Success Strategies For Design Professionals

Want to make your design business a success? Start here. Fellow Designer, In your career you may have been like me: Trying to keep projects on the rails and clients happy. Digging through blogs for useful advice. Wondering if there was a better way to handle all of the demands of being a design professional and running a creative business. The wisdom contained in Success By Design: The Essential Business Reference for Designers will help you become a stronger businessperson and better plan your career path as a design leader. This book was born from in-depth interviews with a slew of successful designers, studio directors, project managers, and client service professionals across a wide range of creative industries. It contains the business secrets I needed the most when I started as a designer sixteen years ago. --David

The design sector has expanded rapidly in recent years, and now covers a wide range of specialist disciplines from branding and communications to product, commercial interiors and digital. Yet design firms often lack long-term vision, strategies and plans, and research from the Design Council shows that far too many suffer from poor profitability. Shan Preddy believes that the more a design firm knows about business, the more successful it will be, both creatively and financially. That's why she has gathered over 80 design-sector experts from different fields - advisors, practitioners, clients and representatives from design organisations - to provide you with information, suggestions, guidelines and thought-provoking opinions. Whether you're experienced or just starting out, How to Run a Successful Design Business: The New Professional Practice covers everything owners and managers of design firms need to know.

- Strategic approach that guides readers in planning their careers with their personal goals and competencies in mind - Information tailored to the specific business needs of residential and contract designers - Three types of activities for each chapter: development of personal business strategies, an ongoing exercise progressing through the stages of a residential interior design project, and case studies of contract design projects - Instructor's Guide includes recommended course outlines, and suggestion; for teaching each chapter, and tests

A successful design practice requires principals and staff who are creative, technically proficient, and financially savvy. Designing Profits focuses on the last component—the one that is so elusive for many architects, engineers, and construction professionals—the business aspects of practice. Not an ordinary book on practice issues or finance, Designing Profits explains the application of design thinking to guide wise business decisions. It is indeed possible to be as creative in establishing and operating a practice as in designing and constructing a building. The book offers comprehensive guidance and objective tools for design professionals to reap financial rewards from their practices, and to discover innovative strategies to become entrepreneurial and implement creative practice models. An extended case study is woven throughout the book. Witness the trials and tribulations of Michelangelo & Brunelleschi Architects as they engage problematic clients, tight project budgets and schedules, low fees and insufficient profits, marketing issues, quirky staff, technology upgrades, and growth, among other difficult challenges. This mythical firm, a composite of several real-life practices, navigates through these various dilemmas, providing readers with insights into superior financial management and a reimagined services portfolio.

Competition is fierce. Landing a great job is hard work, particularly in today's market. To be the winning candidate, you need a strategic success plan. Killer Interviews: Success Strategies for Young Professionals gives you the "edge" to nail the job by providing a step-by-step game plan. You'll learn how to: -build a resume that "pre-sells" you -create a powerful network -prepare for every aspect of the interview -communicate effectively with the interviewer -close the sale like a pro and land the job offer -decide if the company and the job are right for you. Whether you are moving from college to your first job-or looking to make that next career move-Killer Interviews: Success Strategies for Young Professionals will maximize your chances for success, regardless of whether your job target is for-profit, not-for-profit, education or government. Frederick W. Ball is Managing Director of Ball & Associates, LLC, a human resources consulting firm specializing in career planning and executive coaching. He consults with senior executives from Fortune 500, and the not-for-profit, and education industries on how to hire top talent. He is a former executive director of the Institute for Administrative Research at Columbia University, from which he earned his doctorate. Barbara B. Ball is Director of Human Resources for the prestigious Westfield, NJ public schools. Her responsibilities include recruiting and hiring, employee and labor relations, as well as training and development in hiring top talent. Fred and Barbara's work with young professionals includes 15 years of delivering seminars at Brown, Columbia and Duke Universities and counseling young professionals. Fred and Barbara are co-authors of two highly respected books-Killer Interviews: The Best Interview Strategies (Revised-2010), and Impact Hiring: The Secrets of Hiring a Superstar (2000). They are recognized resources for the media on interviewing from either side of the desk.

