Author Archives: Ran Segall

1. Who’s afraid of a $50 logo?

   March 9, 2015 4:21 pm 5 Comments

   If there’s one thing that scares us even more than the prospect of cheaper competitors learning to design and offering it at a cheap price, it’s that someone in Silicon Valley will open a startup that can automate design – thus putting the last nail in our coffin.

   When companies like 99 Designs & Fiverr offered super cheap logos, the design community was pissed, but it was still a real designer behind the logo. Now new companies like squarespace and Tailor Brands with funding and press behind them, offer totally automated logos, and we start to wonder where the world of design is headed and whether we really should have gone to med school like Mom wanted us to.

   

   In this post I’m going to explain why I’m actually cool with this startup trend, or at least why I’m not too afraid of it.

   I think the commotion we’re experiencing in the design community stems from a combination of hypocrisy and fear, neither of which should have room in our life. I’ll try to explain why.

   Let’s talk about hypocrisy

   “A $50 logo is degrading the whole design profession!”

   Oh right, sure. You think that buying cheap, low-quality products means degrading a whole field?

   Here are some things I often buy:

   • $1-50 images from places like Shutterstock or Stocksy. I guess I’m degrading the photography world.
   • $15 worth of music for videos I edit from Audiojungle. I guess I’m degrading the world of music.
   • $1 icons from NounProject. I’m degrading icon designers.
   • Free fonts. I’m degrading font designers.

   But why talk only about work?

   • I download movies illegally or use Popcorn Time, because I just don’t value the work being done by thousands of creatives in Hollywood.
   • I pay $10 a month to Spotify to get all the music in the world, leaving only pennies and cents per listening to the musicians. And that’s when I don’t just listen via YouTube because to hell with everyone else.
   • I buy books for Kindle, thus killing the print publishing industry.

   I could go on and on… But I think you get the point.

   Putting cynicism aside for a moment – obviously I do highly value all those professionals I mentioned. In many of my projects I get to work with excellent, professional creatives who get paid thousands of dollars. But sometimes, when I don’t have the time or the budget for it and the cheap solutions are good enough, I use them. I feel no shame or guilt in doing so.

   Of course a $50 logos can’t be a good logo. Just like a $1 photo will never be as good as one taken by a professional photographer especially for me. Still: there’s room in this world for all types of solutions and for all types of clients.

   There are probably hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of clients out there who even if they understood the value of design, couldn’t afford to pay a good studio or a good freelancer for their logo. We may want to educate them and make them feel bad about it (“take a loan! then you can pay me a buttload!”) – but that’s just not going to happen.

   

   For that type of client, it’s good to have a solution like the one all these startups are working on. At least then they get a real designer that created the platform and ‘helped’ around or at least stopped them from doing something really awful, which is more than I can say about some logos I see while walking the streets today.

   Let’s talk about fear

   The fear of being afraid to be replaced by a machine is pretty basic. I’ll go even one step further: almost every profession is currently being threatened, one way or another, by advanced technology. From cab drivers who are about to be replaced by Google’s self-driving cars, to doctors who will be replaced by computer programs with the ability to provide quick and accurate health analysis (hear that, Mom?)

   It’s happening – and it really is scary.

   And yet we designers are actually in a very good position in this whole robot uprising we’re looking at.

   I recently read a book called “The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies.” The book describes the changes happening in the world and the changes that will come in the next few years, as technology becomes smarter and exponentially cheaper every year.

   Sure, a lot is about to change, and many professions are about to be replaced by robots or algorithms. But guess what’s the most difficult task of all for machines? Creative and innovative thinking: the two things our profession relies upon the most.

   

   So yes, in the last few years it has become easier and cheaper to get low quality “fast-design” (as in cheap, low quality fast-food) – but another thing that’s happened recently is that more and more brands and companies have begun to understand the importance of design. These days there is more demand for designers than in any other time in history.

   Designers are earning more money than ever. Designers are influential at the highest ranks (a few years ago you couldn’t find a chief design officer or a chief creative officer in any big company). The challenges we designers are facing today are some of the most interesting ones since print was first invented.

   McDonald’s didn’t kill the culinary arts, and an app that creates a cheap logo is not going to kill design.

   Let irrelevant clients buy their cheap logos and free your time to do the interesting, money-making work that a ton of other clients are just dying for you to do.

2. Your Free Design Work Will End Up In The Trash

   November 11, 2014 1:58 pm 13 Comments

   I lost $100,000, and that’s just a rough estimate.

