1. Text that isn’t text.

Restaurant websites, I’m looking at you in particular. Scanning your paper menu and throwing it up on your website as an image file or a PDF is the equivalent of creating a door by drawing it in chalk on the side of your house. Never mind the fact that your SEO is going to hell, that it’s a pain to update anything, and it probably looks terrible. This is just a nightmare from a usability standpoint. This is pretty vital information, and locking it up in as an image means that the information becomes infinitely less accessible. Your users can’t copy-and-paste bits. It’s harder to see on a smartphone. They can’t resize the fonts if they can’t read something. It won’t conform to the available space, so they’ll probably be stuck scrolling back and forth, or they’ll miss your great deal on Kung Pao chicken.

It’s 2011. You can use almost any font you want in a website now. You can do amazing things with fine-tuned typography you couldn’t do three years ago. There’s no excuse for lazy-designer tricks like these. Text should be text.

2. Flash.

I’ve said it before, and lots of other people have said it before me, but it bears repeating. Don’t use Flash. Flash is slow-loading, doesn’t work on an iAnything, and generally is built quite badly. It generally crashes my browser these days (poor LazarusBook). Also, see above, and also below.

3. Stuff that sings, jumps, dances, or otherwise behaves like an over-excited puppy.

I’m the first to admit I’m a bit of a control freak, but most people don’t like it when you hijack their machines without asking first. I was visiting a website the other day that had the most obnoxious ad I’ve ever seen—five seconds after loading, this huge man appeared in the browser window and started talking at me. It was terrifying.

Most people know better than to load up their websites with giant-obnoxious-talking-man-ads, but there are many subtler examples of this. Links that open in new windows automatically (I’ll do this on my own if I want, thank you). Music and video that starts automatically (typically embarrassing people with speakers connected, and leaving me hunting around to find the offending site). 99.98% of animated gifs, banners, and ads. Let your users control how they interact with your website, or they’ll just leave.

You can repent all you want, but if your website sings at me, you’re damned to an eternity of animated fiery gifs. (Photo from a street corner somewhere in Rome.)

4. Ugly design.

My sister’s in library studies, and one of her prerequisites is a “web design” course. I told her she could save the $500 that credit probably cost her, and I could teach her the whole thing in ten seconds. Hire a web designer. This isn’t a self-serving statement. I don’t care (much) if you hire me, or if you hire some other competent designer. You can’t learn design from a three-month course. There’s all sorts of crazy complicated stuff, both technical and aesthetic, that goes into design. The reason most people don’t understand this is because good design is like a great push-up bra: it supports and enhancing its content without overpowering it. In theory, you’re not supposed to notice it. But it makes a huge difference.

5. Bad code.

Your website should be standards-compliant, semantically coded, and easy to update. If your web designer/developer doesn’t understand what these things mean, hire someone else. Surprisingly enough, there are still websites using tables. And frames. And inline boxes. Remember that internet years are like dog years, except longer, and that developers need to be constantly learning new stuff in order to make great websites. Make sure you hire someone who knows what they’re doing from a technical point of view, and you’ll end up with a website that performs far better—in terms of page speed, browser compatibility, and search engine rankings—than you would otherwise.

6. Business-speak.

A website is not a brochure. Most people reading online have the attention spans of drunk goldfish. Keep things short and scannable and people are more likely to read what you’ve written (says the woman who regularly writes 1000+ word blog posts). Stop using business-newspeak to make yourself sound more important. People no longer care about that sort of thing (unless they’re in government, in which case, aim for as dry and nap-inducing as possible). The internet is a scary place, full of fraud and Nigerian princes. Speak with a voice that’s genuinely yours and people will be more inclined to trust you.

7. It’s broken.

About three years ago, I bought a box of something from a certain unnamed food company with initials in their name. I’ve never bought anything from them since, but they gave me a card and a number at the time and signed me up for their mailing list. When I tried to unsubscribe, their website demanded that I submit both my email address and the number on the card that I’d never used and had lost. I put up with their irrelevant weekly mailings for some time until I finally found my card and unsubscribed.

When I did, their website told me it would take ten days to remove my address. Really? Ten days? Is your database maintained in a notebook or something? That’s utterly ridiculous. The best part was that after two weeks, they were still emailing me, and I had to send a long, cranky email explaining how broken their system was and that I really should be able to unsubscribe without putting as much effort into it as one typically does when getting a divorce. (They never responded, but I haven’t received any more emails—yet.)

