Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

July 29th, 2009

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Business


success and failure

i’m often amused that some people think they know what everyone wants in life. they seem to have this idea of what success is, and if you aren’t aiming for the same ideal, you are just unsuccessful. wrong! it’s ok to have your own idea of what success means to you. actually, it’s not just ok, it’s a must.

being wicked is a tiny design studio. we do good work for some really fantastic clients. we focus on the publishing industry so we work with some of the big publishers such as HarperCollins, Random House and Hachette (Little, Brown). although we are small, nothing has stopped us from doing really good work for some really great (and some rather large) projects. we are successful. we don’t have huge offices with employees, payrolls, overheads and other stresses, and that’s just the way we want it.

define your own success. then, be open to redefine it. things change. circumstances change. people change. be open to that change. today, i may be quite content having a small design studio. tomorrow, i may change my mind and have a new goal. goals and dreams keep us striving to improve and better ourselves. i don’t want to ever let myself stagnate.

sometimes that means i try new things and they fail. that’s ok too. sometimes, success is not always about reaching the specific goals you think you want. sometimes the success is learning from the mistakes you make and redefining your goals from those lessons. at least, that’s what i have found so far.

June 16th, 2009

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Business, Random


a quiet rant

i often get quite irked at the idea that just because someone is quiet they have no personality. you see it all the time on tv shows. the quiet person is usually considered the “dull” person. i’m a quiet person. and yes, i do, in fact have a personality. sometimes, if i haven’t had coffee, i can have quite the bitchy sort of personality. when did being loud, obnoxious, arrogant and extroverted become the default for having a personality?

it annoys me in the design world as well. just because i don’t use every opportunity to brag about my work, or hype a project, or project some air of superior confidence, doesn’t mean i’m not proud of the work we do. we are a small team and we do really good work. we don’t yell about it every day from every social network outlet, because, well, we don’t feel we have to. our clients like us and we like our clients.

btw, just because you do brag, hype or act overtly confident, doesn’t mean you are any good. i see many people exceptionally proud of some really sub-par work.

and now, i will quietly get back to work.

April 23rd, 2009

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Bookworm, Business


finding focus

i recently read this great post from emira: getting beyond the busy work. such a timely post for me. i’ve found more and more my day is consumed with all the “busy work” that i allow myself to get caught up in rather than the “real work” that needs to get done. if you know what i am talking about, the post is worth a read. if nothing else, at least it helped me feel like i wasn’t the only one. i do need to change some habits – like closing down my email and twitter (shock! horror!) for part of the day so i can really focus. as emira says:

when we’re running around like proverbial chickens, answering phone calls, rushing to meetings and trying our best to stay on top of our inboxes it’s really easy to lose site [sic] of the important in the midst of the urgent, but as the bosses of our own careers and shops it is so very important that we make this distinction.

The Boss of You it’s so easy to get distracted and caught up in being busy that you actually don’t accomplish much at all. when you are running your own business, this is never a good thing. speaking of business, there are all sorts of business books out there for someone starting out on their own, or trying to develop their own business to the next level. who am i kidding? there are about a million books out there, right? and where to start? well, let me help out the other girls out there.

if i had to recommend only one business book out of the thousands (millions might have been stretching it a tad), it would be this one: The Boss of You: Everything A Woman Needs to Know to Start, Run, and Maintain Her Own Business. if you haven’t picked this up yet, do yourself and your business (whether it is already started or just an idea in your head) a favour and purchase it. i promise i’m not a sales rep for the book or anything like that. i’m just a firm believer in sharing good finds when i find them. i really have found this book to be such an inspiring, informative and enjoyable read. in fact, i often go back to certain topics and chapters to re-read them. business can be tough. starting your own business can be terrifying. running your own business can be stressful. a book like this is a helping hand; a much needed push in the right direction; your own personal cheerleader in book form and your little advice-dispenser when you need it.