   If only I hadn’t worked for free for so many years, who knows, maybe I could have owned my own apartment by now. I thought it would be good for my career, bring opportunities, help my friends, my family, that it would help me make a political change. Almost everyone who came to me with their story managed to convince me to help them for free. And I agreed. After all, I’m the nice guy who doesn’t like to disappoint people.

   Want to know what sucks the most about this story?
   It isn’t the money part.
   How many of these works still adorn walls, how many are printed on paper or are live on the web?
   Zero.

   And do you know why?
   Because people don’t appreciate the things they get for free.

   I just finished reading “Design Is A Job” by Mike Monteiro (you should read it), and found an interesting story:

   A non-profit organization had donated farm equipment to poor villages in Africa for years, only to come back a year later and find the equipment lying outside, unused or dismantled for parts to sell. A second organization arrived, but it didn’t give the equipment for free. Farmers were told how much money they could make for themselves using those tools and then it was offered to them for sale. Farmers worked hard, saved money, worked together and bought their own equipment.

   Guess what happened after a year in this village?

   Yep. Farmers used equipment frantically, began making money, told their friends, who in turn also saved and struggled to buy the tool which could change their lives.

   They say there is no such thing as a free meal, but what isn’t said is that if there were such meals, we would throw them away and go to McDonald’s.

   Your clients do not appreciate you

   If someone asks you to work for free it means they don’t appreciate what you are doing.
   Maybe your client really doesn’t have any money, but what does that have to do with you? Do you see your client going to a restaurant with no money?

   I’ve already heard all the promises and suggestions: there will be a lot of work later, it will open doors for you, it’s great for experience and of course: we have no money but can give you equity.

   Working for equity is a little tricky, since in the world of startups equity compensation is a pretty standard way to gain the employee’s commitment for the long haul. But be careful – equity are in addition to a salary, it’s not a replacement. The only ones working solely for a equity are the partners who founded the company, so: is your client offering you to be an equal partner in the management of the company?

   Probably not.

   Regardless of these promises, which are never fulfilled, there is another problem: I believe that it’s impossible to do good design work without serious commitment and the full partnership of the client during the process. The only way to make the client understand the importance of design, and get them invested and committed to the process is by having them pay for the project. And the more they pay, the more seriously they will treat the project.

   When someone writes a check for $50,000, they won’t take the risk that this project might fail. They will do whatever it takes to make it happen.
   When someone writes a check for $1,000, then at worst, if the job will not be to their liking, they will go to someone else.

   Volunteering

   Over the years I’ve done a lot of work on a voluntary basis, usually about topics related to politics and such.
   It’s nice to work on a voluntary basis – first of all, you’re working on a project you believe in which you think has a chance to bring a positive change to the world. Second, when you volunteer, you believe that if you don’t get paid then at least you will have creative freedom.

   The truth is that both points should be taken with a grain of salt.

   My personal experience was that when volunteering your time is spent something like this: 90% -wasting time, 10% – working.
   Most people who volunteer also want to enjoy their time, no one wants to volunteer just to suffer, and so much of my time during volunteer work was invested in having nice conversations with people and often drinking a beer and eating pizza.

   Guess why this happens?
   That’s right. When no one is paying for your time, nobody cares if your time is properly used.

   Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against volunteering. I still do it occasionally, mainly because I like to meet new people, drink beer and eat pizza, but I realized a long time ago that the you don’t change the world on weekend Hackathons or after work volunteering.

   You change the world while at work and you usually get paid to do it.

   Family and Friends

   I’ve already written here about my feelings regarding working with family and friends, for example I wrote that it’s better to work for free just to avoid unpleasantness with them.

   There is no contradiction between my opinion about unappreciated free work and the fact that I choose to work for free with family and friends (when I can’t avoid it). The fact is that your family and friends will never appreciate your job the same as a paying customer. That’s the truth.

   They will say to you: “Thank you Ran! Great job! We really appreciate it.” But don’t believe them. After all, you told them you really appreciate it when they got you that lame wedding gift, and you didn’t really mean it, right?

   We are superficial creatures: we only care about what costs us a lot of money. You want your clients to care about you and the work you are doing, so start charging a lot of money for it.

3. 5 Ways To Increase Your Value To Your Client

   October 27, 2014 12:20 pm 8 Comments

   Most of us, designers, assume our client cares only about the quality of our design work. While it’s true that he cares how awesome our design is, the client also cares about other things.