This is a more minor example, but I’ve seen lots of websites that are broken in more major ways. Contact forms fail and there’s no fallback email address. Shopping carts that don’t check out. Validation routines that maintain “Buenos Aires” is not a city in Argentina (I lived there. Trust me, it is.) Test your websites, make sure they work, and fix them if they’re broken.

Jesus died for your sins, not so that you can throw the word “synergy” around like it’s going out of style. (Photo from Tierra Santa, the religious theme park in Buenos Aires. Don’t worry, Jesus later rises, in giant animatronic style, from the hilltop.)

So hire a designer already, and save yourself for the sins you can really take pleasure in.

1. Get strategic.

Before doing anything else, you need to sit down and figure out what you want out of your website. The more clearly defined your goals are, the easier it will be for your designer, your copywriter, and you to direct the project in order to meet these goals. “I want to promote my company” isn’t a clearly defined goal! You should be thinking instead about who your audience is and what you want them to take away from the website. Do you want them to interact with it? Buy products? Send you a quote request? Come back every week to read your blog? Consider how you want them to react, feel, and interact with your website, and you’ll be closer to having clearly-defined goals.

If you’re having difficulty defining these goals, it may be helpful to work with a strategic consultant, who’ll bring an outside perspective to the project. Anyone outside of your business will see it in a very different light than you do, which will help you to get a better grasp of what your users are thinking.

2. Evaluate what works—and what doesn’t—in your current website

This is the time to be brutally honest. If your CEO designed your website five years ago, you shouldn’t be afraid to tell him it stinks—if I designed your website five years ago, feel free to tell me it stinks! I won’t be offended, it’s probably true. Five years is more like thirty in internet years, and most businesses—and people—will have changed considerably in that span of time. Once you’ve realized it’s time for change, you need to be frank in your assessment of what’s in place now.

Look at design, SEO, content, and ease-of-use (both for you in updating the site, and for your customers in using the site). Ask anyone who’ll tell you what they think. Spend a few hours poring over your Analytics to see how users are interacting with the site. Better still, drag someone in from off the street, sit him down with your site, and hover over his shoulder while he looks through it. You’ll most likely infuriate him, but it’s incredibly useful to actually watch how someone parses your site, and you’ll get an idea of what gets read—and what gets ignored—as well as any elements of the site that are currently causing confusion.

The Alliance for Community Trees website, before and after. The logo was retained, and we used the same basic colour scheme. The end result was that returning users didn’t feel as though they’d landed on some other site accidentally, and they welcomed the change.

3. While you’re at it, seriously consider your branding.

If you’re redesigning your website anyway, it may be a great time to consider redesigning your logo and branding as well. A gorgeous, well-thought-out redesign is going to have limited impact if your logo sucks. When redesigning, you often don’t necessarily want to rebuild everything from the ground up—you’re best off taking what’s there and subtly changing it to make it better. A great way to do this is to change the structure and graphic elements, but retain the same (or similar) colour scheme and typography. This way, it won’t be so jarring to return visitors as it would be if you were to rebuild everything from scratch. Basically, the more established your business is, the more established your branding will (or at least should!) be in your customers’ eyes. This means you’ll need to make more subtle changes to avoid alienating your clientele.  Realign, don’t redesign.

The DVD Edge website, however, had a less established brand and a less strong logo, so we were able to play with the logo a bit. Keeping the overall image means that it’s still not such a dramatic change, but redrawing it to be a little cleaner and more modern made it stronger.

4. Consider a CMS.

I feel like I extoll the virtues of WordPress a lot, but it’s seriously fantastic. If you’re already revamping your website, and you’d like a way to manage your content more easily, I’d recommend getting the whole thing built in WordPress (or another CMS that suits your needs). While you’re at it, you can also add a blog to the site, which is great for bringing in traffic, boosting search engine results, building valuable content, and increasing conversation with your users. Static websites are out. Websites you can update easily and quickly the moment someone sends you a glowing testimonial are in.

5. Work on your content first.

I’m willing to bet that your content could be better. If you can’t write it yourself, hire someone. Great content is every bit as important as great design, and if you’ve already got great content plotted out, a great designer will be able to work with it in order to make the whole thing come together nicely.

