Customer service. Why do I feel a little uneasy when I think of the phrase? The words “customer service” might as well say “customer complaints,” “unsatisfied customers,” or “those people who want me to produce garbage just because they don’t know the first thing about good design.” Ok, so maybe I could benefit from reading a book about customer service. Maybe you could, too…

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If I had one word with which to review this book, I would choose “collaboration.” If I had more-and you know I do-I’d talk about how Duffy explores the creative teams, account teams, and the clients on their roads to success.

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Who hasn’t thought about ditching their day job and going into business for themselves? You have the talent and ambition, so what is stopping you? Well, if you are like the majority of graphic design professionals, your design education probably didn’t prepare you with the business skills needed to start your own business. You need help. You need a guide that will teach you the basics of starting your own business, and provide you with the knowledge to help you avoid the pitfalls that could destroy the unprepared. Tad Crawford is the author of just such a guide. It is called “The Graphic Design Business Book,” and I was lucky enough to ask him some questions about his new book.

With your background in law, how did you become so passionate about design?
I became passionate about the rights of creative people early in my career. I was teaching writing at the School of Visual Arts and discovered the students knew nothing about business. This led to my creating a business course and then writing Legal Guide for the Visual Artist, which is still in print in its Fourth Edition. I became General Counsel to the Graphic Artists Guild and lobbied on both the state and federal level for rights for creators. In a sense, Allworth Press grew out of this passion.

I think that most designers fantasize about going into business for themselves, but your book doesn’t make it sound as glamorous as our dreams. Law suits, insurance, profit margins, taxes… that doesn’t sound like much fun at all. Is it really worth it?
It’s important that our dreams be grounded in reality. Being an entrepreneur is very different from being an employee. It has different challenges and different rewards. The entrepreneur has design skill, certainly, but also a vision of building a design business. Building any business requires a willingness to take responsibility and risk, to do the menial business chores as well as the exciting design work, to worry about money and perhaps be the beneficiary of a profitable business. When someone is ready to begin a design business, it can be terribly frustrating not to move ahead and get started–whatever the risks and however hard the work.

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I design Chip Kidd covers in my sleep. Ok, ok . . . so it is more like I was designing his covers in my dreams by the time I was done with this book (true story). Chip Kidd: Book One is chocked full of Chip’s design. When he says he has designed over 800 covers, he is not kidding (sorry for the pun). When you get this book I would suggest digesting it slowly, unlike my week of fairly consecutive four hour reading sessions. There is just too much to take in. These covers are all original (some more than others) and unique, but of course you know all of this stuff. Before I go into my overall nit picky complaints, let me say this. This is truly a beneficially read and an invaluable collection of his work. If nothing else this book shows the progression of book design over the last twenty years.

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by Marty Neumeier

Your new client sends you a breathless email: “Our CBO is building an IMT to reorg the brand architecture from the bottom up. We’re deciding on a BHAG this week, and as soon as we refine our backstory, we’ll probably need an avatar. What do you think?‚Äù

You could respond in several ways: 1) “What’s an avatar?‚Äù 2) “I’m not really an architect.‚Äù 3) Could you please translate that into English? 4) “Don’t call me a beehag.‚Äù

None of these answers is likely to raise your client’s confidence in your brand savvitude, especially after you sold yourself as an expert. However, if there were a copy of *The Dictionary of Brand* on your shelf, you could look these terms up and give her a knowledgeable response.

The Dictionary of Brand is published by the AIGA Center for Brand Experience, and contains 211 terms currently in use by leading brand professionals. Some of the terms are fairly stable, such as *brand equity* and *primacy effect*, while others, such as *brand police* and *parallel thinking*, have sprung up like mushrooms and may well disappear overnight. (This dictionary is nothing if not fresh.)

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