Missing Deadlines

Freelance Switch writes about the 10 biggest mistakes freelancers make. Notable is the first one about missing deadlines.

The problem with some freelancers is that they don't even set deadlines. Giving an estimate is fine when you're just talking, but once the deal is closed you should have a timetable that the client can hold you to. Once the deadlines are set, you should make sure you meet them, or, if in case you don't, the fault shouldn't be yours.

The best tip regarding this is to always underpromise and overdeliver. In "The Kobayashi Maru" Scotty says that he always give Kirk a longer estimate so that the Captain thinks he's a miracle worker when he does what he says he'll do in half the time.

The next best thing is to clearly delineate responsibilities in the timetable. Usually a project needs to be approved in stages. Give your client a deadline, too, for approvals. Make sure that you hold him to that one-day turnaround when it comes to commenting on your studies so that he doesn't throw the entire schedule off track. Let the client know that if he gets back to you a day late, that'll move the schedule back a day, too.

The naming of cats...

Naming anything can be difficult, be it your company, a new product, or a new baby. With the latter my only criterion is that the kid can spell it in kindergarten and live with it without getting beat up in school.

The Name Inspector is a blog run by a linguist and professional namer, meaning he knows his stuff and gets paid for it. Although the featured names are analyzed after the fact, it still is good reading, providing insight into what factors should be taken into account when thinking of names. He also has the occasional "big picture" post that gives helpful tips like "10 tips for naming your company..."

Rip off

Cosmetics company Elizabeth Arden seems to have ripped off a nonprofit organization's logo for its new Britney Spears fragrance "Believe." The similarities are obvious; just check out this comparison from younggogetter.com.


The original uses Arial or Helvetica (if I'm not mistaken, I'll check later) while EA uses Century Gothic. The fonts are similar enough to untrained eyes, but what's more striking is that the color scheme is the same.

Which begs the question: how can a large company, with teams of designers on its payroll and a legal team to check trademarks and copyrights miss this?

Of course we should not rule out parallel creation. The EA designers might have come up with the logo independently. The font is classic modernist while setting the "i" off with a different color is all too common. The colors may have come from the Pantone color trend predictions. In other words any one could have made it up; it's not that brilliant.

The lesson here is simple: do a basic image search after your initial logo idea sketches. It doesn't matter how great your design looks or if you created it on your own, if someone else is using it (or using something similar enough that lawsuits might arise) then it's useless to you. Yours or your clients' lawyers should also practice due diligence and check registered trademarks.

More on intellectual property in a future post.

Dirty Words

I make it a point to check the spam boxes in my email accounts before mass deleting them. There have been several occasions when a client or supplier's mail has been filtered. Some design forum regulars have also recounted tales of clients lost because of unreceived mail.

Here are some of the words that are sure to get your mail filtered. Avoid them if possible. Better yet, remind your regular email pals to place you on their "safe lists" (or whatever the equivalent is in his mail program).