Fernwood Publishing went for a complete overhaul and a custom-build CMS, while they were at it. The end result is a sleek, easy-to-use website that allows them to manage their large inventory of titles.

Consider the voice of your website—too many sites read like brochure copy written ten years ago by someone with an MBA. If your audience is other people with MBAs, that’s fine, but chances are, your audience is just put off by buzzwords. If you speak to them in an honest and friendly way, you’ll find your audience is much more receptive, engaged, and more likely to hand over their money to you.

6. Hire great people, and let them do their jobs.

Who you hire for the project is up to you, but I recommend at least a designer—obviously! A copywriter and a strategic consultant, as mentioned earlier, will also be a great help. When you’re looking to hire someone, you obviously want to be sure they’ve got a great website already. Unfortunately, while many people in the website-making industry suffer from pretty severe cases of “carpenter’s house”, their websites are the best way for you to determine their abilities. Past projects, of course, are also quite telling, as are client testimonials. Once you’ve found someone that seems like they may be good, send them a few emails. Ask questions. Make sure that they respond within a reasonable timeframe, answer your questions to your satisfaction, and know what they’re talking about.

Then, hire these great people. Send them your strategic plans, your content, everything you’ve already worked on—and let them build you something great. Design is very much a collaborative process, and a good designer should lead you through the process, keeping your goals in mind at all times, making suggestions for improvements. Remember you hired these people for a reason, and you should be able to trust their professional guidance! If you allow the process to play out like a partnership, rather than a dictatorship, you’ll find yourself with a much stronger end result.

And I recommend that you hire Triggers & Sparks.

The first website I ever built, as a graduated professional, cost my client a whopping $300. I wish I could say I was sixteen when I did it, but I was twenty-two, working a full-time job and freelancing on the side. Looking back, it’s no surprise when my first year of business after quitting my job landed me in debt. I’ve always had a policy of keeping my expenses as low as possible, but charging $20 an hour simply didn’t cover such non-tax-deductible necessities as “eating on a daily basis”.

When I first started out, my biggest mistake, bar nothing, was charging too little. My intentions were good—I wanted to save my clients money, and I wanted to provide quality design for a low price. What I failed to realize, of course, was that would become a difficult task when I quit my day job to run my business full-time. Sure, my clients were happy, but I was broke, overworked, and stressed out.

A street corner in the pretty, but expensive (by South American standards) Colonia del Sacramento. I could make a convoluted effort to make this relevant, but it isn’t really. It’s mostly here for decoration, and because I mentioned Uruguay.

The result, of course, was burnout. I suffered from burnout for years. But it wasn’t just me who suffered: my clients, too, paid the price. They may have been paying bargain-basement prices for their websites, but, in all honesty, the customer service and attention to detail just wasn’t there. And of course it wasn’t; I simply didn’t have the time or energy to devote to simple tasks like answering emails in an expedient manner, or ensuring that files were properly error-corrected and everything was done to as high a quality standard as I would like.

These days, I charge more. I’m open about telling my clients that I’m not the cheapest option. Graphic design is competitive, and there’s always people willing to design a website for $300. I’m no longer one of them for a few reasons:

• If I’m doing work at a lower rate, I need to take on more projects at a time. I used to have ten to fifteen projects on the go at any time, but now I try to keep that number under six. Fewer projects mean I’m more focused, more efficient, and the overall turnaround time is drastically reduced.
• Charging more for a project means that I can spend more time on it. I work faster now than I used to, of course, but I also spend more time on the details. Cheap design work cuts corners. Unless you’re living off a trust fund, or in your parents’ basement, this is unavoidable.
• In order to truly compete on price—without eschewing the basics like costs of living and sanity—you need to be a huge company. Ultimately, a one-person-shop simply doesn’t have the resources to make this work.

Ultimately, I’d rather give my clients a high quality product and great customer service than a cheap price. As I’ve switched to doing higher quality work at a higher price, both myself and my clients have become happier. The people who choose to work with me don’t choose me because I’ve given the cheapest quote—they choose me because they care about their businesses and they realize that great design is an important part of their success.

