Running a Design Business Series – Lynda

Running a Design Business is a series of 10 courses provided by Lynda, which answers the common problem faced by designer and in the design business in general.

Running a Design Business: Freelancing

By: Petrula Vrontikis

By choice or by circumstance, most designers will be freelancing one or more times during their career. In this course, Petrula Vrontikis provides an overview of the financial and creative advantages and disadvantages of being self-employed, along with methods, tools, and insights for starting out. The course helps you customize a strategy for your unique situation, from setting up accounts and tracking business expenses, to entering into contracts and invoicing for your work. The last chapter contains Petrula’s advice on maintaining good business relationships and tactics for staying motivated and inspired.

Running a Design Business: Grow Your Business

By: Justin Ahrens

Many of the mistakes business owners make arise from not understanding what they do well. This is true for any industry—including creative fields like graphic design. If you want to successfully grow and sustain your design business, there are some important questions to ask to identify your strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for expansion. For over 15 years now, Justin Ahrens has led Rule29, a design firm by recognized by AIGA, Communication Arts, HOW, and more. Here he shares stories and tips for determining what you do best, leaving the things that you don’t do well to others, and finding areas to grow. The focus of his advice is on building culture, brand uniqueness, business acumen, and better processes. Plus, learn new ways to promote your business to potential clients and strategies to build your team.

Running a Design Business: Leading a Creative Team

By: Stephen Gates

Leading a creative team comes with a unique set of challenges that must be navigated with care in order to get reports to be able to perform at their best. In this course, Stephen breaks down the tenets of impactful leadership for creative professionals. He covers how creative leadership is unique, why it’s important, the ways leaders can improve what they are doing, and how to help foster the kind of culture that is most beneficial.

Leading a creative team comes with a unique set of challenges that must be navigated with care in order to get reports to be able to perform at their best. In this course, Stephen breaks down the tenets of impactful leadership for creative professionals. He covers how creative leadership is unique, why it’s important, the ways leaders can improve what they are doing, and how to help foster the kind of culture that is most beneficial.

Running a Design Business: Self Promotion

By: Sean Adams

You probably know the names of many design greats. Chip Kidd, Marian Bantjes, Debbie Millman—and Sean Adams. What do they have in common? These designers know how to promote themselves. Self-promotion is essential for freelancers and studio heads alike. Fortunately, there are more and more ways designers, and creatives in general, can get the word out about their businesses, from business cards and Behance, to blogs and design conferences.

Running a Design Business: Starting Small

By: Petrula Vrontikis

Learn how to transition your freelance design career into a full-fledged business, one step at a time, in this installment of Running a Design Business. Petrula Vrontikis, founder of her own design firm, explains how to parse the legal options, business licenses, and tax ramifications that come with starting a small business; hire subcontractors and employees; get work; and maintain good business relationships. The course also points to important trends in the industry that your office might want to embrace, such as virtual partnerships that allow you to nimbly collaborate, and common small business challenges that you want to make sure to avoid.

Running a Design Business: Pricing and Estimating

By: Terry Lee Stone

Do you know what to charge for your design services? Too much and you risk scaring away potential clients; too little and you’re not compensating yourself properly. Let Terry Lee Stone, a design manager who’s priced thousands of design projects, show you how to calculate your work’s true worth. She explains how to keep good records, set an hourly rate, create estimates then transform them into contracts, and successfully approach financial matters with your clients. Plus, like all the other courses in the Running a Design Business series, this course includes free worksheets—including templates for evaluating your expenses and calculating your fees.

Running a Design Business: Creative Briefs

By: Terry Lee Stone

Learn to write a creative brief for client-commissioned projects and ensure you have a roadmap for developing great design, in this installment of Running a Design Business. Terry Lee Stone explains what creative briefs are, what goes into them, what they look like, and how to use them throughout the project. Learn how to establish the drivers, audience, competition, message, and other critical success factors. These lessons cover interviewing, researching, drawing out consumer insights, and synthesizing all of this information into a cohesive and actionable document.

Running a Design Business: Presentation Skills

By: Petrula Vrontikis

Strong presentation skills are necessary for a good designer to be a great designer. How you present your ideas impacts how willing clients are to make meaningful emotional and financial investments in them. Let designer and Art Center College of Design professor Petrula Vrontikis help you convey your ideas with confidence and clarity. Learn to strategize, format, and time your presentation to fit your audience, craft a great message, gain credibility using research, develop visual aids, and deliver the final presentation. Throughout the course, Petrula gives you tips for staying organized and calm, connecting with your clients, and getting the approval needed to move your project forward.

Running a Design Business: Designer-Client Agreements

By: Terry Lee Stone

As a freelance creative, you need to know how to write proposals and contracts for client-commissioned projects. Learn the basics of writing consulting agreements that are good legal and financial insurance and great tools for communicating with clients. Author Terry Lee Stone also introduces a pricing equation that helps you estimate your costs and charge appropriately for your work and shows how to manage complexities of client relationships, especially when it comes to defining an acceptable number of revisions.

Running a Design Business: Selling Design to Clients

By: Sean Adams

Many designers have experienced the frustration of having devised a singular, elegant solution, only to have it rejected by a client. While solid design skills are key to successfully selling your work, understanding how to collaborate with clients can be just as critical. In this course, learn how to win design projects, convince your clients to go with the best solutions, and cultivate lasting working relationships.

Instructor Sean Adams shows how to begin a working relationship with a potential client, explaining how to sell yourself, present previous projects, and set appropriate expectations. He also provides tips for communicating during the design phase, crafting and delivering an impactful presentation, and dealing with a variety of common conflicts. In addition, he discusses how to maintain lasting relationships with clients, create more work, and determine when it’s time to part ways with a client.