   Here are 5 things your client cares about, and how to increase your value to him. Nail these, and you’ll be able to charge more for your work.

4. How to deal with creative block

   February 2, 2015 2:11 pm 4 Comments

   My heart is pounding. Suddenly cleaning up the house seems like a fun task. Maybe I should take the trash out too?

   Anything that will keep me from sitting down in front of the computer and facing the fact I have no idea what to do.

   No matter how many years I’ve been doing it, no matter how many times I’ve felt like this before and no matter how sure I am that everything will end up OK, it’s always as frightening as it was the first time. What if this time I fail to come up with an idea? I’m a freelancer, so there’s no one in the room with me I can ask for help and no boss to take responsibility if I come up with nothing.

   It stresses me out. Maybe this time the truth will finally come out: I’m not that talented.

   Creativity is a kind of magic. No one really knows where it’s coming from. Scientists and experienced creatives all agree on one thing: feed yourself with loads of information, let your subconscious work on it, and a creative idea will pop out eventually – most likely while you’re showering.

   We’re not sure quite when, but we’re hoping it will happen before the deadline hits.

   When it happens to me, I stare at the wall above my computer and imagine three words written on it in gorgeous handwriting typography: Trust the Process. I tell myself that one day I will print out those words and stick them on my wall. I never get around to it.

   Magic or not, at the end of the day I’m a professional and getting paid for this project so I don’t think saying to my client “listen, I really gave it my best, but no ideas came up” is particularly legit. That’s why I need to create a magic-less process for myself, which will bring some kind of result, and hope the magic will bother to show up in time to make everything better.

   Start with something crappy

   When we say “I can’t come up with anything,” the truth is that’s not really accurate. What we mean to say is, “I can’t come up with anything good.” And that’s the problem right there. Because we’re designers who want to do amazing work, and because we perceive ourselves as professionals, we’re already busy filtering our own ideas and deciding they’re bad in advance.

   That’s how we get stuck.

   If, on the other hand, we would say to ourselves: “let’s do something crappy,” our lives would be that much easier. Anyone can do a shit job. Want a bad logo? Give me two minutes. Want a bad name for your brand? 20 seconds will suffice.

   When we do crappy work, two great things happen:

   1. We already have something to build on. Worst case scenario – we can’t find anything good – at least we can bring something bad to the table, which is a thousand times better than bringing nothing.
   2. Once we pencil down the idea, we can start analyzing why it’s no good. As soon as we explain to ourselves and even make notes of why the current idea is bad, we can pick one problem at a time and try and solve it. That, in turn, will bring up a slightly less awful idea, which we can then analyze too, and so on until we get a good one.

   It’s only a stupid myth that all these geniuses we keep reading about came up with their brilliant ideas on their first try. The truth is they came up with them after a handful of crappy ideas – we just didn’t get to see those. Edison, who invented the lightbulb after failing at it 10,000 times, said: “I haven’t failed. I invented 10,000 lightbulbs that didn’t work.”

   How to build your process

   During the 1960s, a few ad agency giants wrote a short book titled A Technique for Producing Ideas. The essence goes something like this: study your topic thoroughly. Read, research, talk to people. Fill up your brain with info. Then try and come up with ideas. Everything you come up with will suck. Then forget about the project. Go do other things. Or take a shower. After a few days, the idea will come to you.

   The truth is I felt kind of down when I read that. I kept asking myself: but what if they don’t come?

   What I usually do looks more like this:

   • Research: fertilize your brain as much as you can. Learn and study.

   • Break the project apart: to the tiniest pieces you can. That will make it easier and less scary to deal with them.

   • Do something bad: in order to at least get yourself going rather than stand in one place.

   Improve, improve, improve: create an iterative circle: Do something, understand why it’s no good, try again. The more time I have, the more chances I have to go around and improve. The result follows suit.

   Sometimes the big idea, that ‘eureka!’ moment, does show up – sometimes it doesn’t. Faith is part of the process. I believe it will come to me, and I know from experience that if you try hard enough – eventually, it usually does.

5. Can designers beat Fiverr and 99Designs?

   December 3, 2014 11:24 am 2 Comments

   One of our biggest fears is that our clients will find out someone else who would be willing to do the same work, but for a lower price.

