Designers, learn to print!

It is a sad fact that most designers simply don't know much about the realities of the printing process. Well, not much beyond the bare essentials, anyway. Few designers have any real experience of working in the print industry. True, not many printers have a full understanding of how a professional designer works, but then they have less need to. They know what can be printed, and they have a right to expect to be given work at least roughly properly prepared.

If designers know more about what really goes on in a printing company, about what works, what doesn't, and all the reasons why, then they'll be in a great position to design more effectively. They can turn quirks and secrets of the print process to their advantage and, more importantly, make sure they don't ask for the impossible. This covers everything from the obvious differences between RGB and CMYK and knowing how and when to convert between the two, through to the finer points of media behaviour on the press, page imposition, and the paper-management aspects of work and turn, and so on.

The more work a designer puts into preparing their work for print, the faster and more economical the production process can be. If the designer gets this wrong, of course, this can put a spanner in the works and cost far more than they bargained for. The secret is communication. Talk with the printer, ask questions as well as telling them about your job. Develop a good working relationship and learn to see the printer as an essential part of the team rather than a simple production service. Your life will get easier and your clients will often be happier as well.

How much should you charge for freelance work?

One of the most difficult things about freelance work can be figuring out how much to charge. If you ask too much you risk scaring off the potential client, but if you ask too little you risk being considered a second-rater and, even more importantly, doing yourself out of much-needed income. After all, there's no point in doing freelance work if you don't get rewarded appropriately. To help you avoid this problem I'm going to show you exactly how to work out a fair rate. All you need from here is the confidence to stick to your price, and of course the skills to the the actual work.

First, a few words on how to approach charging in the first place. Estimate how long the job will take, then add 50% to that figure. This isn't in order to scalp anyone, it is just being realistic. As well as allowing a buffer for complex issues, it helps protect you when revisions have to be made. If possible, it can be much simpler to discuss things in terms of daily rates or even lump sums for the whole project rather than the relatively bitty and quibble-prone per-hour approach. You still need to know how it breaks down per hour, but you don't necessarily have to discuss that specific detail with your client. Now, about that hourly rate...

There's a tried-and-tested method for working this out, and it is surprisingly simple. First of all, decide how much you want to earn per year. Be generous; remember that this is the gross amount, covering absolutely every penny that you'll spend, from tax and mortgage or rent through to IT maintenance costs. As a freelancer this is all down to you, from the phone bills to the stamps... everything. Forget the fact that you might do other paid work. Assume, for the purposes of this exercise at least, that this will be your sole work and source of income. We'll pick a figure of £40,000pa for this exercise, but feel free to go higher.

Here's the magic: just divide this annual income target by 1000, and there's your hourly rate:
£40,000pa/1000 = £40ph.

Trust me, this works. But if you want to know why, here are the details...

As a freelancer, it is realistic to assume that, over the course of a year, no more than 50% of your standard working hours (the Monday to Friday 9 to 5 thing) will be chargeable, and the rest will be devoted to admin, pitches for new work, experiments, and so on. This, conveniently, gives you approximately 1000 chargeable hours per year.

As I've already said, you need to work out your desired annual income. As a full-time freelancer (if you have a job already all that does is reduce everything proportionately, the principle and ratios remain the same) you'll be responsible for absolutely everything: computer hardware, software, stamps, phone charges, electricity, rent, insurance, holiday and sick pay, paper, pens, furniture, maintenance... everything. So don't forget to include it all when estimating the annual gross income you need.

Your hourly rate is your gross annual target income divided by the annual chargeable hours, or, to put it another way, target income / chargeable hours = hourly rate. With the £40k target I mentioned earlier that's 40,000 / 1000 = £40ph.

If you work for less, your target salary is less. If you work for an equivalent of £15ph, whether because you underestimated the time something would take or because you caved in at the negotiations, you're aiming at a £15,000pa gross income, which will barely cover your living expenses. (And if you live in London it probably won't even do that without help.)

See how it works in reverse, showing how little you'll make if you don't keep a finger on things? By all means do allow for time spent learning things. If there's much of that, is it fair to charge the client for it? But don't be a doormat. And remember, if you charge a very low rate now, that's the expectation the client will have for your work in the future... not to mention for work from the rest of us. Charge appropriately, stick to your guns and deliver the best results that you can, and you should have a long and profitable freelance career.

The future is wireless...

In 1932 Marconi said, “It is dangerous to put limits on wireless”. Of course, he was talking about radio and related technology rather than the Internet or computers, but it was still an incredibly long-sighted thing to say - and it holds true as much today as it did back in the first half of the 20th century.

The importance of wireless communications, not to mention its prevalence, is only going to grow bigger as time goes on. Last week’s laboratory experiments became yesterday’s high-priced gizmos, but today the results are high-speed wireless Internet access in your local coffee shop and pub. Tomorrow may see wireless networking become the standard way to connect computers of all kinds, with wired Ethernet becoming an add-on option reserved for specialist uses.

It seems increasingly likely that the UK government will, eventually, make a serious committment to ensuring that everyone has access to the Internet; this has been discussed in numerous policy documents. Those at www.dti.gov.uk/converg/, particularly in the Public Policy Objectives chapter, state this fairly clearly.

Figuring out how to do this is the trick, and it is arguable that one of the best ways to achieve this could be via strategically-placed wireless hotspot broadcast units. Today’s equipment won’t cut it, but the increased range and bandwidths being demonstrated in technology labs around the world will soon make this seem like a logical, sensible suggestion rather than a hairbrained scheme. The cost of adding wireless hardware to computers is dropping, and, as we’ve just mentioned, it is likely to become standard fare rather than an optional extra pretty soon.

As any student of science fiction knows, the biggest mistake anyone can make when predicting the future is being too conservative. Or, to paraphrase Marconi, imagining limits is dangerous. The future is wireless, and it has already started.