The Case-by-Case for Sustainability

This post is inspired by the question "What benchmarks do you use to determine if a company is green?" recently asked by a user on LinkedIn.

If a product has recycled content, it's green, right? Anyone who's even a little skeptical (and these days, I wish more people were) understands that you need to ask more than just this one question to determine if a product is green. And how do you know if an entire company is green? If they recycle their paper, or turn the lights and computers off when everyone goes home, does that make them green? The answer is, quite simply, it depends.

The Challenges of "Certified Green"

Increasingly, consumers are using certification to determine whether or not a company is green. There are a number of general certification bodies that have cropped up to help consumers and other businesses identify those who have met particular standards (see the end of this section for examples). Some of these are nonprofits, some are trade associations, and some are glorified PR outlets. Some local governments, especially in California, are also implementing certification systems.

The problem with these types of groups is that they themselves have subjective criteria that they apply to member businesses. So in order to determine if a certified company is legitimately green, one first needs to vet the certification program. This is the challenge I've run into with the San Francisco Green Business Program. The SFGBP is actually one of the most stringent government-sponsored certifications available in California. I've been doing a bit of consulting work with SF's Department of the Environment (just one of the city agencies involved in the program), trying to help them identify the best ways to build the program's credibility. Since there are now at least 285 certification programs to choose from, distinguishing the SFGBP as a leading program becomes even more important.



At the heart of the SFGBP, as with all certification programs, is the need to identify measurable criteria. The challenge, however, is that what is an appropriate and sustainable solution for one organization, business, industry, and/or process may not be so for another. The very nature of holistic sustainability is case-by-case, which makes it exceedingly difficult to create blanket criteria that actually work across all organizations. This leaves us with the simplistic solution of creating specific operational guidelines (as opposed to measurements) that are tailored to particular industries or business models.

The following certifications are just a few that I consider to be decently stringent, though none are "perfect." They're presented with the caveat that this is a partial list, and that my own assessment should be subject to your scrutiny:

• San Francisco Green Business Program (local only; all industries)
  
• Co-op America Seal of Approval (national; all industries)
  
• Green Seal
• FSC (international; wood-based supply chain)
  
• C2C (international; product design)
• LEED (national; building/construction
  
  *Full disclosure: I'm certified by the first two groups.

A Simpler Method of Measuring Green

Obviously, looking for viable certification is the easiest, quickest method to determine if a company is really green. But what if no certification exists, or if you want to vet the certification? In these cases, you can evaluate the following operational areas of the company:

• Energy consumption (amount of, type of)
• Materials consumption (amount of, type of, toxicity of)
• CO2 and other greenhouse gas output (amount of)
• Physical waste output (amount of, toxicity of, treatment of)
• Product output (nature of, life cycle of)
• Employee programs (existence of, nature of)
• Ethics (nature of, statement of, track record of)
• Community relations (use of local resources/vendors, distribution to local areas, enrichment of local communities)

Numbers alone, of course, don't tell the whole story. You'll still need to compare the identified efforts to conventional standards. Are they better, worse, or the same? By how much? Are there specific accepted standards that the company meets or exceeds in any of the given areas?

The Benchmark of Transparency

Another good measure of a company's greenness is their transparency. If an organization voluntarily discloses their operational methodology, and explains in detail the environmental measures they take, that's a pretty good indicator that they're at least addressing those areas. If you're wary of greenwashing (the act of paying lip service to environmental commitment), then look for generic statements, like "All of our products are green," or "We use an eco-friendly production process." Companies should be prepared to go into detail about their processes and back up their claims.

So there you have it: determining if a company is truly green or not is no simple task. Every day more benchmarking groups crop up to try and serve as a standard, but we're still a long way from consensus. In the meantime, any thinking about sustainability must by definition include flexibility, critical thought, and an understanding of the many complexities that go into judging results.

Finally, what methods do you use to judge how green a business is?

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Deflate the Tire Kickers

This article was originally published in HOW Magazine, June 2008.

