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13 lessons I’ve learnt during my creative career

Posted on August 30, 2018 by Admin under 30 Day Blogging Challenge, Design, film, Photography, Tips, Video

I’ve worked in the creative industries for over 20 years. Here are 13 lessons I’ve learnt during that time.

A break in the showers, filming Rough and Ready with Peta Todd & Steve Garry - 13 lessons

A break in the showers, filming Rough and Ready with Peta Todd & Steve Garry

The Weather

More often than not it will rain if you’re on a location photo or film shoot. On one shoot I did in Highgate, the rain was so torrential I had to use my photographic umbrellas to protect my equipment, not the best way to use them. On another shoot the prolonged showers were so heavy that I had to stand with my camera hidden under my waterproof to protect it, while rain sheeted down my back. I now pack plastic rubbish sacks in my kit to protect it.

They love it, you’re not so keen on it

More often that not your client will pick the design option or photo you like the least. You’ve worked hard to create several options or variations, particularly when designing a logo. There’s the one you, as the designer/photographer love – it’s truly creative, you’re really happy with it, it has the WOW factor, that certain ‘je ne sais pas’ and you can’t wait to put it into your portfolio and share it on social media. Your client chooses and loves the basic option you’ve provided that matches their brief and is effective, but doesn’t quite have as much ‘portfolio potential’.

Budget

Curtains film shoot Director Nathan Evans - 13 lessons

Curtains film shoot Director Nathan Evans

Client aspirations often exceed their budget. Sometimes a client will come to you having seen something online and ask you to create something similar for their company or project, but not realise just how much work/time is involved. The challenge here is create something for the client that is still creative, still does the job, still makes the client happy, but is within their budget.

Text

You will almost always be provided with too much text. Whether your client is a large national or international company, or an SME, you will often be asked to squeeze too much copy/text into too small a size of document. Learning to paraphrase supplied text is a skill that all designers soon pick up.

White Space

Or… you design a lovely piece: a leaflet or brochure for instance, and allow lots of lovely ‘white space’ to help the viewer’s eye move easily around the document and the client will insist on adding more and more text in. The skill here is to still keep the beautiful design and the good flow, whilst effectively adding the extra text.

“Can you just knock something up?”

But then the text isn’t ready and there are no images available. It’s like being asked to design with one hand tied behind your back, an almost impossible task. I’ve been asked that question too many times to count…

“It’s urgent – I need it ASAP”

The Priest - Shane Briant - Highgate in between showers - 13 lessons

The Priest – Shane Briant – Highgate in between showers

Often this situation is down to lack of planning and understanding of how long the design/print/video/editing process takes. For instance, a brochure can take about 2-3 weeks to layout (depending on how many pages there are) and then another week to print and finish  – especially if it’s litho print, as the print needs a couple of days to dry before the folding and stapling stage.

On a photoshoot a photographer can take upwards of 300 images. These take several hours/days to review, edit and process. Professional video editing also takes several hours. The ‘rushes’ need to be reviewed and clips selected to help create the story, then blended to create the final edit, any effects and colour grading added, title graphics created and then exported. The edit of a recent video I did was just over 1 hour, but took nearly 6 hours to export.

Design by committee

Particularly with larger companies, design or video projects will need to go through and be approved by several people, or groups of people. This will often take ‘forever’ as everyone needs to have their say and there will always be one person who thinks of them self as a designer, who insists they know better than the professional.

“Can you photoshop it?”

Rowland Rivron Chattoon - 13 lessons

Rowland Rivron Chattoon

Clients over estimate what Photoshop can actually do and how long Photoshop work takes. Photoshop is a great software package and can do some amazing things, but there are some things it just can’t do, or if it can be done, will take hours and hours, pushing the cost well above the client’s budget. The times I’ve been asked this….

It is a joke among designers everywhere that Photoshop has a “Remove XXX (with XXX being whatever the client has asked to be removed) Button”.

“Can I use this image I found on Google/my Facebook page?”

There is soooo much wrong with this. First, images on the internet are far to small for use in print for video and secondly, unless they’re your photos, or they’re ones the client has paid a photographer to take, the copyright isn’t owned by the client. The number of times I’ve been supplied images from the net, or that are too small….

“Just one more change, it won’t take long, I promise”

However large or small the client, there will almost always be just one more change AFTER the job has been sent to print. The number of times I’ve had to ring a printer to ask them if they’ve started printing the job and if they can wait until I send them new artwork……

Exposure

“We don’t have a budget, but you’ll get lots of exposure”. The number of times I’ve been told this, in my design work but also in my photography. Exposure doesn’t pay the bills and shows how some people don’t value the creative industries and expect something for nothing. Would they go into Tesco and say “I need my weekly shop, I don’t have money to pay you but I’ll tell everyone how good your products are?” No.

Photographers are terrorists….apparently

Nicola Gaughan, Photographer - 13 lessons

Nicola Gaughan, Photographer

Many police, security people and community police don’t always understand the rights of people taking photos in public. Many photographers have taken to carrying ‘the rules’ with them on all shoots in case they get stopped.

Even I’ve been stopped, a middle aged lady, who walks with a stick and at the time was using a medium format Rolliflex camera. I was stopped by some ‘plastic Plod’, when I was on my photography course. I was using my Dad’s old Rolliflex. If anyone knows how a Rolliflex works, the image is upside down and back to front. It takes some thought and time to make the image look right and get a decent shot, as you’re actually having think upside down and back to front to create your picture.

The plastic plod asked me what I was doing. Seriously? What did they think I was doing? Wondering how facetious I could be without being arrested, I replied ‘Taking photos (under my breath – what do you think I’m doing?)”. According to the plod they had to be careful because of the security situation these days. Seriously? What terrorist is going to use a medium format camera to scope out a location? They’re just going to use a point and shoot camera or their mobile phone.

Learn the basics of the Colour Wheel in our previous blog post.

Check out our case study about the promo we created for Jessica Rose.

To discuss how Iconic Creative Consultants can help you with your project, call 0775 341 3005 or email info @ iconiccreative.co.uk.

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