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Wildlife photography
Who are you selling to?
- Conservation groups
- Ecotourists
- Art and Design
- General Public
- Magazine/Publishers
Specialist publications
- Writers Handbook
- Photographers Handbook
Sometimes photographs will sell better with an article.
Specialist contacts
- Slide libraries
- BAPLA - British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies
- Oxford Scientific Photographic Library
Other methods for promotion
- Set-up
space near wildlife areas/museums, shops, National trust, Local
environmental groups, leaflets, tourist information centres.
- Arrange an exhibition for self-promotion
- Posters/Postcards
- Gallery
The designer and the design brief
Whatever its end purpose, all design starts from the same premise.
This is that the task of the designer is to fulfil two fundamental
considerations - one to the client, the other to the client's market.
In every undertaking, these considerations are the most important and
upon them rest the design's success or failure.
The client
It will be extremely rare for you - the designer - to work without a
commission of some kind; and even if an original concept comes from
you, someone else - the client - will eventually pay for the work.
Although, in purest terms, the client is ultimately the person who pays
the bills and who takes final decisions, he or she may not necessarily
be the one who is most informed about how the market is to be reached.
This is why advertising agencies, design groups, publishers and art
directors frequently act as marketing advisors and intermediaries for
clients.
Briefing
This, the first
stage in virtually any job, is the moment when its parameters must be
established. Certain vital factors such as budget and schedules will be
discussed, but the first consideration for you as the designer is to
decide whether you are suitable for the job. Under no circumstances
should you overestimate your capabilities and for this reason it is
essential to establish the scope and complexity of any commission
during the initial stages of the first briefing.
The
language designers use must always be tailored to the understanding of
everybody present. For instance, if the briefing is with an art
director, language can be more specialised than if non-technical people
are present. It is a great mistake to try to impress an audience by
using highly technical terms, as this can often be intimidating.
While nearly all designers may go into a meeting with their own
predetermined ideas, it is unwise to stick to them rigidly - even
though they can be useful in forming a basis for discussion. A dogmatic
approach may well cost you the commission - you must expect issues to
be raised from all sides until some kind of composite picture evolves.
It is of paramount importance that you remember to ask all the
necessary questions about the job before going on to the next stage of
the commission. To make sure that nothing is forgotten, prepare, in
advance a checklist of questions covering all eventualities - even if
some questions may be irrelevant once the exact nature of the job has
been established. Areas of doubt may lead to problems later; it could
be embarrassing to have to contact the client after the initial
briefing with questions the meeting was arranged to answer.
Briefing checklist
A list of general questions such as the following worked out in advance
will provide a basic structure for discussion at the briefing:
| Client |
Make sure you know exactly who this is - and get the spelling of their name right! |
| Date and time |
Make
a note of when the first meeting takes place - if you are dealing with
say, related topics or products at separate meetings, this will reduce
the chances of confusion later. |
| People present |
Write
down the names of all the people present at the meeting and do not be
afraid to ask how any unfamiliar ones are spelled. Just as important,
find out what their role is and why they are at the meeting. It may be
that the person with whom you will be working most closely did not
actually contribute most in the initial meeting. Job description |
| Project name |
Agree on a name for the project, or at least give it a working title. |
| Market |
It
is essential that you understand who the job is aimed at - to some
extent the market will dictate the level of design. Establish, for
instance, whether the job is to be aimed at a more sophisticated
audience (up-market), or a less sophisticated one (down-market), and
find out what the age group of the intended readership will be as this
can influence design. Clients often already have a fairly clear picture
of the type of people - their age-group, tastes and lifestyle - who
make up their market. It is up to you to ask for relevant information
so the design can be tailored accordingly, sophisticated diagrams, for
example will not be appropriate for a readership of young children. No
matter how well executed, any design should always be produced with a
well-defined target audience in mind. |
| Budget considerations |
Establish
whether a budget has been set - usually it will have been, but
sometimes clients are out of touch with current prices. Always agree to
give the client a detailed breakdown of all costs, including you own
time. It is a good idea to over estimate slightly when working out the
budget so that the client is not presented with a unexpectedly inflated
bill when the work is finished. In cases where the budget has already