Too many designers are tempted by the dangling carrot of a new project, investing valuable time in preliminary meetings, research and proposal-writing—only to receive from the prospect a brief “Thanks, but we’ll pass” (and sometimes not even that). Learning to vet these tire kickers in advance will save you time, money and lots of disappointment.

Tire kickers bleed your precious creative energy; they ask you to invest yourself in the discovery stage of their project, only to demand more of your attention. Worse than wasting time and energy, these accidental parasites waste your money—because the time you spend listening to their wants and writing proposals should be spent on revenue-generating projects.

There’s an alternative, however, and not only will it increase your odds of landing paying, profitable clients, chances are it will improve the quality of the projects you secure, too. With a little strategic planning and a few thoughtful questions, you can weed out those tire kickers before they take you for a ride...

Read the full article on HOWdesign.com.

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Hey, What's included in that design fee?

A recent thread in one of the professional design forums I frequent raised an interesting discussion about how designers justify their rates. I find it endlessly fascinating that design buyers—everyone from corporate ventures to mom and pop shops—have such a hard time understanding what it is they are actually paying for.

It's not uncommon to get questions like why so expensive; it's just a five-page website? and It can't possibly take that long to design a logo, can it? and even the old But there's no way to know if it's even going to work or not, so why should I have to pay premium prices?



The problem with this line of questioning is not that the client wants to know why they're paying what they're paying. We all have a right to know what we're spending our money on. The real problem lies in what it reveals: the client who asks these questions has no idea what they are actually purchasing...


When you buy a car, you expect to know the gas mileage, the type of engine, the horsepower, etc. Most of these details are disclosed outright by the manufacturer. In the design world, these details are the equivalent to deliverables, which include stuff like:

• Number of files
• Type of files
  
• Final printed pieces or live website
  

But when you buy a car, you're also paying for the manufacturer's name and reputation. With name and reputation come implied skills of craftsmanship and knowledge (advanced manufacturing processes, quality parts and materials, assembly line production, engineering, etc). Design buying is no different:

• Ability to concept and problem solve
• Research skills (general market research, competitive research, image research)
• Understanding of the structure, rules and implications of typography
  
• Color theory
• Grasp of composition, balance, contrast and layout and their impact on viewer behavior
  
• Production technique (software, assembly, handwork)
• Graphics editing (color and light/shadow manipulation, effects, cleanup, resampling, etc)
• File prep and prepress (bleeds, printer marks, color separations, file types, etc)
  

These skills vary from designer to designer, which is why there is so much range in pricing out there. Designers love this car metaphor; you can pay premium prices for a Porsche, or value prices for a Hyundai. Both are cars, but there can be no argument that one is sexier and handles better on the road. Maybe as a design buyer you don't want a Porsche, or simply don't have the budget for one. But you'd still shop around for a safe one, wouldn't you? One that won't break down every year? You'll always have to ask yourself what you're willing to sacrifice in order to save a few bucks.

When you buy a car, you get a warranty, right (we really haven't pushed this metaphor far enough yet)? Of course, you'd be an awfully lucky client if your designer gave you one of those. But there are some things you should get with your designer's fee to protect you:

• A written contract that spells out the project parameters, final deliverables, project timelines, client expectations (what you need to provide your designer so they can get the job done), and so forth. These details will protect you should the project seem to get off track. They'll ensure clear communication between client and designer from the get-go.
• Usage rights, or licensing rights, that guarantee you have permission to use the designer's work for its intended purpose. Your usage rights may vary from designer to designer and project to project. They might be exclusive, ensuring the designer can't resell the design to someone else, which is a good thing to have for logos. Always know what rights you're paying for.
  

