An article titled Substance over Style by our Design Director Mark Busse was recently featured in the latest issue of Business In Vancouver’s Adpages Magazine about how businesses can more effectively attract, evaluate and select a design partner. The article (reproduced below) argues that procurement strategies such as RFPs can produce unrewarding outcomes and offers some tips and guidance for businesses seeking a relationship with creative firm.

Substance over style: How to find the best design partner for your business
by Mark Busse

With graphic communications increasingly recognized as critical to success, it’s important to find the right design firm for your company.

Yet many in business struggle to attract, evaluate and select design partners. One might hire friends or family, while another might create a contest with a prize for the selected submission. Many others rely on archaic requests for proposals (RFPs) for transparency and objectivity in arriving at competitive pricing. The resulting relationships can be as unrewarding as the outcomes.

Is there a better way?

Seek help in your search

Recommendations from within your own industry or from design experts will almost always be more effective than online searches or RFPs. Consult with design associations on identifying qualified candidates from their certified ranks. Are the candidates thought leaders in design, respected by industry, peers and clients? Or consider delegating the search to a marketing consultant with experience procuring and managing design.

Look beyond portfolios

In addition to evaluating a design team’s portfolio, investigate the company’s skills in business and project management. Don’t judge only on æsthetics or descriptions of process. Challenge candidates to express what was behind their design choices and how their particular approaches solved clients’ problems. Visit their studios and speak to them in person to judge fit. You needn’t become friends, but you should share similar perspectives, goals or ethics and enjoy collaborating together.

Ask for case studies and testimonials

Request comprehensive case studies that outline goals, context, and approach to reveal whether processes are results-driven. Ask for testimonials or contact information for specific clients. If candidates don’t willingly offer these, move on.

Who will do the work?

Investigate each firm’s current employees and in-house capabilities. How many long-term, full-time designers do they employ? How much design or development do they farm out, and are they transparent about this? Inquire how direct a role the senior members will play in your project.

What’s included?

What is and isn’t covered in candidates’ fees? Do they provide working files? Do they use proprietary or open-source solutions? What’s their stance on ownership and copyright, and how do they handle cost overruns?

Will candidates be there for you in future?

The real value of a relationship with a designer is in his or her repeatable process and creative thinking applied to your problem, not merely to your final product. Since the worth of this relationship often emerges over time, inquire about candidates’ plans for growth. Look for indications that firms have been and will be around long-term.

Are candidates asking questions?

Do candidates spend most of their time selling you on themselves, or do they seem genuinely interested in your problem and goals? The best practitioners will be hungry for the details underlying your situation and may push you to reconsider causal factors and solutions. Speak openly about your business needs and expectations.

Seek a consultant, not a proposal

Avoid the temptation to require designers to provide firm cost proposals up front on the basis of your description of deliverables. Instead, share your problem, goals, budget and timeline and engage a qualified designer to work with you to prescribe strategic solutions tailored to your unique situation. After this initial discovery, create a project plan that outlines the specifics of the solution. Write a contract after arriving at an agreement. As to hourly rates, you get what you pay for: prices will reflect experience and efficiency.

Like hiring a senior employee or taking on a partner, choosing the right design firm can be a critical moment in the growth of your business. The best candidates won’t give away strategy to prospects – certainly not before doing the research and diagnostics they’ll need for understanding the situation fully – so don’t ask for it before hiring a team. If the initial discovery phase doesn’t impress you or you dislike working together, discontinue the relationship and move on.

About 20 per cent of our business at Industrial Brand comes from clients who hired design providers ineffectively and have had to redo their identity systems or websites, didn’t understand what they were paying for or found themselves with limited options after their designers vanished. Don’t fixate on deliverables and costs before choosing your partner. What you’re really paying for is a well-considered process. Use the opportunity to start a long-term relationship with a partner you trust.

Mark Busse is design director of Industrial Brand, a Vancouver-based brand, communication and interactive design firm he co-founded in 1997. He’s a certified professional member and B.C. past president of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada as well as member of the Association of Professional Design Firms.

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This article is from Business in Vancouver Adpages 2011, which you candownload as a PDF here. Adpages contains numerous other practical tips and informative articles for the business community and we encourage you to support BIV and buy a printed copy today!

Business in Vancouver has been publishing in-depth local business news, analysis and commentary since 1989. The newspaper also produces a weekly ranked list of the biggest companies and players in a wide range of B.C. industries and commercial sectors, monthly features and industry-focused sections that arm its subscribers with a complete package of local business intelligence each week.

From Adpages, published by BIV Magazines. Copyright © 2011, BIV Magazines, a division of BIV Media LP. Reproduced with permission.

Move beyond the RFP to evaluate and hire the best design firm

I have responded to numerous Requests For Proposals (RFPs) in the two decades I have been managing a design studio, and we have developed a point of view that makes some business people uncomfortable: RFPs are an expensive and inaccurate process when hiring design services.

RFPs are a flawed mechanism

While graphic and communication design is increasingly considered a critical component of business success, expert business analysts and chartered accountants are advising their corporate clients to avoid this antiquated method of evaluating and selecting design vendors.

In his excellent article in CA Magazine A Decent Proposal, Cal Harrison argues:

“buyers have the opportunity to create strategic advantage for their organizations when procuring a professional services firm. However, they must first abandon their reliance on the constraints of the traditional RFP process.”

RFPs were born in the manufacturing sector, where project parameters were often clearly defined. Such is rarely the case with professional services like design. Expertise, budget and timelines should be expected in any project description, but RFPs too often score based on issues like hourly rates, process description, sustainability policies, even creativity—all reasonable issues to consider, but not a good basis for evaluating solid candidates for solving your business needs.

Most RFPs score hourly rates or total project price as only one component of a proposal, but all RFPs try to commodify that which is not a commodity, generally attracting those most eager to win the work despite not having clearly defined project parameters—in other words, the lowest bidders who are also often the least qualified or suitable.

What is the difference between one design firm and the next? It may very well be the reduced uncertainty they bring via experience, process and motivation to meet the agreed to goals and budget. The adage “you get what you pay for” absolutely holds true in this context.

RFPs often do little more than create artificial optics of fair market evaluation, instead of producing terrific results. By their nature, RFPs can only yield ideas based on conjecture and loose, arbitrary budget guesses.

The bottom line is that the RFP process is counterproductive to a good design process. It doesn’t fully allow designers to bring their outside perspective and critical thinking to bear. The best graphic and communication designers work as consultants WITH their clients to analyze, diagnose and create strategic solutions from the inside that address problems and meet goals, not toss about random ‘best guesses’ based on incomplete RFP information. The most progressive and admired companies in the world understand that design isn’t a commoditized output well suited to an RFP process.

