Enterprise & Innovation

Friday, 23 April 2010

Wednesday, 21 April 2010

Tuesday, 20 April 2010

Business Plan

1.The nature of your business

Business name HLVTCA.co.uk

Business activity

Freelance Graphic Designer specialising in visual identity,

Logo & Branding, also dabbling in Editorial and Packaging. An all round package.

Based at a home studio, my business being run by the means of a website.

Mission statement

Im modern, Im dominant, Im a cheap lady of the night. Helvetica.

Helvetica is being used by everyone, get involved or lose out. HLVTCA will bring you success.

Business objectives

.Run business through Quality website, how they find me, contact me.

.All design based around the Helvetica typeface.

.When another typeface becomes bigger and more popular, switch to that.

.Grow a list of clients whom depend on me for their design needs.

The people in the business

One

Designer

What is the structure of your business?

As i am the only one in the business, there isn’t much structure, Just me like.

The business itself will be in the form of a website, running everything from there, that is where i have my presence as a designer.

What is the legal status of your business?

The business will be Sole trade as I am the only one in the business. The advantages of this is that i dont need to worry about anyones wages other than mine. There will be no designer clashes or artistic compromises.

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2. Resources

1. Products or services

The product or rather service i am providing is freelance graphic design, anything from logo design to brand & identity work, packaging or editorial. This being so my designs are a 100% of the turnover.

2. What resources do you require?

The biggest expense in terms of resources / equipment would be my Macbook and creative software, however i already have these, so there is no expenses there. Other than that i require a constant flow of paper and pens but this would be no more than £1000 annually.

3. How much stock do you need any stock to start your business?

Nothing.

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3. Prices

1. How have you worked out your prices?

My pricing strategy is based upon what i want to be earning as a new professional designer, using the annual charge rate worksheet, i have found that i need to charge a daily amount of £148.90. This is quite a cheap as say if i worked 8 hours a day it would come down to £18.60 an hour. Which from some brief research is roughly seen as an average price. The majoirty of hourly rates falling between £15-20

How do your prices compare with your competitors?

I found a freelance designer also situated in Leeds under the name of Straight To Helvetica. He charges a base rate of £10 an hour which is very cheap! However you do get what you pay for, he even uses other typefaces than Helvetica! He also provides the option of packages;

Logo design: 3x examples and relevant amends, 3 working days - £50

Business Card design: 2x examples, 3 working days - £45

In-depth logo re-branding: Research and report on current logo/competition, 3x initial examples, Relevant amends, Real World Mock-ups, Style guide, 2 weeks - £250

• A6 Event flyer design: 2x working days, 1 examples, amends - £40

Web banner, 3x examples and amends, 1 week - £50, this is the pricing scheme from a Leeds based freelancer, his standard rate beiong £10 per hour, this is much cheaper that me, however his work isn’t great and its not in helvetica, so its deemed worthless. - Straight to Helvetica Designs

Strengths: Cheap, offers variety of services,

Weaknesses: Low quality, Part time freelance. not readily available.

Opportunity: Availability, 'full-time' freelance. Offer better quality of work for little extra money.

A friend of mine is also Freelance designer based in the Yorkshire area, after having a quick discussion on the phone, he told me that he would normally assess each project and give them a personal quote, however if he is to charge an hourly rate he goes at £35-45 an hour. Which is much more expensive than me, however he has a few years under his belt as a professional designer. His name is Adam Carlile, www.adamcarlile.com.

Strengths: Experience, Client base

Weaknesses: expensive, has other job aswell

Opportunity: Again availability, cheaper price.

4. Customers

1. What evidence do you have that anyone will buy your product / service?

My selling point is that Helvetica is the font businesses and companies need to succeed, my idea is new in terms of forcing this upon non expecting clients, assuring that all they need for their visual identity is Helvetica and with it they shall become successful in whatever they do.

Half the proof is out in the world, with so many promo, retail and advertising using Helvetica to gain success, I can give everyone this success by just using Helvetica.

Who are these people?

My main consumers will be educated professionals, both males and females from the ages of 25-60, within the corporate world. Companies, both private and public businesses. Their lifestyles and values being revolved around money mostly based in the major cities around the UK. The benefits they seek will be profit based, what will get them the most money. The market sectors i want are, Business and consumer services, IT, Legal services and Mining! They love’s the gold.

3. Where are they?

London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Sheffield, Nottingham.

How many are there of them? Just looking at accountants, there are over 280,000 qualified accountants in the UK, now obviously they are not all private sole working, but thats still a lot of accountancy firms in the UK.

Why would they buy from you rather than anyone else?

Comparing myself to the freelance designer from StraightToHelvetica, he is cheaper, however i am still cheap in terms of freelance design however i offer a good quality of work and promise success! I am also awfully charismatic, Everybody loves me, babies, dogs, ya know, hot girls, cougars. I just have unbelievable mass appeal.

6. How much will the average customer spend with you?

How often will they spend that amount with you?