   The fear is then swiftly replaced by anger: “Aren’t those designers ashamed of themselves? They’re destroying the market!”. We end up trying to educate our clients that if they use a cheap design work or platform such as 99designs or Fiverr, they will end up with a poor design, resulting in loss and ruin for their business.

   What can we do? Nobody likes it when someone moves their cheese. Certainly not if it hurts their livelihood.

   The main factors that drive prices down (of everything, not just design) are globalization and technological progress. But, even though I hate to earn less, I feel a little hypocrite hating the very same things which help me as a consumer spend less money when buying stuff.

   A few months ago, my wife and I moved into a new apartment. Since we moved I’ve been to IKEA four times already. Last Thursday I thought about going to a movie with my wife. Guess what? We ended up going to IKEA. I bet she enjoyed it much more.

   I’m sure carpenters, furniture designers and artists engaged in the furniture industry hate IKEA’s guts, for deeply hurting their livelihood. They’re probably mumbling to themselves: “Why won’t these stupid people realize IKEA is a piece of shit? The materials are cheap! Within a year their products either break down or becomes unstable. Why won’t they realize that investing in good design and construction of furniture is a lifetime investment? ”

   I actually do understand that. But my budget for a table is $150, not $850. Sorry.

   How can we deal with low-price competitors?

   Discussions in the design community focus a lot on the need to “educate the market”. Explain and teach the clients the value of good design – “Like they value design in Europe! “. I’m all up for this idea. But you have to understand something: educating the market is something that takes a long time and is very expensive. Why? Because you need to explain again, and again, and again to lots of people over time (you can call it “brainwashing”).

   Ask any huge corporation seeking to launch a new product, what happens if it needs to educate the market to eat healthy or stop using plastic bags at the supermarket. It’s difficult, expensive and takes time.

   Michael the artistic carpenter can try to convince me to take advantage of his high quality carpeting for my dinner table; and there might be a point in his arguments, but to prevent me from going to IKEA would be very difficult.

   I’m totally up for educating the market, but let’s be realistic – it’s not something that is going to change overnight.

   So, what can we do in the meanwhile?

   Meanwhile, even though McDonald’s sells coffee at 99 cents to the masses, the queues at premium café’s – despite being much more expensive – aren’t getting any shorter. Take for example the Grey Dog café in New York. A trendy coffee shop, where a Cappuccino costs 4$; and there are plenty of people willing to invest in the experience of quality coffee and food, without needing to be educated to understand why they should pay so much for coffee.

   Be Premium

   If you want to be the Grey Dog of design and deliver high-quality expensive designs to your customers – I fully support that. You don’t have to hate your cheaper competitors because they aren’t really your competitors, even if you sell the same service.

   It’s hard to imagine a customer in a café in New York arguing with the waiter, telling him how the McDonalds two blocks away can sell him a cappuccino at 99 cents, right?

   Why? Because the place is designed in a way which makes it obvious to anyone what they’re going to buy and how much it’s going to cost them. If you want to be the Grey Dog of design, communicate it to your customers: the way you look, the way your portfolio looks, your office and your proposals – then there won’t be any confusion. Whoever comes to you knows what they are getting and how much it’s going to cost.

   But please note – if you would go to a dirty fast food joint that asks $9.90 for a hamburger, you might raise an eyebrow and ask how come the McDonalds next door sells a burger for a dollar.

   If your customers are confused, maybe you aren’t properly communicating who you are, what you sell and how much it costs. Or you compromise. At Grey Dog they don’t compromise on the quality or the price of the coffee.

   Things that are really worth the money

   Despite globalization and technology, there are things that are still very hard to do, which computers can’t do and are not easy to outsource. As a result, they are worth a lot of money.

   These things are:

   • Innovation
   • Ideation
   • Insights

   These three areas, which are usually a part of the good designers’ skill set, are actually skills that are worth a lot of money to our customers, and serve as the foundation for good design. Many designers use these skills as part of their job, and that’s what makes good design expensive (because it is a long and difficult process).

   Our customers realize you can buy a logo for $10. But as time goes by, they understand that their companies won’t survive in the competitive jungle out there if their design is based on cheap aesthetics instead of a good idea that can take their business forward. We can and should give them this idea.

6. Our Manifest

   September 18, 2014 2:09 pm Leave a Comment

   So you chose to be a creative professional.
   You’ve decided you’re not going to make a living by being a paper pusher, but rather live from your art. Awesome.

