with them. Now, this doesn't mean you're not there the first time the client sees the concepts to defend them. Now that's okay. I don't think that's a problem. If you've done your job, really, you shouldn't have to defend the concept, if you're having to defend them, well, what happens when consumers begin looking at them and you are not around to give this explanation? I think it's safe to let the client have their own look, first of all, come to their own conclusions about the concept. Now to guide them, I will send quite a detailed explanation and annotation. I'm going to show you that on the screen now. This is a client who's a photographer, Richards Sheaves. He had six concepts included in the package, we agreed. This is one of the PDFs that I always send across. In the notes below, I feel, although I'm not present, there's no pressure for the client. They can read through this in their own time and it just gives them some general stare. It explains the nuances in the concept that I'm proposing to them. If we flip through some of the pages here, you see I tried to be quite varied with the style, with the look and feel of the concepts I provide. I feel it's worth presenting distinct concepts. Make them as distinct as you can at this stage, if you show very similar concepts, then really, from the outset you're agonizing over the details. When you've got to give a broader scope to the client at first. Do I want to head in this direction or do I want to head in that direction? The nuance comes in the stage to follow. You can see quite a range of concepts here and for each some notes, some annotation. I highlight the strengths, I think each approach has. I'll give a little bit of a backstory behind the concept. That's what I always present to the client. They'll always get that PDF and that explanation from me and we then arrange to discuss it further. Now, another subject, I think of great debate among designers is how much do you show the client? Everyone loves, if you've seen made by James on Instagram or some other designers who show this beautiful process behind concept generation. We love to see that as designers, but clients love that as well. I think you're potentially doing a client a disservice by hiding all this valuable work away from them for the sake of babying them through the process. I don't want you to see all this. I don't trust you to not become overwhelmed. Now, some clients would become overwhelmed. You may have clients you need to limit the options you show them. But for me, I found a majority of clients, if you show them a PDF where you've not shown absolutely everything, but you've given an overview of the process, perhaps the sketches, the different iterations you've been through, as you've played with these concepts. It has so much more value, then just firing at them the final options. I think they appreciate seeing the work that's gone into it. It also has the advantage that they might spot something that you didn't decide to bring out. They may spot some of the different options you presented, that appealed to them. It also makes the client feel they're a part of a process. It feels you're really helping them to build their own brand. They're partners with you in this. I'm quite a big advocate of definitely giving a client strong stare. As far as, he's the six concept, I feel are strongest and here's why. Or four concepts or two, depending on what you've agreed with your client. But I also feel you should be proud of a process that the work you've put in behind this. I've found it does not cause any disruption whatsoever to send that to the client. Often they'll really thank me for the work I've put in, they'll say, "It was so helpful to see this." Ninety nine percent of the time, they're going to trust me more. They're going to go for one of the six concepts that I'm pitching to them anyway. But let's show you an example of a behind the scenes PDF that I might share with a client. Here's one for Richards Sheaves. Some quick sketches looking at different options for an RS monogram. Some initial lock-ups where we have different fonts. Some of the concepts on flashing out, signatures I've explored, more concepts, more mock-ups. They get a sense as they go through this. They can see your thought process. The way these ideas have evolved. I feel when they see the end result you're pitching, they've been there with you on the journey. They feel like you've done this together. They can see logical conclusions you've come to. Try it for yourself. If you feel your clients become confused, they're not sure what to pick. That's fine, its done no harm, maybe to try it with one client. But you might surprise yourself and find when you're showing all of this valuable development work, you've put in behind the scenes, bring it to the forefront. Don't let it be behind the scenes, share it with your client, and let them follow the process. I found that something that really works well.