So how do you choose the best design team?

A quick Google search offers a dizzying array of design firms of all kinds and sizes, some offer general graphic design and production services, others specialize in strategy, branding or digital and interactive technologies. But what criteria should you use to compare one experienced firm to another and choose the best design firm?

Hire an expert in their field and yours. There is a distinct advantage to hiring designers who have superior educations and professional designations, such as certified graphic designers (CGDs). Additionally, consider design teams that specialize in producing solutions for your particular industry. Specialization can result in beneficial insights that can work to your advantage, but consider that it could also be something to avoid if what you are looking for is a fresh set of eyes. Whatever your starting point is, seek out designers who utilize a process that allows them to identify critical elements and uncover key insights and ultimately customizing a communication design solution.

Evaluating a design team’s portfolio and process is crucial, but look beyond the pretty pictures and ubiquitous descriptions of process and request comprehensive case studies that outline goals, context, approach, results and testimonials. Case studies will demonstrate if their process is results-driven and show you what steps the design team will take, giving you a good idea what you can expect and whether you’ll like working with them. If they don’t have any, move on.

It’s important to realize that the real value of a relationship with a designer is in their repeatable process, applied to your specific problem, not merely the final product. The value of this relationship often emerges over time, so look for indications that the design firm has been and will be around for the long term.

A beautiful website, portfolio or even proposal will never tell the whole story. It’s critical to hire a likeminded company that shares your goals and ethics. Invite design firm candidates to interviews and judge fit in person with dialogue. You don’t need to become friends, but remember, the design firms you really want to work with are also concerned about fit and are evaluating you too. Both parties will be defined by the other.

Look for thought leaders in the design field who are highly respected by industry and peers. What evidence can you find that they are leaders in their field? Do they participate in the leadership of professional associations? Are they involved in teaching or mentoring? Do they publish opinions on industry issues? This can be very telling about their perspective and abilities.

Choosing the right design firm can be a critical moment in the growth of your business and it can be equivalent to hiring a senior employee or taking on a partner. At Industrial Brand, about 20% of our business comes from clients who have ineffectively hired a design provider and have to completely redo their identity systems or websites, didn’t understand what they were actually paying for, or found themselves with limited options after their designers vanished.

As you evaluate candidates, try not to get too distracted by hourly rates or final deliverables. Instead focus on the more valuable diagnostic, strategic and creative thinking being offered. Experience shows that those who can provide the best results in the shortest amount of time charge higher rates.

Make sure you understand what is and is not included in the project fees. It’s normal for the cost of images, photography and writing necessary for a project’s success to be supplementary, but discuss what budget should be expected for a project of your scope. If the company is experienced, they will be able to at least offer you a budget range so there are no surprises. Don’t forget to also clarify the form in which the work will be delivered and ownership/copyright terms surrounding the finished work. Will they provide working files? Will the website use a content management system? Is there any licensing involved?

Once you have found an experienced design firm you like, the rough parameters of the project are clarified and a basic understanding has been reached, a written contract is an important step in solidifying the agreement. Good designers employ comprehensive contracts. But demanding written proposals up front isn’t going to get you the best talent. A complete project proposal often can’t even be created until the design firm has been engaged and initial assessments made—and paid for their time of course.

The best designers don’t give away strategy and ideas to prospects—certainly not before engaging in the research and diagnostics required to fully understand the situation—so don’t ask for it before hiring a design team. If the results of the initial research and discovery phase don’t impress you, or you truly dislike working with them, discontinue the relationship and move on. Blair Enns, a sales and marketing consultant who specializes in creative services, even suggests to his design firm clients that they offer prospects a money back guarantee for this first phase. Now that’s bold.

Cover your bases, not your ass

Many argue that RFPs bring transparency, objectivity and accountability to the procurement process, increasing competition that results in competitive prices, but more often than not the RFP process itself lacks integrity, prohibits the designer from acting as a consultant, costs the design buyer more in the end, and results in nothing more than something to hide behind when the wrong choice was made—and by then it’s too late.

So next time you’re seeking a professional design firm, instead of relying on a poorly considered RFP that imposes process, articulate your problem, goals and budget and ask qualified candidates smart questions to determine who can bring their experience, critical thinking and design process to bear to best create clever solutions for you. Instead of becoming fixated on the deliverables and costs prior to choosing the right design partner, remember that what you really pay for is a well-considered process, so use this opportunity to start a long term relationship with a design partner you can trust.

Tips for evaluating a design firm

• Consider a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) that includes project goals and budget as an alternative to an RFP
• Consult with design industry associations like GDC.net for guidance in selecting designers
• Consider whether specialization in your industry will be an advantage or not
• Avoid meaningless descriptions of process by asking to see relevant case studies that show goals, context, approach, solution, and results
• Encourage discussion and questions by respondents and meet with most qualified candidates in person to judge fit, but choose talent over fit
• Engage a design team to evaluate and diagnose solutions before requiring a project proposal
• Ask what happens if after the first phase you are not comfortable working together
• Clarify what you will actually get in the end and who owns the working files
• Formalize a written proposal or contract only after an agreement has been arrived at

“We need a Facebook page and a Twitter account, right?” ask many of our clients these days. Much like clients who want news sections or blogs as part of their websites, our answer is always “It really depends.”

If social media channels are where a majority of your audience is spending their time, then yes, you should probably consider making it part of your marketing and communications plan. But if you don’t formulate a strategy and stick to it, you could make a mess and even undermine your brand in the minds of that same audience.

Many of our clients have jumped into the “Twittersphere“, convinced there is benefit in engaging an audience using this new form of communication through micro-blogging. However, some take on this activity without the aid of a formal strategy to guide them and as a result get caught up in tweeting often instead of tweeting well, risking turning off the new audience they’ve attracted.

One of our clients recently engaged the services of two PR & communications professionals and challenged them to build their brand presence online using Twitter. They came out of the gate strong, using some clever posts to get the attention of dozens, then hundreds, of followers. But as they got more comfortable with this new voice, and others in the group joined in the publishing of tweets, they began to post too frequently (and at the wrong times) and the content of their posts were increasingly less relevant to their business and its audience.

Our advice? Focus. It was time to re-examine the strategic plan outlining why they were using social media in the first place. A social media plan is terribly important if you want a tool like Twitter to work for you.