When you market yourself this way, you’re using love, rather than price, as a measurement of worth. It’s the difference between Walmart and Apple. Both companies are hugely successful, but I can’t imagine there are a lot of people who have fond feelings for Walmart. In a market where we often feel as though big companies just don’t care, the benefit of being a small business is that you can really connect with your customers. If you care for them, they’ll care for you. When you charge a decent price, you can provide a better product. With a better product, your clients will be happy. Everyone wins!

So charge more. And unless you’re a massive conglomerate, stop competing on price. You can’t beat out the companies who outsource. Instead, make the highest quality product you possibly can and give great customer service. Compete for your clients’ love.

A quiet street in Montevideo.

Pretty and/or interesting things

Jewel House Collection: Gorgeous pattern, and it resonates nicely with my new infatuation with English royals around the time when they liked chopping heads off willy-nilly.

Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang: The font’s a bit overused and inelegant, but the titles are otherwise rather charming and lovely.

Stunning NYC Subway Station Hidden From Plain Sight, Until Now: My love for subway systems knows no bounds. I thought Grand Central was NYC’s piece de transit resistance!

Infographic of the Day: What the Bible Got Wrong: The short answer is “everything”.

Inside Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Unmakeable” Interactive Book: Remember real books?

Sixty-two Reasons Why “Gamification” Is Played Out: More arguments against FourSquare!

How to Bribe Police in Foreign Countries: Something I’ve always been curious about, and will almost invariably at some point need to know.

Nocturnalis / Durinalis: More gorgeous wine packaging.

Turns out, it *is* a river in Egypt: Utterly gorgeous view of Africa from space.

In Real Hot Sauce Now: I need to find this girl and marry her.

Design

Gender Disparities in the Design Field: I wasn’t actually aware there were any, although it becomes rather obvious the more technically-inclined you are. Is it Lady Ada Lovelace day yet?

Equal Height Column Layouts with Borders and Negative Margins in CSS: I am almost certain this will come in handy soon.

Quick Tip: Using Nested Styles with InDesign: Holy crap, this is going to save me SO MUCH time.

Learning to Love HTML5: Because I already know how to love SmashingMagazine.

You Suck at Powerpoint!: Tips for better-looking presentations.

Business

Are You a Freelancer Or a Consultant?: An issue I’ve been thinking about a good deal of late.

Handling Clients Who Just Aren’t That Into You: My clients love me, so of course this is never an issue.

Sometimes everyone really is happy, and the end result is beautiful and usable and made of design-love. Other times, though, one of us is going to end up miserable, and the design can end up so off-target, messy, awkward, or downright ugly, that your designer won’t put it in his portfolio. That’s a bad scene. In order to make the feedback process as efficient as possible, I’ve rounded up a few tips from years of going through this process with a rather substantial number of clients—of both the dream and the nightmare variety.

1. Don’t micro-manage…

This is, bar none, the fastest way to quash your designer’s spirit. I’ve gotten to the point where, if I suspect someone’s going to micro-manage me, I’ll walk away from the project. It’s one thing to give your opinions; it’s another thing to tell me exactly what to do. Usually when this happens, I’ll argue for a bit, citing rational reasons why the particular edit isn’t a good idea and backing my objections up with stuff I’ve learnt in school or elsewhere about design theory. The micro-manager client generally knows better, and eventually my spirit dies, and I become an unskilled, untrained monkey who happens to own a copy of Photoshop. “You want that font in 60pt lime green Comic Sans for your investment banking brochure? … fine.” If I’m not arguing with you, you’re not getting my best design work.

2. …but don’t macro-manage, either.

The converse of this, of course, is the client who says “just do whatever you feel is right.” In theory, that would be lovely, except that I always feel as though I’m cheating these clients out of really getting what they want from the work. You have an opinion; I’d like to hear it. I want you to be happy with what you get out of the process, and I really can’t read your mind (yet)!

3. Be specific.

Design is highly subjective. You can tell me that you don’t like something, but I oftentimes don’t know how to fix it for you—chances are good that I put it there because I like it, after all! What element don’t you like? Is it the type style, the colour, the juxtaposition of elements, the spacing between those two lines?

Snarkiness courtesy of the charming (and sometimes rather gruesome) the Oatmeal.

It’s true, designers do often need to design from a feeling and other vague, hard to define concepts. While it’s true that it’s our job to translate an immaterial concept into a material(ish), visible entity, the more specific you can be, the easier it’s going to be for us to figure out what you want. Which leads me to my next point:

4. Know what you want.

If you don’t know what you want, there is no way in hell I will ever figure it out.