Will your sales fluctuate due to external forces ( e.g. seasons or cultural / sporting events)

In terms of my hourly rate, say a full visual identity project, 1-2 weeks depending on how many ranges of media they want the identity to span across, the average customer shall spend, £1400. This i have got from my hourly rate, 8 hours a day, 10 days working on the project. They will only spend this amount once, as it will be for the re-branding, however, any future publications / design work would bring in extra income. Accountants for example run all year round, so my sales shouldnt fluctuate due to anything but acts of God.

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5. How will you promote your business?

How will you advertise your products / services?

(advertising is not compulsory)

Using personal selling and direct marketing. Firstly creating a mailing list, offering my services, showing what i can do for them and why they should use me. Whole idea of without Helvetica you are losing out, pay me the helvetica-Hore to make you successful. Although costly i feel this is the best way to access my market, Starting locally with the mail shots, after sending them i shall take advantage of personal selling by phoning them just to make sure they got it and to generally pester them to see if they need any work doing.

What other marketing methods would be effective for you?

Personal Selling

Promotions

Public relations

Direct Marketing (Targeted marketing)

Internet

The internet will be an effective means of advertising myself, i shall produce my own website to get a web presence, showcasing my helvetica works, my philosophy and contact details.

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6. Total set up costs

1. Marketing

Cost of promoting your business for the first year

With direct marketing and a plan for a mail shot, expenses will incur. Roughly i think £1500 to 2000 should cover the costs of designing them and the printing and sending of them. Depending on design development and what not this cost might dramatically decrease, as it is something i would look to save on, So one colour print process could be a good idea to reduce costs.

2. How will you finance the business start up?

Name a suitable source for the kind of funding you need.

If it’s a grant – give evidence that your are eligible. You are NOT eligible for Prince’s Trust

Working from home reduces a lot of costs, so in terms of start up i dont need much. I wouldnt want to get involved with banks straight away so unfortunately my father would receive a phone call. I believe they would be financially stable to give me a loan of about £5000, this covering new software, printer/ printing costs and my marketing plan.

Wednesday, 9 December 2009

Propsed/Position/Statement

Proposed Position Statement

short but informative statements that identify my distinctive ‘positioning’ as a graphic designer. Considering my ambitions/skills/areas of creative interest all in relation to the market, clients, competition.

. I believe i am most skilled within typography, Using type as a normal means of communication and informing but also using type as a way of illustration and the central focus of design.

. A big ambition of mine is to design the artwork for snowboards. There is a market for this in the UK however there is a much larger and significant market in America, more specifically on the west coast of America.

. In the sense of location i propose to firstly work for design agencies around the area of Birmingham and my home town Solihull, this is not only convenient for me but Birmingham is a big city with lots of potential, famous for design based studios, The Custard Factory.

. As i have a big passion for snowboarding id love to work in the industry. As there isn’t a whole lot of snow in the UK, this area of work could lead me abroad, whether this be in the Alpes or in Canada or America, essentially it could take me around the world. The ski and boarding industry is also seasonal, so the design vacancies may also be seasonal.

. This year i have re-branded Leeds Met Snowsports, this included designing hoody’s and t-shirts, i have also been asked to design t shirts for a large charity event which is sponsored by some big names, the biggest being Nike. With this in mind i could see myself designing artwork for clothing, this market obviously being global and also very competitive.

. I feel i am a versatile designer, having abilities within work for print and digital design, however i feel that my knowledge and skills within the field of design for print limit me to be the designer and not have a real part in the print process other than stating what i require.

. Involving my passion for snowsports i can see myself working for related magazines. This genre of material tends to always be quite stylistic and not just a magazine with boring standard layouts, these being a large creative interest of mine.

. I feel as a designer im not the best around, although i believe i am a competent graphic designer, the industry is a very competitive place and i doubt i am capable to work as a top of the line designer, but i am in the belief of it is who you know not what you know and im very nice!

. At some point during my life i hope to travel the world, go and see places, with this in mind i would like to at a stage become a freelance graphic designer, giving myself more freedomand options to work wherever and whenever.

. I would love to be a designer and work as a collaborative with some of the friends i have met on the course, i feel doing something i have real passion for with talented and lovely fellow designers would be awsome.

Sunday, 6 December 2009

TaskFOUR///Competition/Evaluation

When looking at the three agencies around the area of Birmingham i found that their strengths and weaknesses were fairly similar. The one biggest difference between the three was that one had won awards and had been professionally recognised. This is one thing that i could aspire to, either winning awards, professional acclaim or working for an agency that had acquired it. I found it quite hard to really find any proper weaknesses in the company from just looking at their websites as they wont be putting any negative stuff about themselves on their and i can’t use subjective language. However i did feel that one agency wasn’t as innovative as the others.So an opportunity there is to always try and be innovative with my design and look at it as being a good strength to have.

One common strength between the three agencies was the amount of work disciplines they offered, with one offering over 14 kinds. This I see as giving me two options, to compete with agencies/designers like this by offering as many disciplines of work as possible or try and be a specialist in a certain few. Although saying this one weakness i found within one agency was that the work seemed to all be similar so an opportunity would be to try and make all my designs appear to be different and not the same old generic work. Another main point i came across was the location of the studio, i feel the closer to the city centre or the town is better as it becomes more accessible.