   You wake up in the morning feeling motivated to create beautiful, useful and meaningful things. But then reality bites –
   Your accountant is calling, asking you for tax documents; your client still hasn’t payed for his last project; you got so much shit to do, and you haven’t gone out for a beer with friends in ages. WTF?

   Your friends are telling you: “welcome to the real world”.
   Your mom tells you: “you should’ve been a lawyer!”

   No way.

   We see creative people all around us living great lives: having a good work-life balance, making good money, working with great clients and creating amazing stuff. Stefan Sagmeister took a year off without clients; Zach Klein built a cabin with his friends; Ryan Carson started working only 4 days a week; Tobias van Schneider has an awesome beard, and these are just the “famous” ones. There are many more who are kicking-ass, enjoying life and work.

   Do you think some people are just more talented? Or have more luck?
   Maybe.

   Here’s an alternative: you are dealing with problems that no one taught you the skills to deal with.
   What if you could actually learn how to better deal with clients? Learn how to better organize your time and get the important things done? Learn how to earn more money with the art you know how to create?

   We think it is possible. Because we are doing it ourselves, and we are not uniquely talented or lucky. And we have a blast doing what we love doing.

   We want Bold & Creative to be this place for you: a place where you can gain practical knowledge, that will improve the way you work, think, live and feel. Who knows, you might even end up happier.

   So we invite you to join the ride. You can learn something new, you can improve, and your life can be better.

   Every day you learn something, is not a day wasted.

7. Things I’ve learned as a freelance designer

   November 9, 2015 5:13 am 1 Comment

   You wouldn’t see the “freelancer” title in my LinkedIn profile. But the truth is, I work as one since I was 17.

   I had my first paid project while I’m still in high school. It was a 3D design project of the Hebrew Temple of the Egyptian era. Then came an opportunity to do a freelance for an agricultural Startup creating models of a machine. When I was just starting out, I did some work for friends, family and neighbors. And I can proudly say I’ve done EVERY possible mistake. So I’m glad to share with you the important lessons I’ve learned from my 15 years of experience as a freelance designer.

   1. Do it for free or ask for full price

   – “Man, I need a small favour”
   – “Can you give me a friend’s price?”
   – “It’ll be worth it – you are going to be famous”
   – “It’s gonna take you 5 minutes”

   These may sound familiar if you are working with people you know. One of the hard facts about working with familiar faces is, that they have the most draining expectations. They want the best they can get – but at the lowest cost.

   The big paradox is, when you give them a discount, they feel as if they’ve paid. Hence, they deserve the best you can do. You – on the other hand – feel that you’re screwed. That low price just isn’t worth the hassle.

   So here’s what you should do: either do it for free, or work for a full payment. If you work for free, your friends know that they are the least priority, and they can’t drive you crazy too much. At any point you can tell them: “listen, I gotta finish this, because I have some real work to do, and I gotta pay the rent” or “You can’t drive me crazy, for a favor I’m doing for you”.

   While if you bill them for full payment, they may demand for so much, but at least you’re not losing money. You can serve them professionally like you would do with any other client of yours.

   As for me, at this point I try to avoid projects for friends or family. I don’t want to take the risk of either of us getting pissed at each other. However, sometimes you can’t avoid it, because you love your friends/family and they really need help. In this case – just don’t give discounts.

   2. Market yourself, before you really need it

   People think that marketing is something you should do when your portfolio is “perfect”. “I’ll start marketing myself in 2 months, when my portfolio is ready.” Big mistake. I learned it myself when I tried to market an iPhone application I’ve built, only AFTER it was ready.

   This is true for every marketing challenge: you need to start marketing way before you have something to sell. What do I mean? Say you are hired, but you plan to leave in 6 months to start being a freelancer designer. Don’t wait for your last day at work to post on Facebook “Yo! I’m a freelancer! Send me your projects!”. If that’s what you gonna do, it’s going to be really hard to pay the rent in the following month.

   I know it’s really hard for us – Y generation – to plan 6 months ahead, not to speak of 10 years. We want it all to happen right now. But that’s not how it works. For me, I’ve started blogging two years ago, not for marketing, but for fun. And now, two years later, the results are showing. I get job offers on a weekly basis, without any effort. And you know what? I don’t even have an online portfolio.

   Get the word out as soon as you can, and a few months ahead you will start seeing results. It takes time, effort and being consistent, to build a brand. But it’s worth the pain.

