I was out riding my bike around town and found this classic example of someone who apparently hates the postal carrier. My first thought is this is a great way to stop junk mail from getting in your mail box.
This is a great video and really gets to the point of clients abusing vendors and service providers. I am sure every designer has had this happen to them more than once.
A smooth, efficient and reliable design business is often the result of implementing smart business systems. Does this sound like your firm?
Implementing reliable business systems is one area where I wish I put a little more emphasis when first starting my business. Besides doing all the design there was often little time left for the business end (billing, marketing, contracts, etc.) and putting reliable systems in place.
Why is this important? For a number of reasons, the first being it can free you up from having to do/create repeatable actions. If there is no process in place you tend to do things a bit differently each time.
Second, you want to shift your paradigm from working in the business” to working “on the business”. This means you want to shift your mentality to having systems in place (like a franchise) so it can operate independent of you.
So start to investigate what “systems” you have in place. Make a list, then try to identify a system (or procedure) that can automate it.
Examples of ways to automate include: using templates, process automation apps, autoresponders, defined roles & responsibilities and automatic payments among many others.
And a system does not have to mean a $4000 CRM software solution, it can mean hiring your sister to do your books on a defined basis or giving regular work to a virtual assistant. An added bonus is that a highly systematized business is much more valuable if you ever consider selling it.
Using (and even accessing) an en and em dash in your typography can get tricky. Here’s how to properly use (and access) them.
As Bringhurst says in, The Elements of Typographic Style: “In typescript, a double hyphen (–) is often used for a long dash. Double hyphens in a typeset document are a sure sign that the type was set by a typist, not a typographer”
First, the en-dash* (-) is the shorter of the two (about the width of the character N) Access on the Mac is Option + -(minus) For the PC it is: hold Alt then type 0150
It is used to indicate a range of just about anything with numbers, including dates, times, numbers, game scores, and pages in any sort of document.
It is also used instead of the word “to” or a hyphen to indicate a connection between things, like:
There may (or may not) be space before and after an en dash depending on placement and context.
Second, the em dash, which is about the width of a capital “M” It is accessed on the Mac by hitting
Shift+Option+- (minus) On the PC: hold Alt then type 0151
It indicates a sudden break in thought—a parenthetical statement like this one—or an open range, Doug Farrick, 1987—? or or instead of a colon or semicolon to link clauses.
Typically there are NO spaces before or after an em dash.
Bringhurst also says: “The em dash is the 19th century standard, still prescribed in many editorial text books, but the em dash is too long for use with the best text faces. Like the oversized space between sentences, it belongs to the padded and corseted esthetic of Victorian typography.”
An easy way to remember these is to just think of n is before m in the alphabet, so it it is the earlier or the “shorter” of the two.
* the en-dash might not display properly depnding on what browser you are using. But outside the browser world it should be fine.
