If you could follow JUST one person in your creative career…

Everybody needs a mentor.

Recently, I was asked who has had the greatest impact on my career?
Over the years, I have worked with some great and talented people, I’ve learned a lot from several of them, but I don’t think I can really name one person in the workplace that took me completely under their wing. Pondering the question, what I came to realize is that one of my main mentors is actually somebody in this business that I consider a friend. I haven’t worked with her at all. I’ve only met her face-to-face a few times but we’ve just had some great chats over the years and I’ve listened…to EVERYTHING she has to say.

What I learned a long time ago is that this business is not just about the work you create, but also about making the right connections and contacts. Whom you rub shoulders with can be as important to your career as your book. As I have mentioned in past articles, I have found full-time agency work by chatting up Creative Directors at an industry function with a glass of Scotch in my hand.

Social Marketing takes this networking to a whole new level. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. are like being at the cocktail party or award show reception 24/7.
You can introduce yourself to anybody. You can follow their words. You can have many mentors and follow many people.

I have no idea how and when I met Heidi Ehlers, but I knew from the moment I met her that this was one person I would stick close to the rest of my life. In the world of advertising and design (especially in North America), Heidi may possibly be the most important and knowledgable person you could ever know. A former creative herself, Heidi is the owner of BLACK BAG creative recruitment + career management. She’s not just a headhunter, she is THE headhunter. BLACK BAG is about creative talent. Finding creative talent, strategizing careers with creatives, studying what causes the best creative talent to be the best and what causes the hot shops to be hot.

I could go on about her “Diary of a Creative Director” series or “Camp Black Bag” workshops. I could write endless paragraphs about how inspiring she is when listening to her speak, or how many times she has been able to steer me in the right direction. But I will simply end this post with two little words of advice...

FOLLOW HER.

If I could only have one mentor in this world, or if I could follow just one person that I believe would be the greatest asset to my career, it would be Heidi.
I think you should be listening too.

On FACEBOOK: BLACK BAG creative recruitment + career management
On TWITTER: BLACKBAGtweets

Status Quo

Potential Client:

Hi Ronnie. We would like to use your creative services but we would like to see some ideas and concepts before we give you the go ahead.

Ronnie Lebow:

Sure. And since you are a Dental office (and I'm already here), lets go into the next room so you can whiten my teeth. If I like the results, maybe I'll agree to pay you.

Bald Media…a new launch.

Around a year ago, I was busy putting together a new guerilla marketing company that I believe is fantastic for trade shows and on-the-street product giveaways. In today’s digital world, anything on the street and in the public’s face is great exposure and my company sure does draw attention.

Bald models heads are airbrushed with a company brand, product or service and are unleashed on the unsuspecting general public. Imagine 5 guys walking through a packed shopping mall during the holiday season or handing out product samples at a trade show. People can’t help but look. It only makes sense that my company’s slogan is “heads that turn heads.”

Unfortunately, while I was putting it all together, an advertising agency in New Zealand came up with the same concept for a client, it made news, and I knew I had to act fast to launch the company. To top it off, a media journalist saw my ad online (searching for the models) and decided that it was an interesting story that simply couldn’t wait to be told. I had no choice but to work through the weekend and get everything ready for its Monday release.

The story broke and the phone started to ring. I had 3 gigs booked right out of the starting gate. I figured my company was going full steam ahead. That’s basically when the economy tanked and the projects quickly got pulled because the clients began to “trim the fat”. Bald Media was simply an extra touch. All the “extras” started getting cut out of the budgets from worried corporations.

I have several friends in the staffing and event planning industry and they saw the same thing with their businesses this year.
So I decided to stop focusing on promoting the company, and figured I would lay low only to launch again when the time was right.

With the economy now getting stronger, and the holiday and trade show season right around the corner, I believe there isn’t a better time to start promoting it than at this moment. Bald Media will get a company or message noticed. Especially to large captive audiences. It is not only a fact, it is guaranteed.

The procedure of application is also a crowd pleaser. Having the airbrush artist on-site at an event is an advantage as people will gather around to watch the logo/message being applied. In today’s world of limited attention spans, it is guerilla marketing at its finest. With over 25 models of different ethnicities in my roster, I’m ready to go.