   3. Tell your clients “No”

   My instinct is to say “YES” to anything. After all, I’m a nice guy. I hate confrontation and like it when people offer to pay me.
   – You got a project for me? Are you willing to pay me? Ok, yes.
   – You don’t like what I designed, and you want something else? Ok, yes.
   But then I realized that I am too nice for my own good.

   You see, I hate conflicts. I never fight with people and if you push me, I crack. But over the years I learned (the hard way) that the “to be OK with everyone” policy, is not the best thing to do. At least not for me.

   I’ve done many freelance design projects even when I was working full time in a studio. I didn’t REALLY need the money, I just couldn’t say “No” to an offer that had money behind it.

   At some point I realized it’s not always worth it. When you work nights and weekends – it turns to be your life. So if you don’t really need it to pay the bills, your life could be better without these extra jobs. That way, you’ll have some time for yourself. And you know what? The moment you start saying “No” to clients, they start to treat you differently. You stop being the one begging for work, and you’ll be the one others stand in line to work with. It will change how people see you and speak about you.

   There’s another great reason to say “no” to your client. When the project is not interesting. Don’t forget that the projects you’re working on, are the ones you’ll have in your portfolio. Those projects will attract the same type of clients to keep coming, as they say: “shitty projects attract shitty clients”

   And what about saying “no” design-wise? If you hate conflicts like me, you probably tend to give up when a client doesn’t like your design. You probably say “Well, whatever. If he wants it to look crappy, it’s his problem”. But that’s a huge mistake commonly overlooked. Don’t create design works, you don’t believe are awesome. Again – this is going to be in your portfolio. And the thing is, just like with the money – when you start saying “no” about bad design, the clients will treat you as a professional.

   4. Set expectations with your clients

   Most problems between designers and clients can be fixed by setting expectations:

   – Schedule everything (including inputs from the client, meetings, and end of project)
   – Money (how much and when is it paid)
   – Communication ways (when and how are we communicating. How do we ask for changes, fix and show them)
   – What are the outputs (what is required, including the specific type of files the developer needs)
   – Consequences (what will happen when we’re not happy, we don’t want to work together anymore, etc.).

   If you set expectations properly, including a great contract that’s written properly, you’ll save time dealing with conflicts. When something goes wrong, well, then it’s fine because you’ve already laid the consequences. You need to keep in mind that a well written contract protects both parties, meaning you and your client. Our aim as a freelance designer, is to deal with the clients’ fear, giving him the feeling that every little thing gonna be all right.

   By the way, this last point is right not just for freelancers, but also for designers who work in the office for a boss.

   5. Don’t forget to backup your work

   It’s a cliché, and its crystal clear, and still – we often forget to do that. Back up your work. Remember that project I’ve done at the age of 17? After 4 months of hard work, a virus killed my computer (oh, the happy windows days). I had to do everything from scratch, with no added payment of course. Do yourself a favor – make sure it’s all backed up. After all, there are so many simple and free tools to do that these days.

   

   Post by Ran Segall

   Ran is head of product, designer and co-founder at the nuSchool. He's also a mentor at The Designer's Pricing Class.

   WebsiteClass

8. The loneliness of the freelance designer

   March 4, 2015 9:08 am 6 Comments

   When I was 23 I experimented with loneliness – I used to read a lot of Paul Auster at the time, and I wanted to see what would happen if I am really alone and avoid talking to other people for a while. So I rented an apartment in a small fishing village in the south of Brazil, bought a surfboard, and spent all my time doing more or less the same thing every day: got up in the morning, went surfing, came back for lunch, read my book for a while, went surfing again, went back for dinner, read some more and went to bed.

   The only guy I was in touch with at the time was the grocery store guy, where I bought all my food, and our conversations were pretty much concluded with “hi” and “bye”.

   

   I don’t quite remember why I thought it would be cool, but I tried it. After about a month of doing it, I realized that I won’t be a good surfer and that I also kind of like talking to people. So I sold my surfboard and continued to the closest tourist beach for a more typical south-american experience.

   So it was no wonder that when I finished college, the idea of being a freelance designer who sits at home in his underwear and doesn’t speak to other people all day wasn’t very appealing to me. After all, I thought, I will have my whole life to spend at home in my underwear.

   But lo and behold, it’s been a year since I’m working from home and I’m having a blast. Still, I meet a lot of designers who are very afraid of switching to freelancing because of the fear of loneliness and working alone from home. So I thought I can share those things that help me design from home without being lonely.