8. Concept Development: The development stage. Hopefully, at this stage, your client's very happy with at least one of the concepts you've presented, but no more than two of them, that can complicate things. Ideally at this stage I want to have one concept, but possibly elements of two concepts. That the idea is we now take it forward, and we refine it, and we iterate and reiterate, until we've helped it to reach its potential. Quite a lot is included in this stage and deliberately, and from when I started out, I found most of my time and efforts we're going into the initial concepts and a lot less with development afterwards. Well, I've tried to turn it on its head, really, I try to get as much value as possible from the development stage. What I like about that is, the end result of this stage, you're actually presenting to the client. They're taking that away, that forms their brand. I think this is the stage to really now look at things under the microscope and tidy things up. Be as detailed and as carefully as you like, because this is all valuable, potentially end materials you're going to be presenting to your client. I don't always include color at this stage, depending on how sure we are of the shape and the form of the concepts we've gone ahead with. I'll introduce color if we're quite sure about that. But if I still need to broadly explore the concept, I'll keep it in black and white, again, just in efforts to avoid confusion. But I'll show you an example as we look through some of these existing projects and where I've explored color, or where I've simply explored the shape and form a little further. Let's look at the first example here. You remember ALPAS from the previous video, luxury housing in London. Sometimes on the first page of this PDF I present, I just like to clarify the goal. For this, we were looking at elements of two concepts we liked and we wanted to see how we could combine them. You've got the type, we really liked from this top example. Then we liked this concept of the recessing triangles behind the logo type here at the bottom. I'm showing now a lot less of the nitty-gritty, a lot less of the leg work that goes in. Here, I think is where it's valuable just to show clients things that are polished and that are looking professional. There we have a variation on a black background. I won't always add color, but I will inverse. I'll begin to show the client what something will look like when it's reversed out. Sometimes as I've done in this example, I'll explore supporting type subtitles, potentially some other design elements that we can work in to complement the concepts. It isn't that this is the only option I'm pitching. As you'll see on the following pages, we're looking at different elements we can draw from and a few different ways we might utilize that. Once you're doing this, it's not just for logo, you're beginning to show how all these elements might play together. The idea for me is to present pages that really impress the client, that excite, that make client think, "Yes, this is the look and feel we set about producing in the strategy. This is what I wanted." If you refer back to the brand strategy, at this stage, you want to be able to tick off some of those key messages and the tone. If we look at this page, for example, we're still playing with some potential supporting design elements. We give a client an idea how this might come together over the pages to follow. You really get the sense, not everything here is going to work, but showing it in this way with this context, you're building a real distinct identity for the brand rather than just the logo. When you put it in the context of this supporting elements, you really start to see the breadth and the depth of it, and the potentially it has. I like to do that for the client to view. Not all clients will be as sure about the logo concept to take forward. That will happen. That was an example of a client who was very happy. We knew exactly what we wanted to use, and we were quite confident with that logo. It didn't take much refinement or development. But let's look now at a project where we did have to really put the logo back in the workshop and show some different options. This is Carrara Aesthetics. As you can see, we've taken one of the concepts forward. We've got this very abstract modern monogram. From the previous phase, it was this, it was just the A, A for aesthetics. It's not bad, but not very distinct. It needed some development work. This is where I've used the development stage to really address weaknesses and issues. We created a C to sit alongside the A. That's working much better, but the type, the overall lockup and balance is really not there yet. This took a little development work. At this stage, I also like to give a client an idea of a versatility of a concept. Particularly, if they're not yet sold on it, to show it in different situations. I've kept this in black and white for the moment, but we're beginning to show it how it might look embossed on a sheet of paper or printed with some spot varnish there. It just helps the client to help spark their imagination, helps them to see it in different environments. Here, we still wanted to go back to the drawing board on a second concept. We liked the idea of these abstract, they look like almost strands of hair. We wanted to see if we could do something around that, how that would work. I agreed to do that for the client. I don't have it in contract. I'll only take one concept forward. I just recommend it. That that's a better use of the time. Sometimes we'll continue to explore a few other options, and then at the end of this phase, I would send this across and the client can weigh up the options they feel work best. This is almost like repeating the initial concept stage, it's just a step onward. That is going to happen. There are going be times where that initial concept, you've really got to put it back on the workbench and weigh it up and maybe test it against one or two of the runner-up concepts to see which is strongest. Don't become offended, don't get frustrated at your client if they are not as sure you on something. Work with them, and when you're budgeting, include the fact you may have to do this in the first development phase. Lastly here, that looks quite attractive actually. This foil mockup, is a foil on a nice texture black card. When you show something in that context, that can really help the client to see, "Oh, okay, even I'm looking at shape and form. This has the potential to look very attractive." To show you some other examples of that. I did it here for Richard Sheaves Photography. That really sets the signature off, having that gold effect. Another version here. Sometimes