To re-launch Bald Media, I teamed up recently with my airbrush artist and decided to do a test street run. We wanted to see what would happen and the timeframe involved in the application process. Since it’s my company and I shave my head (which is how I came up with the whole idea in the first place), it only made sense that I would be the guinea pig.
We did two artistic versions. One, a company logo for a potential client for the upcoming Canadian Poker Expo, and the other, a generic application for Bald Media.

Upon walking out the door and into the street, the results were unbelievable. I literally stopped traffic as cars slowed down to look at me. I had the airbrush artist grab the video camera and run way down the street to capture the reactions and results for posterity.

If it could generate this kind of response within minutes of being outside on a moderately quiet street, I can only imagine the exposure possibilities for a corporate brand in the right setting.

To watch the application video and street test run, please visit the site…

http://www.baldmedia.ca/baldmedia.mov

or on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-Wfsuywl4c

Who wants a job?

In my last blog post, I announced that it is time to Abandon Ship.

This did not mean that we should flee the industry, it meant that we need to abandon what we have done in the past and move forward in a new direction.

The design/ad freelance world as we knew it has changed. It is no longer about designing a logo and a fancy business card or producing an ad for your client. It is about offering them the best solution for their business, whatever it may be. A direct mail piece combined with social media or an outdoor billboard with a mobile promotional code, the freelance creative moving forward, needs to think and produce on a much larger scale. The way companies attract clients in the technological world of today has quickly changed.

With this in mind, I am no longer labeling myself as just a creative “freelancer”. I am a creative “brand builder”. In today’s world, if you want to work small and on your own, you need to get over the idea that you alone can offer your client everything they need to grow their business, and you sometimes need to outsource.

Growing up, I watched the older generation (in my life) do multi-million dollar deals on the golf course. They were strictly middle-men. They brought this guy together with that guy and got a piece of the action. I believe that in order to continue working as a freelance creative, we have to follow this route.

If my client needs SEO (Search Engine Optimization), I know somebody who I can bring on board to provide this service. If they need a TV or Radio commercial, I have people in place for that too. And I’m going to make sure that every one of these contacts will give me a piece of the pie for making the connection and bringing them the business.

Going forward, I will continue to do what I love best. Designing logos and creating ads, but I offer my clients more than that. This is what separates me from many “professional” creatives out there. When I am hired, I offer my clients consultation on what they should do (moving forward) to grow their brand. They hire me for my knowledge of the industry and the solutions that are available to them.

Using the same principle I have just described, I have a job offer for anybody that is interested.

Do whatever you like to do every day. Look for a job, paint your house, or spend more time with your kids. I’m offering each and every one out there a chance to make some money. And the best part, you don’t have to do much.

Bring me a client that wants to creatively brand their business and I will give you 15% of whatever profit I bring in. They need a logo? 15%. They need a magazine print ad? 15%. The bigger the project, the more money you will make.

Now here’s the best part…you make the connection, go off and do whatever you want (or even better, go find the next client), and if that client continues to use my creative services, I will continue paying you 15% of all future profit. Find me 3 large clients that are tired of paying over-inflated agency fees, and you may not even have to work this year. I have a rolodex full of freelance professionals in different areas of the industry that can be brought in (as needed) and the sky is the limit as to what we can offer.

I am offering you the position of a commission-based “virtual account executive”.

And everybody and their grandmother can do this job.

Go to a cocktail party and find out that the person you just met needs a new identity for their start-up company?

15%.

Go on vacation and find out that the resort changed owners and is looking to advertise?

15%.

My strategy is this. Why be a creative person who’s always busy looking for the next project when I can focus on working creatively and have thousands of people out there looking for my next project?

While you are out there looking, I’ll be doing the same. Sending clients that I can’t service on my own to others with which I have partnerships.

Everybody in the circle moving together as one large machine.

This is the future of freelancing.

Brand building.

Who’s on board?

Abandon Ship

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

- Bob Dylan


It has been a whirlwind of a week.
My blog post about the changing of the design industry "we have become cheap whores" has racked up the hits. Never could I have imagined this outcome when I wrote it.

I’d like to thank ISTOCK for their amazing timing this week. They almost single-handedly proved my entire point.