There's something else that is expressly included in a designer's fees, something that's far too often overlooked by designer and client alike: return on investment. This is the Great Intangible that seems to make everybody cringe. How do we know this will work? There a couple of ways to measure ROI on design, and they depend largely on the type of project. Identity and branding projects can be tough to measure, for example, without conducting focus groups and surveys both before and after the project (and this is why the big boy agencies earn so much for their work—they actually do these things...I hope). But small scale metrics are available to even the independent shop:

• Direct mail can include ID references that can be tracked when taking inquiries. "Mention code ABC to get your discount," is a common one. Or send the recipient to a specific web address and track incoming visitor statistics.
• Sales numbers can be analyzed before and after the design piece is issued.
• Market comparisons and case studies can be used to decide if a particular project type has a successful track record. One of my clients, for example, was going to send out fund-raising invitations formatted in Microsoft Word and printed at Kinko's. They came to me for suggestions, and I convinced them to let me design a two-color piece with custom illustration that was professionally printed. The event ended up filled to capacity and they easily surpassed their $100,000 goal.

Finally, there are a few more things that may or may not be included in your designer's fee. These really depend on your designer's experience, history and focus, but they are extremely valuable skill sets:

• Marketing expertise including branding, positioning, outlets (media and distro) etc.
  
• Business expertise like project feasibility, budgeting, time and project management, legal issues, and so on.
  
• Vendor management (incredibly important to the final product), which includes print specifying, materials specifying, professional relationships, billing, etc.
  
• Writing skills: voice and tone consistency, concepting, grammar and usage, styling techniques, behavior change and persuasion techniques, etc.
  

As you can see, your designer (ideally) brings a lot to the table. You're not just buying a pretty picture—you're buying a set of skills and experience that directly impacts the success of the project itself (whether or not it's a smooth, trouble-free, enjoyable process), as well as the success of your business (whether or not the designed piece actually accomplishes anything).

So the next time you're surprised at a quote from your designer, consider the above list and decide if all of this makes the price tag worth it. Remember: it's your business and your money. You should know what you're paying for.


© 2007 Jessica Sand | For reprint permission, just ask. | And if you want to share this with your clients, by all means do, but be sure to include the following text: "© 2007 Jessica Sand, www.roughstockstudios.com"

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Six Essential Questions for the Business Blogger

It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been toying with the idea of starting a business blog, or if you’ve been feverishly blogging about your company’s widgets for years: you have plenty more to learn. A quick look through Google’s list of “business blogs” reveals some common problems: lack of activity, poor readership and appalling representations of the businesses they’re meant to promote. These issues do more than render a company blog ineffective; they can do real harm by giving potential customers the impression that the business simply can’t be bothered to get it right.

What follows are six simple questions you need to ask yourself if you’re starting a business blog or have one already. They won’t take long to answer, but they will help you strengthen your writing, connect with your readers, and build your business’ online presence in a truly positive way.

1. Why am I blogging?
Think long and hard about what you expect to gain from your business blog, because you’re going to be investing hours of your valuable time into it each week (and if you’re not, you should be). Mapping out a specific goal for your blog will serve you in two important ways: it will make the writing process easier as time goes on, and it will vastly increase your chances of success.



To map the most appropriate goals for your blog, consider the nature of your business. If you’re a retailer, for example, you might want your blog to increase direct sales, or serve as a customer support center. If you’re a consultant, on the other hand, you might want your blog to help establish you as an expert in your particular field. Identifying your goal will help keep your blog focused, as well as make it easier to develop new content.

2. Am I offering relevant content?
If you took the time to honestly answer the first question, then it shouldn’t take you long to answer this one, too. That’s because the content of your blog should be directly related to your blogging goals. If you want your blog to increase widget sales, start writing about the special features of your brand of widgets. Or maybe your blogging goal is to establish yourself as an expert in your given field, in which case you might want to share industry insights and useful advice. Because I aim to provide practical, real-world marketing for my clients, I always include at least one easy-to-implement marketing tip in my monthly e-newsletter, the Roughstock Roundup; there’s no reason why you can’t do the same thing in blog format.

In addition to ensuring your content is directly related to your blogging goals, your content must also be relevant to your readers. Avoid what I like to call Cute Kitty Syndrome by asking yourself if each blog entry will really be of interest to your readers. Posting the intimate details of your summer vacation, for example, can easily bore readers who are looking for content about your products or services, and make your business appear less useful to potential customers (unless, of course, you happen to be a travel agent).