One of the fundamental issues behind a decision to engage in social media with business has to be the goals and objectives. As with any marketing initiative, it is imperative to consider who your target audience is, how they are using social media and most importantly the core message you want to share with your audience. Lastly, some thought toward how success in this new realm will be measured is highly recommended to avoid endlessly investing time with no notion of what positive impact the effort is having

Our client stated that they were expanding their tweets beyond their niche focus to integrate others’ posts (retweets) and local events to establish community relations. This might be a smart strategy if used wisely, but could undermine the whole effort if it resulted in a drift away from the core message and numerous tweets which ultimately serve to annoy their audience.

As much as social media can be a fabulous way to create large ‘social’ networks, when used in the service of business, it works best when focused on expressing or reinforcing that ONE THING that a business does best.

For example, a restaurant may choose to use Twitter to foster a genuine relationship with an online community–especially if there is something unique about the restaurant that people may not know about from existing channels. This audience might be grateful to read posts about location openings, new dishes, special offers, contents, events, even customer polls, but that same audience might not appreciate being inundated by frequent, irrelevant or even confusing tweets.

Many social media experts will argue that using Twitter is about creating a conversation, which we agree with, and having a human tone and friendly interactions can be a good way to engage a community in a dialogue, but one should remember that this is still a business/consumer relationship. A corporate Twitter account isn’t probably the best place for chit chat with strangers, clogging others’ Twitter stream.

It’s a good idea to remember that you’re not buddies, and keep casual conversations to a minimum—just enough ton invite or welcome new members to your tribe. If tweets are meaningless gibberish without clicking on “In Reply To…”, or merely retweets of some local Twitterstar with little relevance to your core message, then you are risking annoying your audience and might suffer the dreaded “unfollow”.

Our experience has shown that personalized, original content wins over repurposed content every time, so when tempted to reply, quote or retweet anything, our advice is to pause to recall your strategy, asking yourself “Is this the right tone or relate to our core message?” or “Will our audience understand or even care about this?”

Another risk when tweeting for business is too frequent of posts, which is a common reason for users to unfollow an account. If you have a lot to say, stop to ask yourself “Have I tweeted too much today?” or “Should I schedule this for later?” knowing that there are spikes in Twitter activity in late morning with the peak actually between 3–4pm. Avoid posting a flurry of tweets in a row if you can help it.

Using the restaurant example, perhaps tweets about offers or specials could be scheduled for late afternoon or early evening, resulting in the highest revenue return as people consider where to dine that night.

One company who we think does a tremendous job of using social media to build their business is Rouxbe.com, a Vancouver-based online cooking school and recipe website. They know exactly who their audience is and what they are interested in, and they never stray from their core message.

They tweet original and relevant content just frequently enough to stay top of mind and at strategic times during the day. They also use a variety of online media tools such as Netvibes to track mentions of key words and phrases that appear in the Twittersphere so they can respond to them strategically. They’re cunning in fact.

When someone posts a tweet that says something like “I wish I new how to cook”, they engage them by following them, followed up with a short greeting along with appropriate links to pages on their online cooking school. If someone posts something specific, like “I’d love to learn how to make pad thai,” they respond with a direct link to that recipe with video instructions.

“We hope to do more on the social media side, and for me it’s all about providing a service to others—even if this just means reading, comment or contributing to others.” says Rouxbe founder Joe Girad. “What we try NOT to focus on is “pitching” Rouxbe too often.” This strategy is results in a quick, inoffensive and effective way of engaging people, and their social media efforts have not only helped create a large community, but more importantly a highly focused one that actually spends money on the  company’s website!

Going back to the restaurant example, perhaps the chef decides to do create a special dish? This is a terrific example of what to feature on their Twitter channel! Heck, they could even link to info on the qualities and characteristics of the ingredients and done well, this will compel people to engage in conversation, others to come to the restaurant to try it out.

Of course a restaurant doesn’t want to sound desperate, but some have even started using Twitter to offer special discounts to users and post information on waiting time for tables. Useful and relevant to that audience, making them feel like they have a genuine relationship with the business—like they are part of their tribe.

There are a couple key things to keep in mind when using Twitter. Twitter is just a tool—in fact, it’s a very easy thing to learn how to use—but it takes training and practice to become an effective Twitter user. Also, there is a huge difference between people AT a company and the way they tweet versus the way the company itself tweets to its audience. Forget that and things can backfire quickly.

To summarize, using Twitter can be a powerful business tool used to attract a broader audience when used cleverly as part of a social media strategy, but it can also be a risky proposition if not done well.  When focused and on message, Twitter can help build a business and increase the value of its brand, but used haphazardly and in an unfocused manner, a business runs the risk of annoying and even alienating consumers, causing potentially irreparable damage to the relationship. The key to success is a well-considered strategy resulting in a set of rules understood by all participating in social media outreach.

Now consider all the other social media tools you can use, such as Blogs (yours and others), Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg, Technorati, Tumblr, Foursquare, Gowalla…the list goes on. The  reality is that unless you employ a dedicated, full-time  marketing person to create and maintain a comprehensive program, you’ll not likely want (or need) to engage in all of these channels—but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go secure accounts in all of them before someone else does!

If you’ve been to any conference you’ve seen the good and the bad of speakers. Some of the best known designers have left me cold and uninspired due in part to poor presentation skills. Veteran speaker speaker, Cameron Moll, offers his 20 Tips for Better Conference Speakers. As is usually the case with tips like this, most seem completely intuitive, yet often are forgotten.

Choosing the right partner to expand your design business can be just the thing you need to survive and grow, especially in these uncertain economic times.

Recently we published a short article about partnerships which was well received, leading our friends at FunctionFox to asked us to create a more comprehensive presentation called Partnership: Choosing the right person to expand your design business with and host one of their popular webinars on February 12th, 2009 at 11am PST. We’ll try to jam all our thoughts into a concise 30 minute presentation followed by a 15 minute Q&A session. You can view our webinar online at FunctionFox’s website, and below is the text version of our presentation:

“Some animals mate for Life”
In business, mating for life isn’t usually the case. And love rarely comes into it. Tricky business finding a partner. So the plan today is to delve into the topic of when it’s time to pursue a partner and how to choose the right person so your design business can grow. Identifying and selecting this person can be fraught with complexity and choosing incorrectly can ruin your business, not to mention your relationship with that person. Choosing well can be a brilliant move. Even then, it may not be for life, but certainly will be a more positive experience.

“A partnership is like marriage, in that like marriage they ought to make it as hard to get into as they make it to get out of.”
This article started out as a sole proprietorship, just one person’s thoughts on the subject of taking on a business partner, specifically in the design industry but really good advice for anyone. It was a decent article; informed and informative and generally well written. But the author thought it could be better so he sought a co-writer and effectively formed a partnership. In doing so he gave up complete control over the content and the end result, probably figuring he’d either have not much more work to do on it as his new partner took the reins, or that he might be in for a couple debates on its direction before it was finalized. Or, totally regret the decision and have to figure out how to wrest authorship control back.