All the comments, forwarding of the article, tweets, and emails have been much appreciated.
So now what? As the song lyrics above say, it’s time to sink or swim.

With anything you need a game plan. You have to lay out the next course of action.
So I’ve begun doing so. Yesterday I met with an old friend of mine. We used to be DJs together way back when music was new and not “Old School” (as it is called today).
His internet company just made an impressive showing on “Profit” Magazine’s top 50 list, and I figured we should sit down together to discuss what is happening in the future of communications. What he showed me in our 2 hour meeting blew my mind and I feel like the days where I hosted a BBS site from my Commodore 64 should be included in the technological dark-ages.

Hopefully, you will follow along with me as I explore new tactics and options. I have places to go, people to meet, and things I must do in this industry and as my buddy instructed me, the first step is to sign up on “Twitter”. I’ve been avoiding it like the plague but if the guy who is considered a leader in online communications is telling me to start there, I’m listening.

Hopefully you will follow along.
http://www.twitter.com/ronnielebow

Come Monday I’m jumping in head first. The ship as I knew it (and many on it) is going down.

Swim with me.

Have a great weekend.

ISTOCK now sells logos?

I have a ton of work to do this morning. Yet here I sit, knowing that I must say SOMETHING in regards to ISTOCKPHOTO’s announcement that they will begin selling logos (for lower than standard pricing) sometime in the near future. I’m not even going to bother editing this one because of time restrictions, so if there are grammatical errors on this post, I apologize.

Just last week, I wrote my blog article “We have become cheap whores” and it is still being circulated around the world. I think my timing was quite good because after yesterday’s ISTOCK announcement, I saw it circulate again and we have some huge protests taking place from designers on both sides of the fence.

On one side, is the uproar from people that have made a handsome living over the years in this industry and understand a brand’s worth. On the other, people that welcome the fact that there is possibly a market for whatever they can produce. As one “designer” wrote on the site’s message board…

“WOW, Just GREAT. Now I have a reason to learn illustrator as I have been wanting to for some time”.

Nuff said.

After reading pages upon pages of comments from wannabe designers congratulating ISTOCK for this new endeavour, I realize that in the design world of today, true professional and passionate creatives have become the minority.

Now, here are some facts and questions as to why I sit on both sides of the fence on this idea.

I’ll start with the negative.

First is the most obvious. I charge my “friends and family” $2,000 for a logo.
For clients, I start at $2,500. And I have always been fairly busy. The reason I charge this rate is because I know a logo is NOT in the same category as clip art. In fact, I believe that a logo design is the hardest thing I can produce. I have been known to create award-winning ad concepts in one day, but for the new look of the dental office down the street, I like to give myself around 3 weeks. The client must be researched. I need to know what kind of clientele they are targeting. I need to know how they want to project themselves in the marketplace. I need to know many factors before I put pen to paper. And then I need to explore different avenues and ideas for the client. Often, a logo is born by making a move (while tinkering for days) with a design until I end up shouting “Eureka”. Then I do it all over again for the next concept. Is this whole process really only worth a few hundred dollars?

Remember when you were young, and you practiced your signature over, and over, and over again until you got it perfect? How much would you have paid to have somebody come up with that for you? What if I could give you a signature that got a WOW response everytime somebody saw it? How much would you have paid for that? This is what we do and why we charge more than a few hundred bucks for this creativity.

ISTOCK claims that you should submit your third round of logo revisions that the client rejected. This sounds great. Only there was probably a reason the client didn’t want it. In my mind, the fact that they paid me for my creative concepts means that by selling those concepts I have just cheated them. They paid me handsomely for the work, and now somebody gets to use what they threw away for a small fraction of the cost?

There are also possible trademark issues and the legal expenses that could be incurred to a company if they end up buying something that has been ripped off. You are a company owner, you buy a logo off the site, you create and pay for all the corporate materials to accommodate it, and the next thing you know, some designer in (insert country here) is suing you for ripping off their work. Seems the “designer” that submitted the logo to the site copied it. Now what?

Now we have the factor I fear most. The cheapening of what we do in the eyes of the public and the start-up company owner. “What do you mean you charge $2,500? My brother got a professional looking logo for $100 off one of those sites”. Our service will now be a much harder sell.