5. Realize that design is about solving problems.

Not like “world hunger” sort of problems, but visual problems. You’ve got something you want to communicate to your audience, and you need it to be easy to read, and to communicate your brand messages, and to make the audience feel a certain way. You want to be able to lead them into bits of information, guiding them through your information in a very particular manner. While I often trivialize design by saying “I make pretty things” (which is true), I also make stuff that works, and stuff that takes into consideration your goals for the project.

Therefore, when I make suggestions for ways we could make the overall design better, take them into consideration. If I don’t immediately do everything you ask for, this is because I’m keeping your aims and needs in mind, not because I’m obstinate. (I mean, I am, but that’s something altogether different.) To make a design truly great, we need to work together to solve your problems—that means that I need to listen to your feedback, and you need to consider my advice.

6. Never, never, ever use the phrase “you’re the designer.”

In theory, this would mean that you trust my decisions, value my input, and recognize that, since I’m a professional that you’re paying to do this work, I must know what I’m doing. In actuality, it means that you’re going to be the epitome of a Difficult Client: you’ll constantly say the designs I present to you are no good, but you won’t give any concrete explanations of why; you’ll insist that I make every single tiny, micro-managing alteration you request, then complain when the design starts to erode and the whole thing ends up a giant mess; and you’ll ignore all of my advice and opinions.

This makes me crazy.

I’ve never felt the need to hire a designer, what with being one myself, but I’ve certainly been hired by lots of people who are looking, and I’ve also heard all sorts of nightmare-designer stories from my clients. (Yep, for every client from hell, there’s also a designer from hell.)

Here’s what I’d do!

1. Look at his portfolio!

Above and beyond anything else, this will give you an idea of what you might be able to get from a designer. Obviously, your results will vary (you, as the client, are an integral part of the design process), but you’ll be able to get a feel for a designer’s style and abilities from his portfolio. If a designer doesn’t have a portfolio—well, quite frankly, this shouldn’t even be possible. If you’re looking to hire a designer who doesn’t have a portfolio or a website, there’s something amiss.

2. Ask around.

Ask your friends for recommendations. Most good designers subsist almost entirely on word-of-mouth, and with good reason! If you know people who’ve hired a designer, chances are they’ll be happy to refer you so long as they had a good experience. You can also check the bottom of websites whose design you really like—most of the time, there’ll be a link to its designer in its footer, and you can go from there.

3. Ask questions.

And lots of them! Does he write his code by hand? Does he follow W3C standards? How long has he been in business? The more questions you ask, the more comfortable you’ll feel when it’s time to start working. This will also give you the opportunity to see how your designer communicates, so make sure that if you plan on doing most of your communications during the project via email, you are asking questions over email. If you’ve found a great designer who can’t communicate, you will run into problems down the road.

4. Find out about his process.

Every designer follows a slightly different process, but for best results, you’ll want someone who will give you a lot of input into the process. Ideally, a designer should start by asking you some questions about your marketing aims and aesthetic preferences. Then, they’ll provide you with a few different mockup options. You’ll then go through a few stages of back-and-forth feedback-and-revision cycles, until you land on a fine-tuned result that’s exactly what you’re looking for. This process assures you a custom result—which is why you’re hiring a designer instead of buying a template, right?

5. Be prepared for it to cost a lot, or for them to be booked.

Sometimes good designers are cheap, but, for the most part, as with everything, you tend to get what you pay for. Design takes time and expertise. Good designers are in demand, which means they’ll either be booked solid constantly, or they’ll need to charge more. While a cheap quote may seem great in the beginning, it generally means that you’ll get less attention and more corners will be cut. If you don’t care if your website works in all browsers or isn’t search engine friendly, perhaps that’s a good thing, but if you want a quality result, expect to pay more.

6. Do some sleuthing.

Check professional qualifications—memberships in design organizations like the GDC are great, especially when they involve a portfolio review, so you’re guaranteed a certain level of professional quality and ethical service. Google your chosen designer to see what comes up. Try his business name, as well. Search Twitter. Creep his Facebook page. You can learn all sorts of things about someone from the internet, and it’s best to do a little research beforehand. Ideally, you won’t find anything fishy, but if you do—ask.