Before you read on, know this: the resulting advice you are about to read now comes from a partnership. We collaborated on its creation much as we’ve complimented each other for the past twelve years in the running of our design firm. Some of this information we’re going to share may seem like common sense. Some of this learning came via the business degrees that we both hold and our creative backgrounds, but mostly it’s been from working together as partners, the triumphs and mistakes we’ve made over the 12 years we’ve been in business together. We’ll share our perspectives and advice for design professionals considering a business partner. We don’t have all the answers, but we’ll try to cover as many of the angles as we can based on our personal experiences—including our own failed third partner attempt.

“Ask yourself, ‘Would I marry this person?’”
Let’s assume you’ve made it though design school of some kind and now have  achieved relative success growing your small design practice into a viable business under your leadership. You’ve looked at the numbers, evaluated the industry and it’s time to expand to take your business to that next level. You think the way to do it is to get a business partner. But where do you start? What do you look for in a candidate? And when you find him, what then?

Despite the faith business clients often place in designers to build brand strategies on their behalf, the irony is that designers often do not possess adequate business acumen to run their own companies. Talk to any designer that runs his own operation and you’ll hear the same stories about getting “burned” by clients because he learned the hard way that you have to take care of the business side of the relationship before the creative one. The same thing applies to establishing a healthy partnership.

A design practice can be profitable and growing for years, yet all could be lost in a short period of time with one bad client, or an inappropriate choice of partner. Don’t be blinded by the desire to partner with someone who appears brilliantly talented. He may be, but he may also wreak havoc on your business for a variety of reasons. The cultural and financial benefits of finding the right partner can be amazing and rewarding. The price of a bad choice will, at minimum, be felt for months or years afterwards, if the business survives.

There are numerous reasons why a business owner would take on a partner. Besides sharing leadership, management and administrative duties, a partner shares your financial risk and responsibility. But this is rarely the reason a design professional jumps into a partnership. The primary motivating factors should be the potential for expanding the company’s capabilities and growing the business.

Rather than pontificate on the merits and pitfalls of partnerships from only our perspective, we asked a number of respected design business owners what their views and experience on the matter are. This is a diverse group of people coming from completely different backgrounds. All have been or are still in partnerships—some successful and some incredible failures.

“Think about it, if you were a figure skater, you’d want to make damn sure whomever was going to catch you actually can.”
The beauty of an effective partnership is that you are working together with the same incentives—a share of ownership in the success of what you are building together. Two really can be better than one. In the absence of a lot of cash to offer a person with the expertise you need, a share of the business may be the way to go—especially if he brings his existing key clients, vendors and staff with him.

From another perspective, you are creating a great efficiency by merging the cost structures of running two separate businesses and keeping all the revenue from both. In many cases when you only look at a prospective partnership from that angle, it looks very rosy indeed.

Ask yourself this though: Do you really need a partner to achieve your goals? Can you hire someone to help you and work out some other form of profit sharing or compensation without sharing control of the company? It’s an option worth looking at. It may seem like you are paying him too much, or more than you can afford at the moment, but partnerships—especially those that fail—can be even more costly.

“One major factor of our failed relationship was that we had no mission statement when we started.”
Understand what a partnership is. You don’t need to technically do anything to form a partnership except declare one, but let’s be straight here; if you don’t do your due diligence, openly discuss both sides’ intentions, and agree to all aspects of the business structure, ownership, responsibilities and profit sharing in writing, there is a high likelihood of misunderstandings, mistrust and ultimately failure.

Have a business plan to serve as a foundation. Without a plan, you have nothing. What do you provide? To whom? Analyze your situation and do a SWOT analysis like you would for any of your client projects. What are your individual strengths and weaknesses? What opportunities and threats face you personally and your company? This will go a long way to answering the question about whether a partnership is a good idea. And once you find the potential new partner(s), repeat this process all over again for all parties.

“Don’t be 100 percent sure, be five hundred percent.”
There are numerous risks to entering into a partnership too. Beyond the emotional stress that can occur, or risks of giving someone else access to the assets , finances and proprietary information of the company, the wrong choice in a partner can ruin a firm’s reputation. Remember, not only the company’s, but your reputation will now be tied to his. Your colleagues, past and potential clients and employees, and the entire industry will likely judge you based on this new relationship.

If your new partner is talented, well-known, respected and professional, this will be a wonderful public alliance. If he’s not, then you might have a major image problem on your hands. Oh, and keep this in mind: your partner has the same thing on his mind. No more raunchy behaviour at client parties, unless you both agree that your reputations will be damaged if you behave!

“No one said anything to me about this person until after it was a done deal. I should have been more assertive in my lines of questioning.”
Look for the best fit and investigate your prospective partner’s experience, history and reputation to determine if he has indeed done what he claims he can do for you. If you are seeking a senior creative professional with management and leadership abilities, verify he has been successful with this in the past. You don’t want to find yourself partners with someone you expect to build your team and guide the creative and production process only to discover that he is best suited to working autonomously.

Regardless of what he has told you, Google your potential candidate. What has he done? What is his reputation? Talk to former employers, clients and employees—happy and more importantly, unhappy ones. This might be harder to do if the person is coming from another city, but that makes it even more important. Why is he really moving?

Don’t skip this step. Many failed partners we spoke with admitted that if they’d only spent more time doing due diligence in this area, they would have uncovered serious doubts and concerns over potential choices for potential partners.

“Not to say going into business with friends is a bad thing, but I think we all wandered into it with more optimism than realism.”
Just because you like someone, worked well with him at school, or are related to him is not a good enough reason to get into business together. There are exceptions of course, but along with the usual risks, going into business with a chum or relative can turn into both a volatile and caustic work situation that can also destroy your personal relationship.

Something else to consider is if there is a pre-existing friendship or relationship between some partners but not all. It will undoubtedly be difficult for a new partner to feel truly a part of your team right away. Your partnership should based on goals, skills and strategy, not merely on being social friends. It’s been said many times before, but a partnership is a fast way to lose a friend forever.

