April 14, 2010

I’ve been wanting to write an article about the curse of procrastination for a long time. However, of course, I procrastinated about that so long, several other people have. Rather than just repeating what’s been said, I’ll point you to John Perry’s website, structuredprocrastination.com who, aside from summarising it all very well, also makes a valiant job of attempting to turn the whole thing to his advantage.

What interests me is the fact that procrastination is almost universal in people who are normally described as “creative types”.Why? Douglas Adams used to famously avoid having to write by having baths. Several a day, in fact. Apparently his publisher once commented that he never once managed to hit a deadline…but he always smelt really nice.

As designers, we are surrounded by some very dangerous distractions. Computers. The most tempting, time-sucking creations ever made are, by a cruel twist of fate, the very things we are also supposed to use to get our work done with.

I took games off my Mac years ago. It just had to be done. However, since then the internet has sneaked up on us. Facebook, Twitter, the hundred blogs you feel you need to keep up with. Email, iChat. All of these toys with their shiny, glossy icons inviting you to come and play, and all with built-in justifications: Facebook could be helping you meet your next client. Blogging is a great marketing tool. Email is easier than phoning someone. That retro video PhotoShop plugin you just spent ten minutes downloading will, if mastered be great for some job in the future. Probably.

But it’s not all computers. There are endless possibilities for analogue procrastination as well. Never is our office tidier or more organised than when a big project has just begun. Well – you need to clean up, clear a space, get organised for the new work. And go and get some crisps and chocolate to see you through. Maybe the skirting boards need levelling off a bit. A new shelf to put all the new work on. Anything, in fact, to avoid doing the actual work itself (which, of course will be great when it is done, so no need to worry, really).

Wikpedia has some really scary things to say on the subject. Phrases like “psychological disorder”, “mental health” and “low self-esteem” kind of made me decide to go and do something else and maybe read that page later.

My own theory is that creativity is somehow in need of a jump start which can only be achieved with a buildup of adrenalin. Designers need the utter terror of a looming deadline in order to kick into action whatever part of the brain that supplies us with the instinctive solution to a problem without all that tedious thinking and planning that normal people have to go through. Also the act of thinking of something completely unconnected to what you are supposed to be somehow allows a hidden part of your mind to work away undisturbed and to quietly deliver the answer – usually at the strangest of times.

You could say rather than a negative aspect, procrastination is practised by people who have a supreme confidence in their own abilities. People who know they’ll always think of something at the last moment and know enough about how their own heads work to just let it get on with it automatically.

Either that or creatives are just people who are good at working out the bare minimum of work needed to complete a task so they can fill the rest of the day on Facebook.

Who knows? Not me. Anyway, there’s a deadline looming here so, naturally, I’m just going to fill the screenwash up in my car and maybe go and buy some crisps.

January 7, 2010

As Martin’s just pretty much covered everything about the design side of 2009 in his last post I thought I’d add some thoughts about what went on business-wise.

2009 was a bit of a yin and yang year for us. We began by bucking the recession due to the fact we were building online shops and other non-print projects. However the print design side also saw an increase, although the jobs were smaller and mostly relating to clients’ websites. For example, short run flyers promoting web offers or corporate IDs for new businesses who were wanting a web presence over anything else. Businesses seem to be retreating to the web due to the flexibility and ease of updating what they are offering.

The later part of the year saw a massive increase in late and non-payment from clients – even ones we have worked for for years and considered friends. It seems that when times are hard loyalty becomes a casualty. My own role became more of a credit controller than a designer which had a knock-on effect on the time available to spend with our “good” clients and developing new business. We felt that by giving massively increased credit (although not out of choice) we were suddenly doing the job of the banks, who were in retreat from lending.

However, on the upside, in terms of new business, 2009 must go down as a record year for increasing our client base with a surprising amount of startups coming to us and also established companies looking for a change, or for better value from their creative partners.

I’d be interested to hear some feedback from others in the creative industries to see if we had similar experiences.

As for our direction in 2010, 2009 has laid the foundations for a slight shift in our approach to website building. Every site we built had some sort of content management element. It’s something you can’t escape from now. Unfortunately this makes it difficult to add sites to your portfolio as you’re never quite sure what the client has done to the site after you’ve “handed over the keys”. The majority of sites were based on WordPress (including this one) which has now matured from a blog system into something that can transparently run a normal-looking site…but with the added advantage of a massive amount of control for the owner.

We also built several online shops based on the Zen Cart and X-Cart systems as well as creating a couple of totally bespoke systems ourselves in-house for clients with specific needs. A significant development here has been the wider acceptance of PayPal as a payment gateway. As it can also process standard credit and debit cards it allows the site owner to avoid having to jump through the hoops of the banks and also to avoid the nightmare (and often prohibitive cost) of PCI compliance. The surge of online shopping is something we hope to continue taking advantage of, and I think I’m going to have to just bite the bullet and start using the words “cart” and “store” instead of “shopping basket” and “shop” to save time when customising (or should that be “customizing”) these American systems.

Final thoughts:

We got to love:

• Lazy loaders
• Fat footers
• SIFR
• JQuery
• WordPress
• FML
• Filthy Dukes

We got to hate:

• Rouge clients
• The continued existence of IE 6
• Courses on how to use Social Media to increase sales

Glad to see the back of:

• That crappy swirly / spirally / flowery illustration style that everyone likened to Art Nouveau but clearly wasn’t
• The paint-splat / run effect