   How to deal with the loneliness

   1. Don’t eat lunch alone

   When you’re working in an office, lunch could be one of the exciting social events of the day. The difference between working in an office to being a freelancer is that in an office the circumstances dictate who you would eat lunch with (this might be nice, but not always everyone is to your liking), while as a freelancer, you’re free to choose who you feel like having lunch with and do it exclusively with people who are fun to hang out with.

   I eat with friends several times a week. If I don’t feel like eating out, I invite them over and cook for us.

   This is a wonderful opportunity to see friends I haven’t seen for a long time, to strengthen old friendships and develop new relationships. If I meet people I think I can learn from, I invite them over to lunch, people like free food and usually will say yes.

   Someone even wrote a book called “Never Eat Alone”, and he claims that eating with people is the way to success. I haven’t read that book yet.

   2. In the morning – Work, Afternoon – Meetings

   Last year my friend Alex told me about some time-management system that I decided to implement and I like it a lot – I avoid scheduling meetings in the mornings so I could work several hours uninterrupted. All of the management tasks – emails, phone calls, meetings, clients etc. I save for after lunch time. This way I have one half of the day dedicated to pure work alone, and half of the day dedicated to other people.

   This way I get to spend time with different people almost every day.

   Again, as with the first advice about lunch – not all meetings are business related – sometimes their meetings with friends or people who need help from me or people I want to know and learn from.

   

   3. Be part of a community

   Luckily, there are a lot of designer’s communities who make it possible to stay in touch with other designers, to stay updated with the world design trends or local design gossip or even be grumpy together about clients and life – exhibitions, lectures, workshops, Facebook groups and friends who are also designers.

   Since I don’t spend my days surrounded by designer-friends anymore, it’s very important to me to be part of those places to keep my contacts with these friends, and also to stay relevant. Part of the communication with these communities happen in the real world, but a lot of it is on-line: in Facebook, blogs and other websites that help me stay connected to the design world even from home.

   

   4. Call a friend

   Sometimes we will need ‘one more eye’ to look at what we did. We’d like someone to bounce our ideas off and tell us if there’s anything we missed, or give us feedback about whether we are going in a right and interesting direction. In this case, there is no replacement for a ‘phone a friend’ options. Someone we can send stuff to and get a real time, constructive, human feedback from.

   

   5. Co-Working space

   The truth is that I haven’t tried this option yet myself, but I visited my friend Liz in her very cool Shared space office and it looked pretty awesome. At least in Tel-Aviv, this trend of co-working spaces are very apparent and more people stop working from home or from coffee places and more to joint working spaces who are designed and equipped especially for work.

   Aside from these official co-working-spaces, many designers I know just rent some big studio and split the costs between them to just sit together in a one space with other people who are fun to hang with, eat with, and consult with.

   

   What is certain is that to be a freelancer, you don’t have to work from home, but also that working from home does not condemn you to a life of loneliness and solitude away from other people and the designers community.

   P.S – I still don’t sit at home in my underwear, I mean, I do wear underwear, but it’s underneath the rest of my clothes. Honestly, I don’t even walk barefoot at home, I wear shoes. It helps me stay serious about what I’m doing.

9. How To Manage Yourself

   August 27, 2014 8:45 am 4 Comments

   Sometimes people tell me stuff like: “I can never be a freelancer, cuz I can’t manage myself” or “I can’t work from home, there’s just too many temptations” or maybe “I don’t have enough willpower to manage myself”.

   Somehow I’ve got the feeling people think that when you’re a freelancer you’ve got to be a self-motivated-superman, whereas if you’re an employee working in a studio or office you can be “weak” since the boss or office pressure will force you to deliver.

   But that’s a complete nonsense. Even as an employee you’ve got to manage yourself. I know people working in studios while still wasting half their day on Facebook, or on cigarette breaks or on “water cooler” talks. People who act this way actually force their boss to do the thing they hate the most: to manage them. This makes both boss and employee suffer: the employee hates the nagging boss and the boss hates the micro-management.

   What you have to realize is this: no matter who you are – freelancer or employee, you have to manage yourself. The alternative is pretty simple: someone else will manage you. And, trust me, you won’t like it. No one likes being managed, no matter if it’s your boss, your lover, you mom or your kids. When someone else is managing you, they have their interest first, so no wonder it sucks.

   

   Right. So now you know you better manage your own ass. Question is – how?