“We’ve been very fortunate to have had a partnership last as long as we have (20 years)…largely due to the fact that we have complementary/contrasting personalities and aptitudes.”
Imagine trying to run a marathon with a pebble in your shoe. At first it might just be a little annoying, but after a few kms…

As a designer, consider your styles and approach to problem solving. Are they compatible and complementary? As important as whether your personalities ‘fit’, your design backgrounds, aesthetic preferences and methodologies must be considered. Will there be a power struggle? How well will you collaborate? Who gets to make the final call on a design or production choice? Will this anger the other partner and make him feel undermined or disrespected? If not carefully considered, a bad ‘fit’ can grow from a seemingly little thing to a major problem and source of stress.

“My mistake was going into business with a partner from a different background.”
There’s a well-known adage that a partnership is like a marriage, and it’s true. In his article Good and Bad Reasons for Having a Partner, John Burton put it best when he said that “like marriage, they ought to make it as hard to get into [a partnership] as they make it to get out of.” Make sure you’re comfortable with each other before moving in together.

Don’t rush into a partnership. Once you’ve identified what you deem to be a good candidate, be patient. It’s not always easy, or possible, but consider creating a working relationship that allows you to work with one another for a while. Of course, you might have already been doing so which led you to both conclude a partnership might make sense.

Take it slowly. If your potential partner is unwilling to be patient, then you have your first clue that something might be awry. If you’re married, or even in a committed relationship, consider how long it was before you took those critical steps in the relationship.

“As much as I hate lawyers, I love them too.”
Yes, lawyers are going to cost you some money, but think about it: as designers we’re constantly telling our clients to leave design to the professionals; so leave the law to lawyers.

Find a corporate lawyer you like who has experience in partnerships and get him to draft up the official shareholders agreement for you. Don’t skip this step! There are even consultants that specialize in helping small businesses expand or transition with issues such as partnerships. Find one and let the experts help guide you.

Likewise, use an accountant and lawyer to establish valuations and share structure and create a shareholders agreement (SHA). There is no one way to do this and really the only important thing is to agree on amounts, ownership structure, timelines and make sure both parties are comfortable.

“The legal agreement we had in place saved my ass.”
You know, they didn’t have enough life boats on the Titanic and look what happened. Design management consultant and speaker David C. Baker warns about what he calls the “Five Ds”: divorce, death, disability, dismissal or departure. What happens when one of these occur? It’s crucial to be prepare for the worst.

In your SHA, include provisions for an exit should you, or your new partner, ever want out—whether it is amicable or not. So do you dive in or wade into the partnership? One school of thought believes that having a trial period with a short term exit plan will actually hinder the progress of the partnership and reduce each party’s willingness to really give it their all. This is an area where you have to make your own decision because there’s no one right way to do it. Do what’s comfortable for you both and realize that the focus of the relationship should be long term.

“Another contributing factor to the demise of our partnership was we had too many chefs in the kitchen. Three designers, each taking on the creative director role.”
Even if you are bringing complimentary areas of expertise into the relationship, it’s important to establish well-defined roles and responsibilities that disseminate the various aspects of running the business such as marketing, sales, finances, management and who is primarily in charge of creative leadership. Even if creative duties are shared by the partners, understand how to deal with situations when one partner disagrees with a choice or direction on a project.

Here’s an old one: So, how many designers does it take to change a lightbulb? ‘What…change it again?? I’ve already changed it six &$#* times!”

Mixed direction and inconsistency can be a huge cause of stress and difficulty within your team. Hence, the importance of partnering with someone with a compatible design style and creative process, and in establishing responsibilities so the culture of the creative team is not undermined by bickering or disagreements between the partners.

As much as conflict resolution should be a part of your written SHA, make sure you have also articulated in writing outside of it how these things are handled on a day-to-day basis (hint: well defined job descriptions are a good place for this). If you are constantly reaching for the SHA to sort things out, the partnership is likely doomed.

“Going into business with someone is serious stuff—do your homework and solicit input from trusted advisors.”
Not all designers have the advantage of a business degree, but that’s no excuse not to do your homework and continue learning how to better run your business. Every community has a Board of Trade who may be able to help guide you. In Vancouver, we’re fortunate to have a small business resource centre located in Waterfront Centre. http://www.smallbusinessbc.ca/ And of course designers have their professional associations, such as The Society of Graphic Designers in Canada and AIGA in the US—each filled with experienced design professionals with advice to give.

But don’t just rely on reading materials or the advice of strangers. On of the best ways to grow your business is to find yourself a mentor you respect or even form a small group of advisors—your Board of Directors as it were. Share all the information with your most trusted advisors and solicit their input before making any radical decisions. Heed their advice, but remember that people give away opinions like they do kittens, so in the end you need to make the decision for yourself and be willing to live with it.

“I wish I’d listened more intently to what my heart and gut was so obviously screaming.”
If something doesn’t seem right to you, it probably isn’t. Body language and listening as closely to what is not said are important cues that will give you a better sense of whether things feel right. If there’s something you can’t quite put you finger on, dig a little harder, it’s likely that something will rise to the surface eventually, better before than too late.

In addition, consider that the person you may partner with has his best face forward as you work through the details during the courtship phase. If his behaviour is less than exemplary, then there’s good indication that it won’t get any better as time moves on. It might also show you how he will react when dealing and negotiating with clients.

“We wanted to be sure the new relationship was solid before making a formal announcement, but by then we were getting calls from people asking us about it.”
Any senior designer you chose to partner with will bring with him a portfolio that predates your working relationship. Carefully consider how his work and yours will integrate as you seek new clients together. Moving forward, it’s best to be transparent with potential clients about the work you both did before the merger.

Of course you’ll want to announce to the world this new partnership. Timing is important. You’ll want to make sure you wait just long enough to ensure it’s a solid relationship, but also not too long that it’s old news.

It’s also important to consider the language you use to announce and describe your new partnership publicly. Make sure all partners agree on the story and language to be used to describe the change in the business structure so it best represents all sides.

“Anyone can run a company when times are good. It’s in difficult circumstances that great leaders are measured.”
In an attempt to summarize this complex topic, it’s best to go back to the beginning of this article. At various stages during the process of establishing a partnership keep asking these questions: Do you really need a business partner? Do the potential benefits still outweigh the possible risks? If the answer remains yes, keep going. But never hold off asking and dealing with the toughest questions at the start out of fear that the person will take offense or kill the deal. If this happens, consider it a blessing and keep looking.

Find a like-minded professional that brings something to the business—someone you want to be in business with for the long term. Commit to the relationship as you would a marriage. But do your homework. Going into business together has proven to be a great move for us and it can be for you too, just take the time to find that special someone.