I'll show it in Boston lever. If you're wondering, how do you do this? These look great. How do I show clients my work presented in this way? You can find lots of free resources on sites like Envato, GraphicBurger. If you make a Google search, if you search for PSD Mockups, you'll find lots of them. I highly recommend throwing some of your work and your concepts into those mockups so the client can enjoy seeing it in these different contexts. It's very effective. We've covered a few things already. I'd now like to look at color exploration. This either comes in the first, or remember I include a second development phase, whichever stage it comes. Let's look at it now. This is the way I would go about color exploration, and also how I get the inspiration for the colors I'm going to pitch to the client. For this particular client, this is Mijoza Hair, I've created a mood board. The inspiration for this was actually the colors that are present in hair, in wigs, in extensions, in hair pieces. Colors that are commonly seen in hair and also in luxury, that luxury branding look and feel. We wanted a muted color scheme. We wanted a lot of either gray and white or black and white. We liked that, but then wanted to introduce perhaps a hint of some hair like colors. The mood board helps. I believe there's another page of a mood board here, it's a slightly darker version. Do I or do I not include mood boards? Again, depending on the project, I weigh up whether it's needed. I don't feel it always is. But for color inspiration, and to help the client visually take this in, this is their brand, this is the look and feel of it, and it just fits. It fits for their target audience. It fits with the work they want to associate themselves with. It all ties together so beautifully. For them to see that on one page is very helpful. If we then open up the development PDF, this is for the same brand, Mijoza Hair. You can see a little refinement and development work on the brand mark itself. Lockups, and here we are. We've looked at popular hair tones. You can see I've sampled a few colors here to inspire a color palette. Then the way I like to present the palette, just some basic pages using different brand elements, sometimes some body text headings, additional type. In this case, we had a nice watermark to sit behind the logo on the page, and just showing them the colors in this context is very helpful. It helps the client to weigh up whether this works or not. Then for this client, we did try a second concept. We'd taken two forward. One is better, but if you need to develop two for the client to make a decision at a later stage, then do that. Here you can see some of the development work, and again, the color scheme shown on that second concept. Don't ask why some of these colors were used, it was requested by the client, perhaps something quite bold, vibrant, feminine. But there we are. We've shown some of those concepts to the client. A dark version, as well as a light version. That's the first day on the color, by no means are this the perfect tones I would expect us to use, but it gave some general direction. It enables the client to say, "Oh, goodness no, the blue doesn't work. Let's definitely head in the direction of exploring the browns or the gold tones." That's really the goal at this stage. Let's show you for another client. This time, Carrara Aesthetics. Same stage. We're happy with the brand mark and the logo. Were happy with the type. We just want to explore color. Here's an example page we've put together for the sake of color exploration. A dark variant, a light variant, and then we've got the swatches shown together with these brown elements. That's quite involved. But those are the different stages I'd recommend, including just a brief overview of them during the development stage. You're really building the breadth and the depth of the identity for the client, if possible, at this stage. But if you need to work a little longer on the logo itself, then spend all the time refining and developing that that you need to.
9. Final Development: The final development stage. Bear in mind this could span depending on what you've agreed in contract or what's required for the project. This could span several back and forth phases. Hopefully not several, hopefully between one and three but do what's needed to make the client happy, but make sure you're including that. You're factoring that in to the balance that will be due on the project and make sure the client's aware if they've used up their revisions or they've asked for extra changes, don't just do them. No one likes to discuss extra costs, but much better to discuss it than simply invoice the clients and make sure they realize, happy to do that for you but it's going to cost x or I estimate I'd need another two to three hours to do that for you. So the final stages and to wrap things up. Let's have a look at some of the projects. You saw the initial phases of this and we've now taken it to this point. I believe this is development stage 3, and this is really where we want to take it across the finish line. We've got the lockups we're thinking of using, and some much final variations. The client was considering, is it better to have Aesthetics and Carrara exactly the same width? Are you sure it's better? I'm recommending no, let's tighten our Aesthetics at the bottom, let's give some contrast. But the client wasn't confident and wanted to compare for herself. That's fine. You can include that. You can accommodate your client. So we've done that here. We've weighed up some different variations, and the variations are to be boxed or not to be boxed for the brand mark, and when we positioning of the texts, actually the font as well for Carrara. Should it be bold? Or if we're creating contrast using size, can we use this version instead? I've also shown that on the reverse background and then we really needed to address color, and so we were doing at this stage. This really is a good example of a situation I usually want to avoid, where you have all these different variables. You want to give as few variables as possible to make the decisions easier for your client. Unfortunately, in this project, because we reached this stage, I didn't want the revisions to massively go over. We needed to look at color, but we were still exploring the shape and the form. So you'll see in the pages that follow, I've needed to show variations of color, but also different design options. This can make it very confusing for the client to identify what it is they like or you end up with hundreds of pages showing different color options for each individual design, and that can easily become unmanageable. Ideally, try to get shape and form agreed