7. Super bonus tip!

Hire me! I’ve been working like a fiend all week, I’ve got a couple of projects coming to a close, and I think it’s about time for some new, exciting projects. Also, you already know I’m a great designer.

I will, instead, be using the fabulous IE6 Update script on all of my websites. (There’s even a WordPress plugin. It’s going to be so simple, it’ll almost be automatic. In fact, if you run a WordPress site, could you just run out an install it, right now? I just did. It feels good.) I won’t even bother trying to check what I’ve created in IE6 any more (though I’ll admit I didn’t often).

According to Netmarketshare, almost 17% of the internet still uses IE6. That’s utterly insane, given that IE6 is nine years old, three versions out-of-date, and famed for being the scourge of the internet. If you’re bored one day, sit a web designer/developer—or whatever hybrid you prefer—down and mention IE6. I can almost guarantee you’ll get a frustrated or sickened face, and maybe a string of expletives, if you’re really lucky.

I came across this wonderful article called Stop Developing for IE6 that lays out a number of excellent arguments for the cessation of the practise, primarily:

1. It’s saving you money.

Because developing websites that work properly in IE6 requires more work, it costs more money to make a website that works. My new policy, then, will invoke a surcharge for IE6-compliant sites. And I really, really, really hate even looking at IE6, so it’s going to be a lot.

2. It’s making the internet better.

Most of the problem is due to the fact that developers used hacks in order to make sites that behaved properly in IE6. This meant that their code didn’t follow best practises, because it had to resort to hacky methods in order to trick IE6 into displaying its content properly. Continuing with these practises holds the web development community back.

3. Even Microsoft actively wants it negated.

This is more true now, with IE9 in the works. Microsoft’s been trying to rid the universe of its deformed little creature for years, and there’s really no reason to update. Typically, the rationale that has been used (and that still is used, especially in government and other large organizations) is that some proprietary internal sites are built only to support IE6, which is a whole other problem in itself. These organizations really ought to invest the money into fixing their systems—they’ve over five years old, anyway, so it’s probably high time for an update. If they can’t, it’s entirely possible to run multiple versions of IE on one machine, and it’s even easier to use IE6 only for internal hacky sites, and use Firefox, Chrome, or any of the other well-built modern-day browsers for everything else.

So I’m decided. It’s high time. No longer will I bend to the reign of tyranny that was IE6. And I’m going to spend as much energy as I can encouraging everyone I know to upgrade their browsers, move to better browsers, or generally get on board with Not Being a Part of the Problem anymore.

Are you using IE6? Please upgrade.

I’m glad I’ve finally figured out how to keep things balanced, at least a little—I remember one summer when I was on an internship, and I was so deep in workaholicism I didn’t go out at all. Summers here are so brief, it’s nice to be able to enjoy them! I actually have a suntan (although very few people believe it—basically I’m just “less glow-in-the-dark white) and have been running around doing summery things in spite of having spent nearly the last three months with my arm in a fibreglass cage. (It comes off in six days! I am keeping a countdown, written in Sharpies, on the cast itself.)

I was so proud when I got this background to work. It’s made of three different pieces and a lot of prayer.

Eventually, I’ll update my website with some new projects. There are lots of things I’ve done in the last little while that won’t make it to my portfolio, of course, and some larger projects that are still very much in-progress, but here’s an idea of a few things I’ve polished off recently:

• a monster of a website, comprising around 4,500 Movable Type entries: actrees.org
• a WordPress website (and business cards) for appliedlogic.ca
• a logo, hangtag, business card, and website (almost finished!) for nightmarenibbler.com
• steppinguphalifax.ca (more WordPress)
• another WordPress website for an author: heartofthedreaming.com

Actrees, in particular, left me a lovely client testimonial for my giant list of client-love:

Triggers & Sparks revamped our website with a clean, fresh look that made navigation much easier for users and revealed the wealth of content we had created. We’ve received many compliments from our nationwide network of members. (“Great job, love the look, easy navigation on the new website!” “Far better format! Congratulations!”)
With her technical know-how and design vision, Sarah created a website that surpassed expectations, all within budget. Our website is now the public face that we want representing our organization.

I would rather not admit how long this website has been in production for, but suffice to say, I am NOT a fan of Movable Type. However, I am a fan of the client, which (mostly) overrides any frustration. And, surprisingly, I’m still rather pleased with the design.