Summary:

• Be honest with yourself about your business skills
• Understand what a partnership really is
• Analyze the situation thoroughly from all angles
• Recognize the risks
• Investigate the candidate thoroughly
• Resist the urge to work with friends or family
• Consider fit, style and approach
• Don’t rush into things
• Consult a lawyer and accountant
• Create a shareholder agreement
• Define roles and responsibilities
• Consult your mentor or trusted advisors
• Determine conflict resolution
• Listen to your gut
• Commit as you would to a marriage

For more information about this or other webinars, visit FunctionFox’s events page.

Readers who watch Friends, you might know what my title means.

For the past few weeks Todd and I have been working on furnishing his new place. Not only has this move given me an opportunity to fuel my interest in interior design, but also added tonage to my arms. Yes!

Here’s a site that I stumbled upon that certainly got my creative juices flowing. Desire to inspire, is a blog created by a Canadian and Australian. I can’t even begin to write what they have so if you are even remotely interested in interior design, I suggest taking a look.

For those who want an iphone but can’t bring themselves to pay those ridiculous fees. Check out this new Canadian cell company (launching next year) asking for your opinion on ways to make your cellular experience better.

I’m rooting for you Globalive! I hope you can provide me with a better plan than I have now.

Thanks Todd for the heads up.

An unstructured list of experiences, pet peeves, and advice surrounding interactive design and development.

Let’s make something clear right now: I’m not a trained web developer.

Nor am I any sort of interactive expert in my opinion. But I have been involved in the design and production of websites for clients for many years. So, I was honoured when my colleague Steve Mynett asked me to give a presentation of my “real world” experiences, pet peeves, and advice surrounding interactive design and development to his web production class.

Once I began asking for input from colleagues and jotting down ideas, I could barely stop the flow of grumbles, observations and tips I wanted to share with these future web designers. Though what resulted may not be anything new for the trained web guru with years of experience, my lecture slides represented a practical list of suggestions and best practices useful to young designers keen on avoiding common interactive pitfalls.

The reality is that at Industrial Brand we’ve made many of these mistakes ourselves over the years. We also changed our minds on many issues as time passed and we gained experience. The following list (in no particular order) is a decent expression of how we approach interactive design and development. We’ll continue to learn and improve our methodology, so this should not be viewed as a static list. Please feel free to comment, disagree or suggest additions to the list.

Start with a brief. If your client can’t compose a simple expression of their goals, objectives, audience, their needs, etc, then how are you going to judge success?

Don’t take their word for it. Clients should be respected and likely know a lot about their products, category and probably even their audience, but they don’t have all the answers. Challenge the paradigm, dig into the problem, do a needs analysis—this is called the discovery process: a critical step in design.

A good coder is always be ready to be hit by a bus. Research, plan, scope, stick to it. Get organized. Consider your naming nomenclature. Make back ups.  [Suggestion: use an online backup system so it’s off site]

Be the audience. If you can’t honestly say you have clarity about who the user base will be, don’t assume. Find out. Go talk to them. Work with your client to develop a persona for the audience and role play user stories. And beyond things like their attitudes and preferences, try to accurate predict their browsing environment and develop with that in mind For example, if standard screen resolution such as 800 x 600 is now down somewhere between 3–6% while 1024 x 768 is about 44%% and 1280 x 1024 is about 33%—why do people still insist on developing for 800 x 600? [stats from w3schools.com]

1024 isn’t 1024 anyway. So you’ve established that the majority of your audience is most likely on a display set to 1280×1024, but bear in mind that not only aren’t all those pixels available to you after you account for all the browser chrome, but who said you have to fill the entire space? How often are you on the web with your browser set to full screen? Consider a standard width of 980 or even as narrow as 960 in case your users have multiple apps open simultaneously. Of course this can also be affected by the grid layout you’ve created for the site—you are using grids, right?

You’re not the audience. Shut up. This isn’t about you. Save that for your own website—although even THAT isn’t about you either. Keep your mouth shut and look for solutions to the client’s and audience’s problems. If it isn’t clear, ask more questions.

Agile development is awesome. The “agile” approach of skipping all the charts, schematics, wireframes, etc and focusing on being flexible, fast and loose and learning constantly as you go can be a terrific approach once you’re an expert. [Recommended reading: 37signals’ book Getting Real]

Agile development is a lie. Well, OK. Not a lie, but be cautious of those who just wing it in favour of careful planning, clear communications and methodologies. Just diving in, launching early, tweaking as you go and flying by the seat of your pants WILL eventually fail you—and may be very costly. And having a well defined process will save you. Example: Nokia mobile advertising.You still need to determine user needs, develop grids and wireframes to produce effective interaction design. Don’t “wing it” or your projects will ultimately fail. [I know, I know, real agile development isn't "winging it", but you get my point here]

Flash rocks. Want animation and an platform-independent and easy-to-code environment for a website? Flash baby!

Flash sucks. Want to make downloads slower, require plugin compatibility, make a site virtually invisible to search engines, render text & windows not resizable, make subpages and permalinks awkward and make the site difficult for the client to maintain or update? Flash baby! NOTE: flash can be very powerful as a component of a site and with dynamic content is improving, just go easy and make sure you chose Flash for a reason, not just because you can. (example: we designed and produced this award-winning website, but  frankly the site is clunky, slow, hard to use and update, doesn’t load half the time and is far too reliant on hacks and feeds)

Avoid intros. If you MUST have an intro, then it should be to say something about the brand message or tell a story. If there is a “skip intro” button, such as on this example, something is almost certainly wrong—although there are exceptions to the rule where an intro can say something about the personality behind a brand or help clarify the services or products offered.

Reduce, reduce, reduce. Please don’t make me say “Less is more.” Oh shit. There, I said it. But remember, as great as simplicity is, sometimes less is too little. Don’t fight for minimalism and start quoting Bauhaus crap if there isn’t a real need for it driven by the audience and brand message. Some sites can be super cluttered and overly complicated, while others can almost seem broken they are so minimalist, while you can achieve ultra simple in a smart way.

Whose server is this, anyway? Get early access to the actual host server and work from there as soon as possible. Don’t get it all dialed in, only to discover the version of PHP or MySQL on their box is different and difficult to change. Confirm the Apache install, how to set up DBs, permissions, where files go, etc.

You will break it. Iterate with a backup plan. Use a development environment, staging environment and live environment. Be ready to fall back if bug fixes cause more bugs. [Suggestion: Use a project management system like REDMINE or TRAC tied to a version control system like SUBVERSION or tracking tasks, bugs and versions.

Resist feature creep. But know it will happen. It’s inevitable. One “simple” change may have a cascade effect. Never assume it’ll be a no brainer and allow adequate time.

