[...]... go People Power The partners of SamataMason often take advantage of their ability to directly observe large, successful companies their clients—in action “We pick and chose what is working for them and apply it to our business on a much smaller scale,” Samata explains For instance, when their children and the children of many of their employees were very small, they noted that some of their clients had... struggle through the portions of the work most readily admit they don’t enjoy, they find new solutions that allow them to do more of what they truly love design That’s why I believed a book on the practical and creative business techniques of graphic designers would be so valuable Because they must constantly use both sides of their brains to stay afloat, in my eyes at least, the most successful designers... to ask? The firms and individuals who share their ideas in the chapters that follow don’t think so They do have fun They do create interesting, even groundbreaking work They consistently work with interesting clients So why do they succeed where Joe fails? I believe it’s because they look at the business aspects of their offices with the same creative eye that they apply to actual projects Rather than... L A N N I N G RIGSBY DESIGN A Constant State of Becoming When it comes to planning and goal-setting, Lana Rigsby of Rigsby Design calls herself the trail boss of her eight-person firm: Everyone in the office is involved in the completion of the trip, although she holds herself responsible for the ultimate success of the map that will get them to their desired destination Rigsby Design has always made... contacted the people you will read about on the following pages I asked them very difficult questions in some cases—personal questions about their own successes and failures—never dreaming that they would be as forthright and honest as they were But all of them were straightforward They told me what they had done wrong They told me what they had done right I was touched by the personal aspects of their. .. common sense The three points of view often overlap, and there is a strong feeling of respect among the partners Communication is the key to keeping everything moving: The trio never assumes anything or takes the other person’s role or duties for granted They do their best talking, Samata says, when they are in an environment other than the office “When we go to each other’s homes, are having dinner,... attention to planning In the past, they might have gone off-site to just sit together, talk, and get away from the work “We have a very intense office,” the principal explains “People don’t necessarily walk; we are running most of the time.” In the fall of 2001, when the AIGA conference was originally canceled due to the events of 9/11, Rigsby decided to formalize the firm’s get-togethers: She planned a... general The last session of the day, which was followed by dinner and a movie, was a no-holds-barred roundtable discussion on how the company can improve How were they shooting themselves in the collective foot? What market perceptions stymied them? How could they pull together more effectively? On the second day, following breakfast, the crew reviewed what they learned from the first day of the conference,... formal business plan to date, but the couple, now in business with partner Dave Mason, see where they want to go They get there by plain, old-fashioned hard work After some bad experiences with smaller clients in the salad days of their company, Pat and Greg Samata soon set their sites on corporate clients—more specifically, on annual reports But the young firm was faced with the chicken and the egg... In the twenty years I have interviewed and written about graphic designers, these common traits have emerged, and clearly: INTRODUCTION ix 1 The best designers are also the best businesspeople 2 Most designers hate being businesspeople Another fact: Almost to the last person, the sixty-plus individuals interviewed for this book uttered some version of this statement: “We just want to have a bit of . h0" alt=""