been determined, it is your responsibility to decide how the money
should be apportioned within the job, although everybody working on the
project should be consulted. |
Broadly speaking, budgets should make provision for the following:
| Design fee |
This
is what you charge the client and the figure should be adhered to
strictly, provided the job specification does not change in any way. |
| Copywriting/ text |
The
cost of this can be difficult to work out, but it becomes easier with
experience. You should make a rough estimate of how many words will
have to be commissioned - writers generally charge per word (in the
United States) or per 1,000 words (in the United Kingdom). |
| Illustration/ photography |
To
an extent the intended readership will dictate the degree of
sophistication of imagery and therefore expenditure. If pictures have
to be bought in from an agency or library, a picture researcher will
probably have to be hired and copyright fees Maya. |
| Printing |
Designers
handling a high volume of work usually have a constant, sometimes
unwelcome stream of printers knocking at their doors offering print
quotations. While it may be tempting to ask each and every one of them
to provide quotations for a job, three is generally considered
adequate. When choosing a printer, cost must be balance against
quality, and to this end you should aim to achieve the highest possible
standard - and maintain it overall - at the lowest possible price,
Sometimes it is more expedient to ask a printer to quote for all
related services such as typesetting and colour separations, but today
these are usually handled by specialists and you should obtain
independent quotations. Other printing considerations see below |
| Originators |
Originators
of black and white and colour images (origination house or colour
separation house) will want to know not only the quantity, but also the
size of each individual image and whether there will be cut-outs or
other peculiarities. If a job involves a large quantity of separations,
as in an illustrated book, some origination houses can be persuaded to
estimate on a flat rate basis - that is, they will give a single price
for each separation regardless of size or, alternatively they may quote
a page rate for the job, regardless of how many images there may be a
each page. |
| Schedules |
In
virtually all cases your client will tell you when the job should be
completed and you should then give an immediate indication as to
whether it can be done in the time. If it seems completely outside the
bounds of possibility, you should say so immediately. How much time a
job will take to do will vary according to its complexity and your own
experience as a designer. Another important factor is how fast you and
everyone else involved with the project normally works. Some people
enjoy working under pressure, but others do not and this may affect the
speed and sometimes, quality of the work produced. Of all the elements
involved in scheduling, only the more mechanical ones, such as
printing, can be forecast with any degree of accuracy and even these
will be prone to a degree of uncertainty. |
| Contracts |
During
the early stages of a design commission, some kind of written agreement
should be drawn up between you and your client. In many cases the
confirmation of the commission may not occur until after the
presentation of the initial concept of a design idea, since you may be
in the increasingly common position of having to tender for the job
(compete with other designers). The extent of an agreement or contract
will normally reflect the complexity of the work commissioned. Small
jobs, such as a letter head or a poster may need only a letter, whereas
jobs such as a complete corporate programme will require a proper
contract or memorandum of agreement. |
Handout from lecture by Glen Handforth, with alterations by D.Bryson
Other printing considerations
Although
final details may depend on the design solution, the printer will need
to be given the following information before a price can be quoted; the
run, extent, format, printings (one colour = one printing), paper
quality, approximate number of halftones, type of binding, and where
the job is to be delivered. The printer will also need to know whether
computer disk, final film, or flat artwork will be supplied, or whether
the job will require complete page make- up. If the latter is the case,
the printer will need much more specific information, such as sample
layouts showing the proportion of type to halftone illustrations, ruled
lines, and so on. It is usually necessary to obtain confirmation
quotations from the printer once a design has been approved by the
client.
When obtaining quotations it is important to
remember that the fields in which printers work are as varied as those
of designers. A large, traditional book printer, for instance, may not
be able to turn a rush job around quickly, while a trade printer who
does general work of all kinds, though extremely quick, may be very
expensive. Also, a small printer (sometimes called a jobbing printer)
might not be able to bind a booklet and would therefore send the job
out, thus increasing the cost.
Video production
Market research
Providing service
Sound
Film Establish what are your capabilities
Video
Editing
Biological / Scientific expertise
Specialized ?
What makes you different? Termed your USP (Unique selling point)
Target audience - Local /Regional
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