3. What is my position?
Avoid trying to be all things to all readers. You’re competing with thousands of business blogs, and this is a great way to differentiate yourself from your online competitors. Show your readers why your company is different, both in the way you address them and the content you provide. One of the biggest mistakes I see business bloggers make is being afraid to have an opinion or a unique voice. Just as your personality inevitably informs how you do business, so should it inform how you communicate with your blog’s readers.

You should always remain professional, of course, but don’t be afraid to let your sense of humor show, or reveal your own unique approach to your industry. When I started my Bar Stories drinks blog, I was concerned that my slightly irreverent writing style might turn off my corporate clients. But when one of them contacted me directly to let me know how much fun they had reading it, I realized I wasn’t taking as big a risk as I’d feared.

4. Am I paying attention to my readers?
Just like a brick-and-mortar storefront, your blog provides a great opportunity to connect with new prospects. Unlike real life, however, where you can see with your own eyes how many customers are walking through your door, blogs require extra work to know if they’re getting the job done.

If you’re not paying attention to your readers—how often they’re visiting, what they’re reading, if they’re commenting—there’s a good chance that you’re shouting into an empty room. The best way to know what your readers think of your company blog (and by extension, your company) is to ask them—make sure comments are enabled and encourage readers to leave responses (that means replying to their comments, too). Take a poll every now and then, or hold a contest to increase interactivity.



But don’t stop there. Make sure you track your visitors (StatCounter and Google Analytics offer great services free of charge). Knowing where your visitors are coming from (other blogs, directory listings, internet searches, and so on) can provide excellent insight into what kind of content readers are looking for. Use this information to help make your writing more relevant to them.

5. Am I being consistent?
I can’t stress enough the importance of consistency when you’re blogging for business. You would never accept anything less than consistent excellence when providing face-to-face customer service, so why would you present an inconsistent image to your online readers? This doesn’t mean that you have to write only about widgets and nothing else (assuming that your company makes widgets, of course). It simply means that your overall tone and approach should remain recognizable, so returning readers know what to expect.

Your blog is, after all, an extension of your brand. As such, it should reinforce your real-world identity and offer visitors a familiar space to return to again and again.

6. Am I getting the results I want?
This is where we come full circle: don’t forget to ask yourself periodically whether you’re reaching your original goals or not. Knowing how to measure your success based on your initial blogging goals can be a challenge., and many businesses hire companies who understand the fickle nature of blog readership to help them create blogging plans from the get-go. With a little logical thinking and a decent dose of creativity, however, it’s not impossible to assess your blogging results on your own.

If you started blogging to build credibility, your search engine ranking is a great way to measure your success. Are other businesses, blogs, or organizations in your industry linking to you on a regular basis? If you’re low in the search engine results for keywords in your industry, or if others aren’t recognizing your blog as a valuable resource, you might need to rethink the content you’re providing to better achieve those results.

Click-through rates, conversion rates, entry and exit pages, and visitor length are additional statistics that can help you measure your success. Just make sure that you’re reviewing the statistics most appropriate to your goals, or you won’t get an accurate view.

When all is said and done, a business blog is a long-term commitment. You owe it to yourself and to your readers to continually assess the fruits of your labor and make adjustments when necessary. Going through the above questions on a periodic basis will ensure that your blog content stands out from the crowd, differentiating your business from your competitors.


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Killing Off Five Design Myths

A myth is really no more than a reference point for any given group; it's a way of making sense of the group’s beliefs, actions and history. The mysterious beauty of the myth, however, is the very thing that makes it unreliable as a basis for modern decision making: it generally isn’t true.

The following myths are based on concerns I hear echoed by my design colleagues on a regular basis. These particular myths seem to run so deep that clients don’t even realize they are false, while designers have just about given into them. Whether you’re a designer or are looking to hire one, if you can identify these myths as they rear their serpentine heads you will find they are easy to slay. And the results, thankfully, will be better design.

Myth 1: Software makes design easy.
The modern-day accessibility of computers—and design software in particular—has fooled the general public into believing that technology makes the craft of graphic design easy to master. It isn’t. It takes years—and often, natural talent—to understand and know how to apply composition, balance, inspiration, conceptual and critical thinking, color theory, typography, and a host of other principles.