   I don’t pretend to be some sort of management genius, but here are 4 principles I try to follow in my life, and they might be relevant to yours as well:

   1. Be Active

   When I was a design student, I knew I wanted to go abroad for my internship. I was dreaming about it since I started school, and I was waiting anxiously to the summer of my 3rd year to go. When the time came, it turned out that my school doesn’t offer cool internships, and I didn’t really like the options I was offered. I decided to take matters into my own hands: I collected the emails of every studio I loved around the world and e-mailed my portfolio to all of them, asking them to intern there for the summer. I sent 60 e-mails, and 2 of them actually said yes!

   Things were now in my hands. I had the opportunity to go to Amsterdam or Mexico. I chose Mexico.

   The point is this: you don’t have to accept the choices presented to you as a given. Creating new opportunities for yourself is easier than you think, opportunities you would like better. When you take the initiative the power is in your hands.

   When I start a new project I can always go in one of two ways: ask the boss / client “what do you want me to do? where should I start? What is more important?” or I can actively come to them and tell them: “here’s what I think we should do, and here’s the first thing we should deal with”. Take a wild guess which option you will enjoy better? and where you will be treated more seriously?

   2. Goals

   There’s a quote I love: “It’s hard to score if you don’t know where the goal is”.

   The goal of managing yourself is not to “get more shit done”. Some people think that being productive means that at the end of the day there’s a huge crossed off to-do list. They get a lot of stuff done, but they still never get anywhere, and lots of times, doing all of this stuff doesn’t make them happier. So why bother being productive?

   More important than being productive, is being effective. Meaning to know that the things that you do are the right things, that matter for the project or your life. To be effective you have to know what your goals are.

   For me, for example, one of my goals is to have a good balance between my work & life. I really love my job, but it’s also super important to me to have time for my wife, my friends and the other stuff I like to do, like reading and… yes, sleeping :)

   This goal guides a lot of the decisions I make. It helps me decline certain job offers, or limit the amount of hours I work. Of course it’s not always 100% possible to reach that goal when I have some kind of work crisis, for example. But keeping that goal in mind pushed me to leave a job where these “crises” happened 3 times a week.

   3. Deadlines

   About 60 years ago, a wise guy named Parkinson defined a law: “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. He was damn right.

   Designers like to think that the more time they have for a project, the better – we can get a better result, refine the details and make the project shine. I don’t think that’s the case.

   Have you ever seen this graph before? I think it’s quite accurate:

   

   I love deadlines! They make you focus, and then deliver on a specific date. Problem is, they’re usually too long. That’s right, you heard me. You guys have too much time. That’s why you’re on Facebook half of your day.

   My solution in this case, is to ignore the client’s deadline, and create a new deadline for myself. Usually much shorter.

   The result is that I succeed tricking myself into a little panic mode: “OMG! I only got 2 hours to finish this project. I gotta work fast!!!”. And guess what? Turns out I can finish it in 2 hours, then I’m off to the beach, chilling with a book.

   When I was in design school, the norm was to pull off all-nighters almost every day so you can bring in “the best work”. Well, as I’ve said before, I value my sleep (and so does science), so I decided I’m not doing homework after 22:00. Whatever will be, will be.

   Obviously, since I couldn’t come to class empty handed. I had to bring something, even if it wasn’t “the best”. The result was that I had time to spend with my partner & friends, plus time to relax my mind. Those other guys? They’re still into the habit of working the night away, since if the deadline is tomorrow, they still have all night. But be sure that this is not a sustainable way to run your life.

   Important VS Urgent

   Here’s a concept I came across recently. It’s from this no-bullshit-best-seller “Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People”.
   Check out this table:

   

   Now try and imagine in which “zone” you spend most of your day? Is it in zones 1 + 3?

   In order to be effective and achieve your goals, and more importantly – be happy, it’s best to try and spend as much time as possible in zone number 2. That’s where you can find all the things that make you grow, develop relationships, improve your skills and get what you’re after.

   It’s not REALLY urgent that I sit down now and read a book, or go to the movies, or go on a date with my wife. But it’s super important. If I’m not gonna do that, eventually I’ll pay for it. You might think the project you’re working on right now is pretty important, but try to imagine what will happen if your partner will decide to leave you tomorrow? Will the project still look that important?

   If you’re not going to invest time in the things that really matter, you won’t do any progress.

   Managing yourself ain’t easy. It’s another one of those things that they don’t teach you in school, and that’s a shame, cuz it’s one of the more important skills in life. I always try to learn and get better at it. Hope you do too.