before you introduce color. But if we follow this process through, we're tying up the supporting design elements, we're balancing both optically and geometrically. Now that's another subject of some debate. Do you lock things up geometrically so that if they're printed in close proximity to other elements, if you've optically aligned and then you end up printing something in a certain way, it happens and you notice it's not quite centered, it's been optically. So my opinion is when it comes to centering things or positioning that it would look wrong if it ended up shown in a context where you realize something isn't centered, I don't think that's worth the risk. I think venue geometrically balances center but for certain things like kerning, like leading, like tracking optically over weigh. We view things with our eyes and therefore, I think you rise at a final judge of whether something is balanced or not. Perhaps that's a good subject for another video. But back to this project. Here are a few more mockups just to help us weigh up which concept is winning. Some different options we've given the client there. That looks very attractive. I think in the end, they actually used a copper foil effect and had that logo printed much as it appears here, and that was the box variations. So I've tried to give my client as much as possible to help her see which concept's working best. So she's seeing it in different environments, used in different ways with some slightly different colors that's attached to it. So you are trying to make life as easy as you can for your client to make that final decision. Now we'll look at a project where there was quite a few stages needed. Its smaller stages, it was definitely progressing forward. But I just wanted to show you what it looks like if you do go back and forth maybe five, even six times in refining the concept with your client. If that happens, don't panic, go with the process and make sure you're progressing positively. That each iteration you've improved something and it's still heading towards that goal. This is CCNETROL, you can see we've got these two fairly contrasting concepts that we arrived at, but they still need to be refined. We want to add a London tagline, and we begin doing this in this phase. The blue line's here, and I do have my other guys that do this with a pen and paper, sketching it out and measuring and noting in the exact angles with a protractor, it's so easy to do it digitally. I can't understand why you would do this with a pen and paper. Illustrator makes it so easy for you. Sorry, no offense to those that do that but for me, I can do this in a fraction of a time and I have all the tools at my disposal to get the geometric balance absolutely perfect. Here we were looking at customizing the type itself, making some customer adjustments. So we brought some circles into, you can see what's happening here if we scroll through. To take this over was very ovular, and make it a more regular. If you look at the N, we've sharpened that up significantly, and the Cs we've straighten them up, we've made them more regular shapes. We've trimmed the edges of the E. Here its showing a little optical compensation. The gray squares, they represent geometric spacing. Look at the difference, particularly for this O and L and I won't teach you to suck eggs, we'll assume in this video, you've studied this and you have some knowledge of how this works. But this is the place it comes in my process. Its now when the client is committed to a concept that I start to do this fine tuning. So you can compare the differences there in the different versions. In the center here, we have this unique version we've created, above is one of his inspirations, and below is the other. So this is really you could say the child of two type phases and we've made this completely on our own. Some more refinement, we've sharpened the end. We're showing what it might look like in outline form. We've introduced just a little of a color because we agreed gold with black and silver was a direction to head. As usual, some mockups. All that work that happened in one phase. I went away, I did that for the client and then I send them this PDF as a way of presenting that, which I'll then talk them through, so they can see exactly the direction the concept has developed. There was a stage to follow, and if we open up this version, some further adjustment. We're looking at real fine tuning here. This was for the London type. We had already made most of the adjustments to the main logo type there for CCNETROL. But we've shaved just a little of the N and the T for balancing purposes, and then here we present the results. Another phase was needed and if we open that here, although we're happy now with the shape and form, we were really trying to zero in on the color scheme and we had the idea of using a very subtle gradient. So we created a custom gradient in illustrator, and then I wanted to illustrate how this would apply, how it would look if a logo was shown on black, how it would look on a white background, and you'll see as we flick through this. We've got our swatches here. Plenty of examples for a client to see it in different contexts, different sizes, supporting type we derived that, supporting headings and some little hero pages. All of that is often necessary to serve the client on the concept that you're developing and to push it across the finish line. Often you've got to show the depth of the identity you are creating so that the client feels confident. They can always imagine it being used in different situations, the onus is on you to show it, to present in those situations and give it as much refinement as is needed. Just make sure you're not doing that without charging the client anything, and at the same time, if you need to take one for the team, if it needs a little more refinement. Hopefully you'd feel bad to let something that's not of a professional standard go then you know, it's okay to absorb that from time to time. But if a client is asking for extra tweaks and changes and more tweaks, more changes, and you've not covered that in your budgeting or they've gone over for revisions you've agreed, then don't feel guilty making them aware of that cost and asking for permission before you continue and you do what they've asked. So that's it by this point, hopefully you've taken the client to the finish line, very excited about the ideas you've presented. But now to really sign off on the project, we've got to give all the deliverables across and we've got to get that value across to the client. I don't like to just zip up the final files, I like to put together a brand guideline PDF, and we'll show an example of that in the next video.