April 6th, 2009

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Business, Design


Recent Work: Knopf Doubleday

Screenshot: Knopf Doubleday

so, the last month or so has been very busy – which is always a good thing – and one of the projects that kept us very busy was the new Knopf Doubleday website which we just launched!

for anyone who’s into publishing you will know that recently the industry has been going through some changes. Random House recently made some adjustments, and part of that was combining two of their houses: Knopf and Doubleday into one. in doing so they needed a new web presence, and one that could accommodate a suite of other sites for the imprints within Knopf Doubleday. 5 weeks, many cups of coffee, a few choice-words for IE6, and some great team work with Random House later and we’ve launched. the site is built in WordPress and is really a testament to how flexible and powerful WP is. site maintenance is a breeze for content managers and adding in new imprint sections can be done in a day.

for me the biggest challenge was creating a design to accommodate the sea of content each imprint requires. there’s a lot going on and making sure that it didn’t look messy and overwhelm the visitor was key. the main site is made up of shades of grey with the only colour used to signify the various imprint posts according to their logos in the header (and of course the book covers which is really the main focus of the site). once in an imprint section, this changes so your focus is on the specific imprint itself giving it it’s own space. each imprint can have it’s own distinct look, which we’ve already adopted for some of the imprints with some simple CSS changes, but we will continue to work with the various imprints in the coming weeks to update and fine-tune this.

we are really chuffed with what we’ve created with Random House. so far the feedback has been really positive and we know the content managers for the sites are loving how easy it is to update and maintain. a good thing.

August 19th, 2008

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Business, Random


twitter – getting you in touch with people when you need it

i’ll admit it, i didn’t get twitter, or even like the idea of it, for the longest time. why would anyone care what i was doing throughout the day, and in turn, why would i care what others were doing? aren’t blogs around to tell me that sort of thing? do i really need to know the mundane minutiae? apparently, yes.

once i started using twitter, i found myself hooked. i enjoy knowing things as they happen – like watching ryan carson shave his head for charity, or hearing about the LA earthquake before it was even on the beeb. i’m not a stalker, but i especially like to see what web designers and developers are talking about – especially those i really admire. i feel “in the loop”. we can discuss the issues with that statement and how there is such a massive overdose of media to take in lately, but that’s for another day. for those who still don’t like twitter (and trust me, i understand your point of view), here’s an example of just how helpful it was for me late last night.

we needed to update a client’s website which is hosted on network solutions. we are based in the UK. apparently, due to some DDOS attacks some IPs (mostly from overseas) have been blocked. NetSol has more information on the issue (if you are based outside of the US and can’t get to networksolutions.com, that post explains why). so, although we could view the client’s site, log into the FTP and even the CMS, we could not log into the account on networksolutions.com to make a vital database user edit. after some frustration wondering why we could not even get to networksolutions.com and trying various methods, i twittered (tweeted?) about the connection issues asking if anyone else was having the same problem. i was hoping to just get some additional information on what the problem may be, instead, i got a response from NetSol support within the hour. after a few emails (and even a call from them) explaining the issue and clarifying what we needed to do, the problem was solved, and the client update was done! i was, and still am, very impressed.

i received a message via twitter from customer service, a phone call and numerous emails from Gerry to help us solve the issue. to help with the database edit, Gerry sent our email to Sam who fixed the problem in a matter of minutes. they were both incredibly helpful and polite and although our IP is still blocked and the whole situation was incredibly frustrating, the pain was eased tremendously by the great support.

i won’t discuss whether i feel NetSol is a good host provider or not, but i will say i was incredibly impressed by their customer service, and i found out just how useful a simple tweet could be. if Gerry hadn’t been in touch via that twitter message, i know the situation would have taken much longer to resolve, i would have been even more stressed out, and i would probably not be singing any praises for NetSol at all.

Update: and, today, our IP issue is resolved as well. Thanks again Gerry!