Here is why I like the ISTOCK logo idea…

I have created dozens of logos over the years. My clients generally get a minimum of 3 concepts. Sometimes, I give them more. So, lets say I have created 30 logos over the course of my career…that means I would have around 100 designs to submit to ISTOCK. Let’s say I tell ISTOCK to sell them at a maximum rate of $800 each. I get 50% of that (according to what I have read). $400 x 100 = $40,000.

$40,000 and I don’t have to do a damn thing. Like my ISTOCK photo uploads, I’ve already created them and they were just collecting dust anyway. Have I hurt professional photographers with my photo uploads? For one thing, unlike “designers” that will submit logos, I never claimed to be a professional photographer. This is where the difference lies. If my photo has some grain to it, the one downloading it takes that chance. What you see is what you get. As a professional Art Director, I have still hired my fair share of professional photographers for different photo shoots and I have still bought high-end photographs in the $2,500 range for some of my clients. I’m sure logo designs will work the same way.

If you are looking for a professional design, hire a professional. If you are looking for something to “make do”, go ahead and download from ISTOCK. Just don’t be upset when it comes around to bite you in the behind down the road.

What I find most interesting is that ISTOCK sells photos to designers and art directors like myself. Now, they are going to hurt the business of the very people they rely on to buy their photographs. I believe this is called "biting the hand that feeds you".

Here is my take. Sell it for what it is. There should be a biography beside every one of the logo designs on who is submitting them. If somebody (like myself) has an impressive background, qualifications, and numerous awards for their work, they should be allowed to price their designs at whatever they see fit. I may not sell as many designs but I am okay with that. Hopefully companies looking at my work will see that I took the time to create what they are buying. Not that I whipped something together to put a few dollars in my pocket. An amateur with no professional background should not be worth the same rate.

In the end, if the world changes, you can fight it or you can go along with it. I’m still undecided on this one. One thing I do know is this…

I may be a whore, but as I’ve said before, I’m not a cheap one.

Whore Aftermath

I went from writing absolutely nothing for a few months, to not stopping for 3 days. Updating the events from the first blog post, writing email replies to many, and speaking with a few design organizations and industry websites that have followed up.

To everyone that submitted comments and praise in regards to the article and the info it contained, I thank you.

This was never about me. I was merely pointing out facts. And after speaking to the RGD (who have really been amazing in regards to all of this), this isn’t about them either. They seem as genuinely concerned as we are, are investigating, and I for one commend them greatly for it.

This was about the state of our industry. This is about the freelance website that doesn’t care about standards or guidelines. They only care if they get a piece of the action. No matter how low it may sink.

This is about the employer in Toronto that believes $2.00/hour is fair pricing for what we do.

And most of all, this is about ALL of us putting our foot down.

Somebody said that we should form a union and I should be the Jimmy Hoffa of this industry (minus the unhappy ending to that story). And truth, if I knew I could change things for the better I would seriously consider it. But we all know this is not possible.

I could write a blog post (keeping names out of it). I could bring the situation to your attention and hope you get something from it. That was about it.

All of this has to do with you.

I have turned down many jobs this year (and lost several others) because I have stuck to my guns. I will continue to stick to my guns. I’m not interested in competing with those that feel that $2/hour is acceptable.
I poured a lot of sweat into getting to this point in my career and I’ll be damned if anybody is going to have me cheapen that. Make some concessions because it’s a rough economy? Sure. No problem. You need a logo, website, corporate materials and a direct mail postcard? I’ll throw in the postcard design for free. The rest will cost what I believe it is worth.

Why? Because if I’m not getting paid what it is worth, I’d sooner do something else.

So now what do we do?

Do we sign a petition stating that none of us will work below minimum wage?
Do we all agree on a standard pricing guidelines? The Graphic Artist’s Guild of America has a book like that.
Many don’t follow it.

As we discovered this week, even the organizations have their work cut out for them to regulate what their members are up to.

It’s entirely up to you as a professional creative.

Do you want to keep giving away your work or not?

If there isn’t anyone willing to do this cheap work, we’d all be in great shape again.

I’ll be the first name.

I solemnly swear as a professional creative to not cheapen our industry by working for wages (or contributing to anything) that I feel, de-values us as a whole.

I swear to keep up the fight.

Ronnie Lebow.