Now, whenever I finally get some spare time, I might actually get around to updating this website—it’s starting to suffer from “cobbler’s children” syndrome again. Honestly, I love being busy, and I love the feeling that my business is doing well, but I’d like to feel like I’ve got things under control again. Hopefully, that’ll happen soon, without my needing to resort to Extreme Workaholic Behaviour!

A few years ago, before I quit my job to launch a business, I had my logo tattooed to my shoulder blade. (And actually, I haven’t been tattooed since—I’ve run out of strategic body space!) People thought I was insane. “What happens if your business tanks?” was the popular question.

Of all the tattoos I’ve had done, I’m furthest from regretting this one. Admittedly, my business didn’t tank, but I don’t think it would have made much difference if it had. It’s impossible to start a business without having it become a major event in your life—to me, tattooing my logo to my shoulder was no crazier than the people who tattoo their kids’ names to themselves. (And it’s certainly less crazy than those who tattoo their lovers’ names on themselves. As far as I can tell, my business will never leave me for a younger woman or run away with all my money. I hope.)

I’m convinced that having my business logo tattooed to my shoulder makes me more rock & roll. Also, it totally counts as advertising and I should have thought to have written off the cost as such.

And actually, of all my tattoos, there isn’t a single one I regret. Some of them have decorated my body for nearly ten years, and I still love them as much today as I did when I first had them done. I think that I am, to a certain degree, lucky in that respect—where a tattoo is such a permanent decision, I can’t imagine how horrible it must be to regret such a choice.

There are very few decisions in life that have similar permanence, and as a general rule I try to avoid making those decisions. I’m kind of a commito-phobe simply for that reason—I absolutely abhor regret, and I work best when I feel that I have the flexibility to move halfway across the earth, change my name to “Ginger”, and start a banana farm if that’s what needs to happen for whatever reason.

However, most people don’t work this way. Most people make decisions that have similar gravitas as getting tattooed: they get married, buy houses, sign cell phone contracts. While none of these things are necessarily permanent (and neither are tattoos, in the same sense), reversing the decision after it’s been made is almost always a painful, arduous process.

It strikes me that, given the number of people running around these days getting divorced and getting laser surgery, these decisions-of-some-permanence simply aren’t being given the consideration they demand. It surprises me how often people go into a tattoo parlour and pick something off the wall. Or they sit in the chair and tell the tattoo artist to do “whatever he feels like”. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a permanent part of your skin now, for the rest of your life, and wherever you are, people will ask you questions about it. Doesn’t that require more forethought?

My little sister and her chaos star, designed by me. She also had me design another tattoo that the artist screwed up by using the wrong fonts AND misspelling “Fahrenheit”, but we don’t like to discuss it.

Every time I want a new tattoo, I spend ages sketching out the shapes first. When I’ve got that right, I put it into Illustrator and trace it, smoothing out the lines until everything’s just so. Then I print it out in about thirty different sizes, just to see which one I like best. Finally—and this may seem like overkill—I take the printout and glue the damned thing to my body, just where I want it, and leave it there for a few days, just to be sure I like it. A little anal-retentive? Probably. Effective? Hell yes. I’ve got no regrets, and I’m a happier woman for it.

So for everyone out there considering a butterfly tattoo, or a flaming skull, please, please, think twice. Design something yourself, or ask your most idle-seeming designer friend to design you something wonderful. (Oh, and to the two people in my life to whom I still owe tattoo designs—I swear I’m on it!) This double for marriage and mortgage, and any other decision that implies an ink-on-skin level of permanence, like starting a business. Regrets are for the birds. Do without.

(Oh, and if you’re curious, you can see my tattoo designs on Flickr! Being a designer is a way cool job, I know. I’m a lucky lady.)

We spend so much time complaining about the bad clients that it’s sometimes easy to overlook the good clients. Lately, I’ve been working with a few really great clients, and I’ve been so happy because of it. Where a bad client can make you feel as though you’re losing your soul, a good client reminds you of why you fell in love with design in the first place and makes you feel as though you’re doing a good job. It’s the sort of warm-fuzzy feeling I associate with boys who bring me flowers and strangers complimenting me on my shoes.