The software used to create a finished product are just tools, tools to be wielded by expressive hands. If those hands are unskilled, unschooled, or generally uninspired, the finished product will be, too. Photoshop, after all, does not allow the designer to bypass research and exploration; Dreamweaver cannot teach the designer how to lead the eye and structure sites logically for an end user. Practitioners who know specific software like the palm of their hand are incredibly valuable, but without the understanding of design principles, art history and a commercial marketing context, their value lies more in production and less with the creative process.

Myth 2: Creativity comes as easily with a tight deadline as without one.
Graphic designers are commercial artists, and so must execute their craft within typical business contexts. Budgets, resources and time are all considerations that inevitably inform our work, and deadlines are a fact of the designer’s life. But it is also important to recognize the effect that too-tight deadlines have on the creative process. Sure, there are tools and techniques we rely on to get the job done under a variety of conditions but, ultimately, the creative process is somewhat uncontrollable.

When a designer has limited time, it means certain steps must be foreshortened. This may mean less research, less time to explore ideas or concepts, fewer design options, or the jettisoning of any number of other pieces in the design process. It is a mistake to assume that the final outcome of a project completed under these circumstances will be as successful as it could be with a more appropriate timeline.

Myth 3: In order to design green, you need to spend green.
This may be the most damaging myth of all: that specifying environmentally sound printing is prohibitively expensive. There are so many avenues for going green these days that there is no reason doing so must lead to excessive costs. Recycled papers are now both quality- and cost-competitive, waterless printing prices are often comparative to conventional offset printing, and there are a host of other areas where a little thought and planning can reduce material waste. This includes the very design itself; asking specific questions at a project’s outset can make the greening process very nearly painless.

Myth 4: When in doubt, seek as many opinions as possible.
During a design project, feedback is fundamental. Designers must gather information from multiple sources to inform their process, and clients can certainly benefit from the opinions of others, particularly their own customers. But occasionally even the most efficient projects stall when a client just can’t decide on a solution presented to them.

Although careful thought and full consideration are important, second-guessing your designer can sometimes undermine an entire project. What often comes down to ego—designers may feel slighted, clients may need a larger sense of control over the process—can usually be prevented with a better understanding of the design process. Your designer should be able to work with you at the outset of your project to identify any concerns and issues that might arise, whether it’s color preferences, time constraints, or the buy-in of your board of directors.

Of course, things come up and minds can change. But trusting your designer is not as risky as it might seem. It can be helpful at these moments to remember why you hired your designer in the first place: for their professional expertise and body of knowledge.

Myth 5: When presented with several ideas, combine them into one fabulous logo.
Most projects begin with the presentation of several different design options. When a client can’t select a favorite, they may be inclined to pick and choose elements from each and ask their designer to create a logo or brochure from these various parts. This is a process known in the industry as Frankensteining, and the result is often monstrous.

When a designer presents multiple design options, each has been carefully considered: text placement, size of elements, composition and so forth. Combining different solutions willy-nilly inevitably results in work that seems disjointed, unbalanced and just plain “off.” If you are uncomfortable with particular elements, consider what it is about them that you don’t like and communicate this to your designer. Perhaps you just don’t like the color green, or you are drawn to the curve of a specific letter. Being as specific as possible can help your designer fine-tune one direction to create a focused, successful piece.

So there you have them. While there are plenty of other design myths out there, these five are particularly pervasive—and detrimental to the final product. Recognizing and applying the truths that lie behind these myths can help improve client-designer communication, increase client and designer satisfaction and produce better, more effective work.


© 2007 Jessica Sand | For reprint permission, just ask. | And if you want to share this with your clients, by all means do, but be sure to include the following text: "© 2007 Jessica Sand, www.roughstockstudios.com"

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Substantial Profits, Sustainably: Part II

This article is part of The Sustainable Studio column originally appearing on the Business of Design Online.