10. Brand Guidelines: Well, you've almost done it. Your client loves what you've created and they're happy to start using the new brand. You're usually quite excited to be paid, it's a good thing for everyone. But how do you present the culmination of sometimes weeks and hours of hard work. Well, hopefully this will give you a few ideas. If you Google search for brand guidelines, brand books, brand manuals, you find lots of examples. But I'm going to share with you here a few templates I've come up with. Depending on the client, I'll present the project in one of these ways. First of all, let's have a look at JB Mortgages. Now, this is one of the older templates I came up with. It certainly doesn't lend itself to every project I present but for this particular client, it does the job nicely. We've got a contents page. A little our brand section, what the brand means some of a backstory behind the logo, variations of the logo, logo usage, spacing is good to show a full color and if necessary, a black and white version for this particular client that wasn't needed, color palettes, tints, if you decide to include tints. You definitely want very minimum hex and RGB values. Obviously here you could also include CMYK values. You could include pantones watches, I'll often do that for clients, CMYK certainly, but with pantones, I found sometimes it's best to see what the client prints first. So I'll say to them, "Come to me for some advice where when you're printing your first documents and we'll make sure we use a pan tone that the printer can can replicate on the paper, on the stock, on the finish that you've opted for and then we'll make sure all your printed documents to follow match fat standard." Now onscreen, there is no way you can guarantee as a designer in 2020 that your art work is going to look the exact same color on this screen, on the computer monitor, on a phone, it's just not possible. Unfortunately, sorry, old-school designers, you've got to allow for some on-screen variation. Your design can't fall apart if it looks a little more vivid on one person's screen and a little more neat on another. At the same time, printed documents, different story. They have to match because you may be laying them next to each other on a table. There'd be nothing worse than your client going to a road show and their business card looks wildly different to a brochure they've had printed. This is why I say, don't agonize over the onscreen color that they're using on the website. You want that to be consistent for everything on the same site, on the same media profiles, on the same device. So you've got to use the same color. But when it comes to print, and that's where a pantone is essential. Make sure all their printed materials align perfectly, even if on different devices, there'll be some variation there. I hope that makes sense. Looking a little further through this, I've also included typefaces. Goodness, this layer is a little busy. You'll see one of the better versions later. But it does the trick. We've got other graphic elements the client's been provided with, taglines. Then I like to include some of the examples. If we've gone to the trouble to include these other deliverables, this is a great place to show examples of that. We've got business cards, complements, slips, and so forth. Let's show you another example. This is Mijoza Hair and this is a layer I prefer. It's more modern, it's cleaner. Actually I use this now for the majority of brand guidelines I create and feel free to steal it if you want. I don't mind. Obviously swap your own branding and logo and website because that would just be weird. But here we are primary, secondary or reversed logo and then the brand mark. We've included details on how to space this rather than give a, remember, this has got to be versatile. So rather than give a numerical value, pull something from the logo itself and use that as the reference for spacing. Always allow in this case, at least one of the H's here to sit between the logo and any other relevant types. Fonts or typefaces form hierarchy. This is quite important. If your client does get hold of the relevant fonts and they want to create some of their own materials which they're entitled to do, they need to mirror the spacing, the tracking. The formats you've set out here, whether they use all caps or regular case. So make sure you're specific and you can see at the top here, I've given these values. Again, it has to be relative. I use the body text as the base and then you see for subheadings, make it a 130 percent of the body text. For the main heading's, 220 percent, and so on. Brand colors again, no tints for this one. Using the exact tones was important. The gold can turn into something like a very light beige, which we didn't want to happen. So no tints for this client. Some mock ups and examples. Again, business cards, letterhead, and a simple email signature. One last example I'll share with you and this one is a client I really went the extra mile. We put some extra love and detail into the brand guidelines and if you have the time or if you factor this into the scope of a project, I'd recommend you do the same. This is the Portrait Boutique and we started off with an attractive contents page and a summary. This layout, I actually, I saw something similar that Christine Hoff had put together. I thought it looks so elegant, it's simple, but what a nice way to lay out the guidelines. So I created something similar, my own version here. Just to track back and we've actually taken the brand values from the brand strategy here, and we've presented it as part of a brand book, the brand guidelines. That takes time. This took some time to put together but what a deliverable to give to the client at the end of a project. We've worked that in here. We've got the brand values, a little anatomy of the logo and logo type itself. We've got the version on black, again, usage and spacing, type faces and this is quite an attractive way to