Winning your designer’s love, regardless of any other factors, will mean that you will receive a level of service and quality that surpasses that most Troublesome Clients receive. When I love a client and feel that my client respects me as a professional, I invest more of my mental energies into their project. A good client makes you want to do an amazing job, where a bad client experience will often just make you want to finish as fast as possible and get the heck out.

So, how do you go about making sure you’re the greatest client ever, and ensuring your designer feels as passionate about your project as you do? Here, a few tips culled directly from my Dream Clients:

1. Pay your bills as fast as humanly possible.

Nothing says “you’re not worth much to me” like a leisurely bill payment. Freelance designers suffer so much stress about unpaid bills and cash flow—it’s hard when you don’t have a regular stream of income—that late-paid bills are a major problem.

I have one client in particular who sends me a full payment, via electronic means, within 24 hours of receiving an invoice. Every time it happens, I am utterly delighted. The rapid work-reward cycle means that I feel more compelled to finish work rapidly, knowing that I’ll be rewarded immediately upon completion. If, on the other hand, it takes more than a month to put a cheque in the mail (there is a due date on there, you know!), I’m going to feel much less inclined to speed through the project.

Freelance designers are not the power company—if you don’t pay us, we can’t eat (or buy pretty shoes)! Pay your bills promptly, please.

2. Know what you want.

It’s your designer’s job to gently guide you and to help you figure out what you want, then create a visual representation of your needs. If you approach a project without knowing what you want, the whole process goes to hell. Essentially, if you don’t know what you want—and you don’t need to have every detail planned out, but you do need a rough idea—I can’t figure out how to build it for you. It’s like if you were to hire an architect to design you a house; you’d want to figure out how many bathrooms you want before asking for blueprints.

Beware the phrase “you’re the designer”, as in “Well, you’re the designer, you figure it out!”. While I think usually this is used with good intentions, it will make the vast majority of designers cringe. To us, it sounds like you’re saying “you’re the magician!” (See also: “Can’t you just Photoshop that?” Design is not magic; Photoshop is not a magic button. It’s mostly work, training, and lots of patience.)

3. Understand that I probably know what I’m doing (and that’s why you hired me, right?)

This directly contrasts the “well, you’re the designer!” mindset, and clients usually tend towards one extreme or another, where a balance is really preferable. A micromanaging client, however, will almost always be less popular than a hands-off client. This is an almost guaranteed way to make your designer want to throw himself off the nearest bridge, skyscraper, or touristy landmark.

Of course, there’s a fine line between giving feedback and micro-managing. How to tell the difference? If you’re into the sixth round of revisions, and all the revisions read something like so: “Make the logo 40% bigger, and move it 3 inches to the right. Make the text all white, and the background purple. Headings should be right-aligned and in 4pt red Comic Sans. Can we add a few animated gifs throughout the page in order to make it ‘pop’?” (Please note: often these sorts of phrases are then followed by “Well, you’re the designer! Can’t you just make it look better?” and then repeated ad nauseum until all gadgets that receive email or phone calls are smashed into little bitty pieces.)

Remember: you hired your designer (I hope!) because you think they do great work and know what they’re doing. They’ve probably been building websites longer than you. While ultimately the final judgement call is yours, realize that a good designer will work with you to give you a final product that both suits you and your business and looks good. Remember that we have your best interests in mind, and give us enough freedom to create something beautiful for you.

4. Communicate effectively.

The client-designer relationship is much like any other relationship: emotions are involved, everyone’s a little nervous to begin with, you need to make sure everyone’s happy and nobody’s being taken for granted, etc. This is why, of course, good designer-client relationships generate brilliant work, and bad ones leave all parties unhappy. So, like with any other relationship, good communication is vital. Make sure you’re being clear about how you feel and what you want, and treat your designer with respect and consideration. (This means no phone calls at 2am, no matter how dire you think the emergency is, right? In theory, I am sleeping then.) Your designer needs your feedback in order to know that they’re on the right track—make sure that you can give useful, constructive feedback in a timely manner.

And when all else fails, sending presents works, too. I once had a client who mailed me a box of chocolate brownies when my computer died, in order to “aid the recovery process”, and another client who made me a heart-shaped chocolate cake. Chocolate generally engenders love and loyalty, but really, all that’s required is a polite thank you for a wonderful job, and I’ll move mountains for you.