Good web takes time. I don’t care if you coded your mom’s blog in four hours or did a whole website in a weekend. They both suck and the kind of web you WANT to be working on takes time. Fight for it and convince your clients to give you time to percolate as well as time to research, plan, organize, document, write good code and TEST.

Test, test, test. For god’s sake, check it on various platforms and browsers. Use your friends as guinea pigs and watch them interact with the site! If you can't test on new and old platforms and various browsers, then at least utilise sites like www.browsercam.com or www.browsershots.com.

Where am I? I wanna go home. Facilitate clear indications of where a user is on a site by adding “breadcrumb trail” navigation or changing the state of nav used to reinforce the button or section selected by the user—you’d be surprised how often this is ignored or unclear. And not everyone knows a logo is the home link! Provide a global home link as a button if possible—at least in the footer as a secondary option for those who don’t figure it out. And avoid “mystery meat” navigation, regardless of how innovative or creative it seems. (example: Duff may be the Ace of Cakes, but his website navigation is baffling)

Dress to the left. Stats show that the majority of web users read top down, left to right—so for god’s sake, don’t hide your logo or vital navigation elements bottom right where it may be cut off or hidden with a smaller browser window.

Boing! Pop! Huh? If pop ups, new windows on click or browser resizes are so great, why do all the latest browsers block them? No pop ups! And I’ll open a link in a new page or make the browser fullscreen if I want, thank you. And please don't hijack my browser. [example: here's a very slick look design studio's website that resizes to fullscreen, completely hijacks the browser and navigation toobar and doesn't dynamically resize if you change the browser window. This is just plain rude.]

Study usability and user experience. Have you read Bill Moggridge’s Designing Interactions yet? Do it today.

Drop the drop downs. If you’ve read Moggridge, you would use JavaScript drop down menus with caution. They can difficult to code, awkward to use and inconsistent across platforms and browsers. Not to mention they jump open and closed, often blocking content beneath them, require tweening to keep from feeling clunky and harsh and when cascading, get impossibly finicky. This article called Sons of Suckerfish has some great guidance how to best create effects like drop downs (among others) in a reliable fashion. [example: the new www.gdc.net is a beautiful website to look at, but the long drop down menus crowded together make the navigation cumbersome and awkward to use]

Extensions make the permalink Ya ya, most servers these days can parse .htm, .html and php correctly, but .htm is “cruft” and makes you look like you’re coding for DOS with its antiquated three character maximum naming convention.

Human don’t read code. Not well anyway. And human-readable URLs (permalinks) are just so much more friendly and easy to reference. [example: a URL like http://www.mydomain.com/option,com_mtree/task,listcats/cat_id,1778/Itemid,35/ would be so much better as http://www.mydomain.com/component/download]

How do I scroll? Scroll bars should look like scroll bars, not fancy new arrows you created or that funky Flash component you dropped in. And internal scroll bars basically suck anyway (sorry Flash lovers). Sometimes a site requires a smart approach to scroll bars, so be smart about it—don’t try to be innovative or take short cuts. It’s just plain annoying and hinders usability.

Footers, like feet, keep things from falling over. Take a queue from our friends at Apple who always design three ways to do anything, and make footers part of your design up front, don’t just tack them on as an after-thought. Simple, unobtrusive footers can be an excellent way to improve navigation in a content-heavy site. I suggest that if you need to include a sitemap (which can be very useful) then your navigation may need to be re-thought.

Colour doesn’t really matter, does it? Yes, it does. Big time. And is one of the most powerful web design tools available—and often screwed up. I won’t bore you with a long rant about colour spaces and the difficulties of predicting accurate colour display online, but I will say this: people perceive colour as vital part of any designed product. The Institute for Color Research reports that “all human beings make a subconscious judgment about an item within 90 seconds of initial viewing and that between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone.” Heck, recent surveys show that 40% of Amercian car buyers stated they’d change brands if they couldn’t get the colour of their choice. Make sure you understand the emotive power of colour and chose combinations of colours that work [Tip: if using a colour wheel is foreign to you, check out Adobe's Kuler application for a good online tool for picking colour palettes that work]

Show them. Don’t assume clients—or even designers or art directors—will be able to envision what you are talking about: show them. Send proofs in situ so they see it live, online in a browser. [example: www.industrialbrand.com/CLIENTS/yaaway]

Build around real content. Though not always possible, try to avoid using Lorem Ipsum as placeholder text in favour of designing around real content. Using Lorem Ipsum isn’t creating a *real* user experience and may be forgotten, running the risk of launching a website filled with gibberish. Don’t believe me? Here’s a friend’s website that has been live for years with Lorem Ipsum as his bio copy. How hard is it to produce a couple paragraphs of bio copy?

What does that say? Bad font choices, small type or low contrast are common boo boos. Don’t make this mistake—make your text easy to read. If it doesn’t survive the squint test, fix it. And learn the basics of typesetting—they are just as relevant here as they are in print. For example, long line lengths cause eye strain and decrease readability. [example: www.gameaquarium.com - what IS Game Aquarium anyway?]

Web fonts doesn’t mean bad typography. This is probably one of the most common pet peeves among traditionally trained graphic designers who take pride in choosing just the right typeface and using it intelligently to aid the overall message behind a page. Web is not print, but a similarly calculated approach to type, its size, colour, placement, etc., helps establish a hierarchy and order of things—remember that. If you’ve ever read Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style (and you really should), then check out  www.webtypography.net which translates the basic rules of type usage to the web. [example: www.coudal.com uses straight up web safe fonts and clean CSS styling]

I wish I could zoom in. If your site design doesn’t afford room for large images, but products or photos are key communicators, then build in the functionality to enlarge the images so the viewer can take a closer look. And don’t assume the user will know to click—add text like “click to view image”. We often use Lightbox JS, which is a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page. Alternatively, link thumbnail images to larger images, such as we did here on www.davedelibato.com. [example: www.meja.ca required larger images of their projects, so we used Lightbox]

I already have iTunes and YouTube, thanks. I don’t need a website that plays music, thanks. And if you MUST have a video auto-play on the site, set it up to do it on first visit and not repeat visits via cookies. If the site has a mute button or “skip” button, something is likely wrong. [example: www.vfs.com is a media school and the marketing video on the home page auto plays only on the first visit]

Nothing new here. Don’t create sites with a “News” sections if it’s not really needed, your client isn’t committed to keeping it fresh or they aren’t able to update the page. There’s a new thing called CMS, learn how to use one.

Make it work. Old school works. Don’t follow what everyone else is doing and avoid trying to fix what ain’t broke. And don’t try to be an innovator (yet anyway). There are so many variables and technical limitations—be flexible and work within the basics. If you want people to know it’s a link, then use hinted text and make it obvious it’s clickable (i.e coloured & underlined).

