How things can turn around. I was on the brink of quitting two months ago and now I'm full of spit and vinegar enthusiasm. The lesson? Cash in the bank makes running any business an entirely different affair. No cash and you have a life of stress. Around every corner lurks disaster. Cash in the bank and you have some breathing room. You can make strategic decisions.

My future plans? Keep the costs down. I've got a design business that is running smoothly. We know who we are, we are confident in what we offer. My grandiose dreams of growing have been tempered by both the reality of needing lots of cash on hand as well as a realization that running a large firm might be the worst idea i've ever had.

The design business has some interesting issues in it's inherent model. That is selling something elusive as "good design". I'm seeing that no matter what your business plan, your business is your client list and the quality of that relationship.

Bidding Design Projects

How often, as a designer, find yourself creating an eloborate project schedule and bid, only to find you pretty much throw it out the window as soon as the project starts. Take a website project for example. In the past I listed each page as a work item in the schedule, allowing for more time to get the most important pages designed. There are several problems with this method.

1. Finishing the project and getting paid is now tied to finishing the project. Which, is generally completely in the hands of the client. The longer a project drags on the more I end up working to try to get things locked down.

2. I am always suprised by what sections of the site take the longest. In general clients don't really know what they actually want out of a website until they can see something close to finished. These unforseen trouble areas are can eat up the budget.

I've been running bridgmandesign for the last 6 years and it's teetered between a design firm and one guy freelancing. I've loved it. Sometimes. Our clients base is mostly entrepreneurial local Seattle businesses. I bounce back and forth between actually doing the design and art directing the various employees and interns I've had along the way. We've been swimming upstream to get ahead of the internet curve. One of the hardest problems has been getting high-end coding resources contracted or employed. Someday I either need to turn the business into a 10-15 person affair and just hire a great developer or I need stay small and take on a technical partner who wants to share the killer lifestyle I enjoy. Something has to be good if you're not making all that much money. For 6 years I've been telling myself I'll quit taking on the cool low paying jobs and focus on the $$$. sure. Just around the corner.

jonathan bridgman

bridgmandesign