show the hierarchy between headings, subheadings, and body text. For this client, we have got the tints and you can see CMYK values as well as RGB and hex here. A few layout rules which I did include for this particular client. Supporting graphic elements. We'd sourced a few custom painted backdrops, which worked really nicely with the brand and some fervor examples on the back page here. As well as hopefully it goes without saying you want to actually give the client the logo files themselves. Some things to consider, you should be giving them something transparent. A PNG, JPEG for general web and digital use, an EPS file if you can. That's a vector format so that they can enlarge and for certain applications for printing it professionally, they'll need that vector file and they can run into problems in future if you don't provide them with a copy of that. Then make sure they've got the logo in its primary form and colors, secondary form and colors if I need that. Make sure they've got the brand mark, separative, the logo. Make sure they've got the logo type separate to the rest of the logo, and then make sure you've packaged any supporting design elements. Quite a lot to include there. You can neatly organize it within a folder, zip that up, give that to the client. But it's such a nice start to create these brand guidelines and just make sure you're presenting everything in a way that does justice to this project that you've worked so hard. That's what we present to the client. What comes next? Well, we'll look at the next video, which covers after care and what you do with the client after you've finished the project, how you continue that relationship.
11. Handover & client aftercare: You've completed the project, over-files are ready to handover. We disgust that in a previous video. You've got your brand guidelines, but you've sent across to the client. So what happens next? Where does the relationship go from here? What kind of aftercare do you provide? Well, speaking for myself, I always like to try to get a review at the point the client is most excited. This is usually it. When they've signed off, and when you sending over his final project files across, and I send just a little review link. If you mind, when you get a chance, could you complete a short review for me? That's really, really important for your marketing purposes. People really do value honest, genuine reviews. Rather than get a client to email you their feedback, go to a site that's online, that anyone could submit a review to, like Trustpilot or of course, like Google itself. If you have a Google business page and get the client to write a review, and that's much more trustworthy and authentic than just a website or a portfolio where you've hand-picked certain reviews. If it's open to the public, if an unhappy client could give you a negative review, that holds much more weight. That's the first thing I'd like to do. Next, it's nice to just reassure the client you're there to take care of any future needs they have. You need to establish. This is it, as far as the project is concerned, we finished, you're not going to be doing hours of additional work, no costs, so the project is finished, but for their future requirements, let them know your availability, let them know the way you like to work. For me, larger projects, is something I like to have some advanced notice to book in. But for small bits and pieces, I'm happy to work at an hourly rate and I usually try to fit things in within a few days for a client when they come back to me. You could give suggestions. You could say to them, the brand identity is looking fantastic. Are you happy with your website? Do you need some help either building a new website or face lifting these changes and adjustments into existing website. Just be helpful and generally from doing that, repeat business will come and you'll start building a lasting relationship with your client. You become the go-to point of contact for all their design needs. Really that's what you want. Also, to say the importance of leaving your clients with a nice pleasant feeling about you, not to leave them with a bitter taste in their mouth in any way, because no matter what becomes popular, whether it's Google searches, whether it's social media channels, these things can disappear, can change very quickly overnight, something that seems extremely popular. Google could change its algorithm, and if you've counted on that for all your work, you would be in trouble. Instagram and Facebook, they can drastically change things. For example, when Instagram said in the US, they're going to stop likes being visible. They're going to change the way posts are ranked. They're going to show a lot less posts from businesses. Keeping your clients happy, regardless of your existing marketing strategy, that is the number one source of work for you in the future, or at least it should be. The recommendations that they give because you've made them happy to their friends, to their colleagues, to offer businesses. That's an invaluable source of business, is one you can't afford to do without. Keep your clients happy. When you're weighing up, which portions of this class, you can implement in your own workflow. Make sure you're not trimming it to the point you're just rushing clients through. Make your clients happy, looking after them, and they'll look after you in return. Then after you've been in business for a few years and you've got a sizable client list you have stable ties for your business, that they're going to keep you going, loyal customers and clients will keep coming back to you. That's my advice as far as aftercare goes. That actually brings us to the end of this video series. I hope you've enjoyed it. Obviously the class project. See if you can share examples of what this process has enabled you to produce. But keep designing, use what you can from this course, and I look forward to seeing you in further classes.
Jason Miller, Freelance Graphic Designer