Y’all got a big pipe. If you assume everyone has a web connection as fast as yours, you’re a fool. The majority of the world is still on slow connections like dial up. So strive to create tiny website to reduce load time. And use intelligent techniques such as dynamically loading menu/nav items using PHP so you have only one file to update.

Look at sites that suck. Browsing all the wonderful “best of” lists and award-winners is great, but consider looking at BAD websites and learn from them. Web Pages That Suck is a good resource.

Step away from the screen. Get off your computer and consider the problem as a spatial one. Remember your sketch pad? Go get it and draw! Plan on paper. Consider the content and space with client objectives and audience needs in mind.

Wireframes are your friend. All the previous stuff should be obvious to many. If not, you have some work ahead of you. If I had my way I’d make new web design students spend a whole term drawing grids and wireframes for an entire term before letting produce their first line of code. It’s all about usability folks. Web is not just pretty graphics or cool tricks. Your final templates should be pixel-for-pixel swaps for your carefully planned wireframes.

Are you doing an illustration? Then why are you laying out web pages in Adobe Illustrator? We’re striving for precise pixels here folks—use Photoshop or Fireworks. This is so common and always introduces problems.

Web is not print. So don’t create images in CMYK or PMS. Create your Photoshop images in RGB, but be aware that the majority of the web is actually sRGB (only Safari really fully supports RGB), so make sure to switch your Adobe Color Settings to North American Web/Internet and Save for Web & Devices which will ensure that it is in the sRGB colour space.

Backgrounds can be lovely. I disagree that those who claim backgrounds should be unnoticeable. While primarily a framing element behind text and images, I think backgrounds are a powerful way to add tone, emotion and style to a website when used with care and with reserve. Add to that some consistent graphics element from page to page and you can create a “sense of place”. But for god sack, avoid using honkin’ big image backgrounds. [example: Dave Shea, author of CSS Zen Garden, uses subtle background on his website as does Psyop on their site]

Write beautiful code. Lovely code can be a gorgeous thing indeed. And well commented and organized code is much easier to understand and update when you (or someone else) needs to make changes six months later. Here’s a decent overview of What Beautiful HTML Code Looks Like. [example: a local developer partner of ours, Ryan Ilg, is passionate about clean code and it shows in the source code behind his personal website]

Meta my ass. Please remember to add meta tags, description, keywords, page titles, etc and register your sites with search engines. And consider including descriptive page titles. It may not be full-on SEO, but it’s the right thing to do.

Get fast. Learn shortcuts. Find resources and tools. Create a methodology that allows you to differentiate yourself as a fast, accurate and dependable developer. And start collecting code, images, objects, etc so you can quickly solve repeat challenges in future. Start using tools such as the Coda, Firefox’s Web Developer toolbar, Firebug, Color Picker and XScope.

Be compliant. Validate that beautiful code you developed so quickly! W3C’s Markup Validation Service is a fast way to make sure your code will work as expected.

Write goodly. Use simple language and spell check you scallywags! There’s nothing worse—from as branding perspective—than typos and bad grammar. Most good code editors, such as TextMate for example, have built in spell checking.

Are you a web designer or hosting company? Don’t try to do everything—regardless of how tempting it is to get monthly fees for hosting a site. The responsibility will yours to keep the server up and site online, so leave this to the experts.

Respect your employers. Especially if you’re providing coding for a design firm. How do they work? Do they need working files? Are there confidentiality issues? Are you even allowed to take credit for the work you did? Are you allowed to put a credit link on the site or in the source code? Make sure you ask if it isn’t clear in your contract.

The computer screen is already obsolete. Yup. It’s true. And for all you iPhone fanatics it should be obvious to you by now. If you’d like to have a career in the interactive media arts, you have to think mobile and design and develop for “the fourth screen“.

Good web design is simply good design. Bad design is still bad, regardless how sweet the back end is. Remember the “form follows function” lesson?

I think the most important point I can offer in conclusion is that the web today needs good designers more than it does coders. The debate whether classically trained print designers are capable of create good websites seems silly to me, but I think it’s time skilled print designers step up, retool and apply their training to this important medium and help raise the bar. I’m really tired of seeing websites with great functionality and technology behind them, but a clear lack of graphic design or usability thought applied to the interface design. Just like in print design, it behooves us to apply the same careful use of composition, layout, grids, colour, typography, hierarchy, simplicity, etc. to design GOOD websites.

So here’s the challenge: compose your next web project around real content using a carefully structured grid layout, scalable, centred orientation and based on an appropriate screen resolution. Choose web safe colours and type faces that not only aid readability, but work together to express the feeling and tone behind the site, its message and goals as defined by your client brief and research into the problem, industry, competition and audience. Resist using flashy technology in favour of a suitable technology that will actually work toward achieving your clients web needs. Simplify your layout, allow for plenty of whitespace and respect established conventions, presenting a visual hierarchy and navigation system that makes it clear to the user how to interact with the site’s content. And be smart about your production methods and always be ready to be hit by a bus.

We’ve been inundated with messages about how we suck at Photoshop so I was glad to finally find some nice Photoshop Tutorials. But with so many tutorials and so little time in the day, one tip in a 10 minute video simply doesn’t cut it. Enter Deke and his 101 Photoshop tips in 5 minutes.

First off, congrats to Firefox for a smashingly successful launch of Firefox 3. Almost 30 million downloads worldwide (as displayed on the cool map on SpreadFirefox.com which itself is good overview of a savy web audience worldwide).

Apart from just being “better” and looking cool (mmm…brushed steel…) there are a few fundamental changes to how Firefox works, particularly to the Developer in me. The way that input fields and buttons have been changed so they are now in line with Safari (for all you Mac users. I’m not sure about PC’s…anyone?)

I also just stumbled on another “small” change that has some rather impactful results! I’ve been resizing text with “Apple +” or “Apple -” now for a while (Substitute Ctl for Apple on PC’s me thinks) and code websites accordingly. As developers, we can also size in em’s so that vertical heights are also scaled with text to maintain rhythm. Heights in em’s and width’s in px’s; fairly standard.

But all of this suddenly changed with FF3. Resizing text suddenly resized everything. Not only all CSS measurements, but also images. Images become pixelated but text continues to be sharp (as opposed to the Apple + two finger scroll). All of this courtesy of a preference available under the View > Zoom menu. Check/Uncheck “Zoom Text Only” to toggle back and forth. Neat eh? Can’t decide whether I’ll stick to the new way of resizing or go back to the old.