Use Sustainable Suppliers

This might seem like a no-brainer. Using only sustainable suppliers for your product development sounds like it might be hard to do, but websites like Waste Not make it easier for you to find everything you need, from bio-based packing foam, to renewed material hangers. You can even filter down to companies with low-minimums if you don’t need a high volume of supplies.

Use the How2Recycle Labeling System

Recycling directions may vary by municipality, but using a standardized system like How2Recycle will help your customers know the best ways to recycle your product. Products often contain multiple components and this standardized system takes the guesswork out for the average consumer.

There is a setup fee for using this labeling system, so you may have to make a case for it at the company you work at. Luckily, more and more businesses recognize the benefits of the investment.

Know Key Phrases

Biodegradable? Bio-based? Renewable source? Renewed material? Doing your homework to know the different key phrases is important. Sometimes buzzwords can be thrown into things to make a product more appealing, but if you know what you’re looking for, you’ll be able to make better decisions.

Commit to Continued Learning

Education should always be a priority, no matter what stage of your career. Climate Designers is a chapter based organization that makes it easier for likeminded designers to share ideas and learn how to better the world through their work.

In their own words, Climate Designers’ mission is:

1. To provide the resources, knowledge, and community for designers to take climate action in the work they do.
2. To inspire, motivate, and graduate climate designers by providing climate-focused resources for design educators.

Find your local chapter.

Whether you’re just starting out as a designer, or you’re already moving on up in your career, it can be easy to build sustainable habits into your workflow.

Spec work, aka speculative work, is unpaid work that gets produced for a potential client or employer. With spec, there is no guarantee of payment for the hours or resources spent on the project. Clients often frame spec work as a “design test” or a “sample”, to see if they like your work. While spec can take many different forms, this type is the form that this article will focus on. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll also refer to every type of creative as a “designer”.

So why is spec so bad?

Spec causes the creative professional to lose money or potential work.

If a graphic designer chooses to put hours into an unpaid spec project, they are blocking off time on their calendar that could be put towards completing working for paying clients, nurturing leads (aka paying clients), or building their business and brand content (aka attracting leads). In the corporate world, if a job seeker is spending time completing “design tests”, that’s time that could be put towards applying for other jobs where a creative worker’s time is valued. Either way, the creative completing the spec work loses the potential for more income.

Spec does not involve a full creative process.

Spec work often involves only a very brief creative brief (ha, wordplay) and minimal detail. Rarely in a professional environment does a project contain such minimal details. Whether freelancing or working in-house, creatives rarely work in a silo and work alongside their creative directors and the stakeholders who are requesting the assets. The opportunity for stakeholder interviews or collaboration with the rest of the creative team isn’t possible during the spec process. Therefore, it’s not possible for the designer to produce their best work.

Spec doesn’t harm only the creator, but the client as well.

It’s impossible for a client to truly get a feel for what it’s like to work with a creative unless they’re working through the full creative process with them. When a client chooses to work with a designer based solely on the work produced during the spec review, the price tag attached to the full project is often larger than what they would’ve paid if just paying the designer’s hourly rate for the “sample”.

What are the alternatives to unpaid spec work?

When proposed with the facts of spec work, people usually become defensive and will protest, “But how else am I supposed to know if I will like the work?”. Here are some options:

• Trust the professional. A professional designer comes with a great portfolio and references. Any designer worth their salt has an up-to-date portfolio that shows off their best and favorite work. If a designer refuses to provide references to previous clients or employers, consider it a red flag. The best professional creatives are able to work within the brand style guides that you provide them, or you can seek out a designer whose personal style is the solution to the problem you’re seeking to solve. Talk to a designer’s references and get feedback on their collaboration style.
• Still not 100% sure? Hire the designer for a smaller project. Rather than asking for an unpaid sample of the designer’s work, hire them for a smaller project that would be a smaller investment on your part. It will give you an idea of the designer’s working style and you don’t put as much upfront investment – and you still get a product that was paid for.
  

Food for thought: you wouldn’t go to a restaurant and ask to eat the food before agreeing to pay the bill. You trust that the professionals in the kitchen, who were trained using completely different sets of ingredients and recipes, are capable of creating the dishes that are on the menu. With completely different ingredients than what they were provided in culinary school.

Additional resources on the topic:

• https://www.nospec.com/
• Jessica Hische provides a guide on how to reply to spec requests
• AIGA’s Stance on the Matter

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(A) Forgot your business cards at home (again)
(B) Awkwardly hand them your business card, which isn’t as cool as theirs.
(C) Proudly hand them your business card, which they then put into their back pocket with twenty other cards they have collected throughout the day.

Business cards are a dime a dozen in the world of networking and conferences. Unless you make a lasting impression on every person you hand your card to, it’s unlikely that your card will end up in a pile of similar, albeit well designed, cards. Unless you personally follow up with everyone person you exchanged cards with, it’s likely that they won’t remember what card belongs to who.

But we’re not here to talk about how to get your card to stand out from the pile. And we’re not here to talk about your followup strategy or the followup strategy of every person who you met with.

I’M HERE TO TALK ABOUT A NEW STAPLE IN THE WORLD OF CALLING CARDS: PROMOTIONAL STICKERS.

You might say, “You want me to put all my contact information on a sticker? Isn’t that tacky?” Or, “What are you talking about? Stickers have been around forever.” Or, “What even is a promotional sticker?”.

HERE’S SOME PROMOTIONAL STICKER TRICKS:

• Produce stickers with illustrations related to your brand, and make sure to put your name, website, or social media handle somewhere on the sticker.
• If illustrations aren’t your thing, having a well-designed logo or phrase on a sticker is likely to get plastered somewhere just out of a designer’s love for good typography.
• If the sticker relates strongly enough to your brand, when it gets stuck, it becomes (at least semi) permanent advertising for your brand. It doesn’t get shoved into the back of a desk drawer with the one hundred and fifty other business cards never to be heard from again.
• When it comes to design or design brands, stickers are a hot commodity. We use stickers to personalize our MacBooks and Moleskines in a world where every designer virtually has the same item.

The cost may be higher, but so will your return on investment. A popular choice for high-quality sticker production includes StickerMule. If you want an illustrated sticker for your brand, there are many designers (including myself), who would love to be a part of your project.