creative briefing

This post is written by guest-blogger Kevin Huynh. Kevin is the Finance Director of a Toronto-based creative marketing firm and knows a thing or two about the formalities of setting up a creative practice.

An entrepreneur has many roles; one of the hardest ones is refining the skills in developing into a good business person – an aspect often overlooked. You’re a great designer, developer, and clients love your work, so my hope is to help increase your business acumen to help you manage your emerging company better, and eventually you’ll be a well-rounded, business-savvy creative entrepreneur.

An important topic to examine in doing this is incorporation. The term is tossed around a lot, but very few freelancers actually have a solid understanding of its background, process, and significance. At one point or another, freelancers new to the field will surely cross paths with the question “should I incorporate?” so it is the purpose of this 3-part series to shed some light on the topic, and hopefully answer this simple but important question.

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(Finally, a much needed update on Project: Home Office)

Now that I’ve spent a bit of time cleaning up my room, I’m a little less embarassed to show some pictures of it in its current state. I thought I would give everyone a quick 360 and hopefully establish a ‘before’ image. This is what I’ll be [sadly] working with!

Starting on the left side of my room, you’ll find (L to R):

• A vertical mirror for the self-absorbed individual
• My embarassingly small (and packed) closet
• A sideview of my ‘test computer’

Desk 1 (L to R):

• My ‘test computer’ (it runs IE6 for all those late night CSS browser compatibility wars)
• 3 shoeboxes of sentimentals (okay the top one isn’t a shoebox, it was a gift box from my girlfriend – in case you’re trying to figure out what kind of shoes can possibly come in a green and purple pokadot box)
• A 17″x14″ DKT gaming mouse pad that I received as a gift during my first web design gig with the E-Sports Entertainment Association (yes, I said e-sports)

Desk 2 (L to R):

• My current ‘office’ desk
• My Dell XPS M1210 that will accompany me through this entrepreneurial journey
• Glysomed (the green bottle peaking out beside my laptop): because nobody likes dry hands
• A Brother HL-2040 B/W laser printer that I bought for $60 at Staples and only used until the original toner ran out (soon to be replaced by a HP Deskjet F4140 All-in-One)
• A stack of academic certificates and awards that aren’t glorious enough to make the wall
• Desani water bottle: because people without a job should still be baller when it comes to drinking bottled water
• 2 guitars that represent my creative musical escape: a 9-year-old Samick (caseless) and a barely 1-year-old Art Lutherie
• Bulletin board: Yes, that’s a Spider-Man costume without the Spider-Man inside it (somewhere out there there’s a naked Peter Parker)

The shelf (L to R):

• My precious hat collection (there are 20 of them) - the ones I actually wear are on the right side, you can tell by the amount of dust there is on the other ones
• My first stereo system (Pioneer) with 3-disc CD changer and 2 tape decks
• Spawn action figures taking in the ’surround sound’ experience (top)

The bed (L to R):

• Original artwork and sketch by Mike Wieringo
• The bed
• The yellow ass of a plush toy that may or may not belong to Pikachu

And finally, the door (L to R):

• Tennis racquet and pool cue (at the end of the bed): for the days when I had time to be active
• Spawn poster: one of the last remaining aspects from my childhood left in this room (along with the Spawn action figures mentioned above)
• Collection of lanyards and random hangy-dangly things (including plastic hanger from GAP)

So there you have it. Not quite MTV Cribs, but now you have a feel for what I’m working with. I feel like a used car salesman when I tell you that everything must go. I have a few pieces of new furniture picked out from the Ikea catalog already, but that’ll have to wait for the next post.

A good part of yesterday went towards the second clearing of the mess I call my room (soon to be office). I had made my first attempt back in May, and feeling ambitious to move foward with Project: Home Office, I thought I needed to get the slate as clean as possible for a fresh ‘restart’. 

After throwing away hundreds more of magazine inserts, ripping down old posters, and ‘filing’ the sentimentals, I was reminded of an article I had written after my first cleaning on my [now non-existent] old blog. I thought I would repost for your reading pleasure.

PS: A Project: Home Offfice update is on its way…

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In light of this year’s wireless number portability hoopla, I found Fido’s latest approach sort of interesting.

 
Thank god! I was growing tired of my 7-hour conversations having to be cut off because my phone battery wouldn’t keep up.

Wait, do the phones come with 7 hours of free minutes too?

Isn’t it a bit weird that such a competitive service industry has one major player showcasing their products on the frontline (especially since 7-hour mobile batteries aren’t exactly unique to Fido)? Unless Fido expects wireless consumers to naively rack up their phone bills by making use of their “new-found” 7-hour batter life…

Oversight or strategy? What do you think?

It’s been a busy week. What has probably been the longest break I’ve taken between posts (4 days) has also been one of my busiest weeks since starting my company 4 years ago. Not that I’m complaining though – it’s a positive reassurance that going full time was the right decision. Y’know, like that feeling that everything’s going to be just fine. It feels great!

In light of all this freelancerness, I wanted to draw your attention over to the Graphic Design Blog where I am the latest specimen under examination as part of a weekly segment called ‘Freelancer Focus’. The Graphic Design Blog is a great site to get insight and perspective on graphic design, freelancing, illustration, advertising, and web design, and is run and authored by UK graphic designer Tara. GDB plays a valued part of my RSS design roster (which compliment my entrepreneurial reads), and I’m happy to have my mug featured there. Head over and give it a read!

Waking up this morning, I was also pleased to find that my article on 5 ways to better manage your team virtually has been featured on lifehack.org. Certainly a new milestone for this blog!

If you’ve arrived here from either of those sites: welcome! While you’re here, grab a seat and take in some of the other reading material this site has to offer:

• 4 ways to stay focused
• 7 ways to not get a job
• Return on Entrepreneurship (ROE)
• 5 ways to improve your agency relationship

And on a closing note, I’m thrilled that I picked up my new 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS yesterday! I was fortunate to have been able to pick it up two weeks from my ordering time, despite the common two-month waiting list. And the fact that the dealership told me that my model is likely going to be going up in price and will only be available in limited quantities going forward (to be replaced by a Special Edition model) is just icing on the cake. It certainly helps to put more emphasis on the free in ‘freelancer’!

Pictures to be posted soon. Stay tuned.

Update: Here are some pictures taken this morning. Enjoy!