Wal-Mart recently made a decision that you need to know about: the country’s largest retailer announced that beginning in 2008, “packaging sustainability will be a formal part of [the company’s] purchasing decisions.” That means that over 61,000 suppliers will have to revamp their packaging if they want to continue working with the retailing giant. Now take a wild guess at who will ultimately be responsible for specifying these sustainable packaging materials and creating accurate label designs. That’s right: the honors land squarely with you.

But this isn’t a simple case of Wal-Mart twisting the arm of its supply chain; in fact, Wal-Mart’s environmental requirements may very well be a financial boon to your design practice. Last month’s Sustainable Studio described the ways in which greening your operations can significantly reduce your overhead; I’ll now share the ways in which it can actually increase your revenues, both directly and indirectly...

Read the full article on Business of Design Online.

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Substantial Profits, Sustainably: Part 1

This article is part of The Sustainable Studio column originally appearing on the Business of Design Online.

How much money have you invested in design software, computer equipment, marketing your business and so on? The answer, no doubt, is a lot, not to mention your costs for electricity, gas, office supplies and other overhead expenses. It’s no wonder, then, that many designers think of sustainability as an added expense (and an unnecessary one at that). But what if it weren’t? What if you could integrate sustainable practices into your day-to-day business operations and actually reap financial rewards for it? The good news is, you can and I’m going to show you how. There are actually quite a few financial benefits to sustainable business practices, not all of which are immediately obvious:

• Cost savings
• Increased revenues
• Employee development
• Risk management
• Increased brand value

The beauty of sustainability is that it’s easy to start implementing simple changes today and see results almost immediately. Adobe cut their carbon dioxide emissions by 16% by reducing their electricity and natural gas usage; their initial investment has already paid for itself and they now save $1 million every year.

But you don’t have to be a huge software company to better your bottom line. In fact, small design firms are often at an advantage because of their size. Since small businesses are generally more susceptible to limited cash flow and changing market forces, reducing overhead even slightly can make all the difference. Not to mention the fact that our smaller scale gives us the ability to adopt new practices and adjust old ones easily and efficiently.

Read the full article on Business of Design Online.

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Deconstructing the Myths of Sustainability

This article is part of The Sustainable Studio column originally appearing on the Business of Design Online.


Can’t we make the logo bigger? At its heart, it’s a simple request but professional designers cringe at the lack of understanding it reveals about so many things: balance, composition, white space, scale. You can’t just make the logo bigger, or you’ll have to adjust possibly every other element of the design. This is the simple principle behind sustainability: everything affects everything else.

Yet we often fail to apply such an obvious principle at the macro level. We think about designing a package that the consumer will want to pick up and purchase, but we don’t think about where that package ends up (most likely in the nearest trash receptacle). This isn’t particularly the designer’s fault. There is so much conflicting information and the issues are so broad, that it can be difficult to really grasp what sustainability and sustainable design even mean.

It’s enough to make a designer give up and forget the whole the mess. But imagine if there were a way to approach the issues without overwhelm, without constantly feeling like you are swimming upstream. There is a way, and it starts with deconstructing the myths and misunderstandings that stand in the way of creative discovery...

Read the full article on Business of Design Online.

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Design Will Change

This article is part of The Sustainable Studio column originally appearing on the Business of Design Online.


Have you heard? Green is the new black, according to everyone from Vanity Fair to Forbes. This makes some of us shudder, as eco-everything becomes yet another trend to keep up on. We’ve all seen the pharmaceutical ads encouraging patients to self-diagnose, and we can sometimes feel like those doctors who are inevitably forced to prescribe drugs they know little about. Sure, we can spec recycled paper. We’ll just add a little soy ink. And that’s often as far as we go, having done our part. It’s safe enough, we reason, and the patient is happy again. Next, please.

But let’s be honest with ourselves, if not our clients: we don’t really know what we’re doing and some of us aren’t even sure why we’re doing it. All we know is that this trend keeps growing, sinking its roots into the public conscience like new media and that whole Internet thing. It’s a new reality growing up around us and we aren’t quite sure how to respond.

Read the full article on Business of Design Online.

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