Business essentials and marketing strategies to help your firmsurvive and thrive . . . As a design professional running your own small firm, you expect towear many hats--designer, office manager, project manager--all in aday's work. But strategic marketer? No one prepared you for that!Marketing Basics for Designers is a long overdue resource fordesigners who need to become expert marketers fast. It providessolid practical advice on how to market your services, build yourclient base, and keep your customers coming back for more. You'll learn how to establish your design niche and develop yourown marketing plan to reach potential clients. You'll findtechniques for networking and using your contacts with otherprofessionals. And you'll find inside tips from 30 leadingdesigners who have had to develop their own marketing methods tosurvive. Positively packed with all the details you need, MarketingBasics for Designers helps you ensure your firm's future successand shows you how to: * Increase your firm's visibility within your community * Use past successes to generate future business * Perform beyond your clients' expectations * Utilize a show home to market your talents * Establish competitive and appropriate prices * Work successfully with other professionals * And much more If you are recently out on your own, planning to start your ownpractice, or already managing your own small firm, this is one ofthe most important books you will ever add to your professionallibrary. Marketing Basics for Designers What makes running a small design practice so much more challengingthan working for one of the big firms? You have to attract your ownclients and keep them, you're working with limited resources andpersonnel, and once you finally pull yourself away from yourdrawing board to concentrate on marketing your services, where doyou begin? You can't just sit there wondering why you didn't learnmore about marketing in design school. Here's a book to help you out. With a clear, no-nonsense approach,Jane D. Martin and Nancy Knoohuizen address the full range ofmarketing problems and solutions from the unique perspective of thesmall design firm. They understand that you often find yourselfshort of the time, money, and know-how it takes to advertise yourservices effectively. Drawing on their own experience as well asinterviews with more than 30 successful designers, Martin andKnoohuizen show you how to overcome these limitations and developan effective marketing campaign. This incomparable guide will help you put together your marketingcampaign, map out your strategy, and attract the attention ofpotential clients. Not everyone is a born salesperson, but Martinand Knoohuizen let you in on trade secrets that really work andoffer suggestions that will help you feel more comfortablemarketing yourself. You'll learn to build relationships byeffective use of referrals and word of mouth. You'll master thesubtleties of clinching the deal and discover how to keep yournewfound clients coming back for more. You'll also receive sound advice from those who have been therebefore you. Charles Gandy, B. J. Peterson, Mark Hampton, and CherylP. Duvall are among the illustrious designers who share theirwisdom, tips, and recommendations. You'll find out how these majordesigners have coped with many of the same problems you face now,and you'll learn from their mistakes as well as theirtriumphs. Whether you're just starting out in the design business, yearningto break free and become your own boss, or trying to create growthin an established firm, Marketing Basics for Designers helps youdevelop a successful marketing strategy based on your own needs,capabilities, and expectations.

Successful User Experience: Strategy and Roadmaps provides you with a hands-on guide for pulling all of the User Experience (UX) pieces together to create a strategy that includes tactics, tools, and methodologies. Leveraging material honed in user experience courses and over 25 years in the field, the author explains the value of strategic models to refine goals against available data and resources. You will learn how to think about UX from a high level, design the UX while setting goals for a product or project, and how to turn that into concrete actionable steps. After reading this book, you’ll understand: How to bring high-level planning into concrete actionable steps How Design Thinking relates to creating a good UX How to set UX Goals for a product or project How to decide which tool or methodology to use at what point in product lifecycle This book takes UX acceptance as a point of departure, and builds on it with actionable steps and case studies to develop a complete strategy, from the big picture of product design, development and commercialization, to how UX can help create stronger products. This is a must-have book for your complete UX library. Uses strategic models that focus product design and development Teaches how to decipher what tool or methodology is right for a given moment, project, or a specific team Presents tactics on how to understand how to connect the dots between tools, data, and design Provides actionable steps and case studies that help users develop a complete strategy, from the big picture of product design, development, and commercialization, to how UX can help create stronger products Case studies in each chapter to aid learning