Face-to-face, phone or email: I’m often given the choice. And I always opt for in-person meetings when possible.
95% of people say that face-to-face meetings are essential for long-term business, building trust and encouraging strong relationships.
(Source)
Three reasons why face-to-face is better:
1. Your personality shines through.
Your passion for your work shows. Facial expressions, hand gestures, eye contact…the things that make you a good communicator…are more obvious in person.
2. Some people communicate better in person.
I can’t see you when we’re on the phone (unless we’re using a video conference platform). When you live and work in the same city as your clients, meet with them! It’s much easier to see their reactions to ideas in person.
Some people don’t like the phone.
They’re unable to really discuss a project like they could if you’re sitting right there with them. They can show you what they’re talking about.
And email can really be difficult.
A simple question? Email is great. Needing clarification on a project, or having a problem with the direction a project is going — this warrants at LEAST a phone call, if not a personal meeting.
3. Having visuals helps reinforce the assignment.
My biggest road blocks have come from trying to execute a project without a great creative brief and a meeting. There is a disconnect.
When my clients have examples of things they like (or don’t like!), their direction is clearer. Verbalizing is sometimes okay. But if I can see it, pick it up, feel the paper, flip the pages, it makes it easier.
If you are looking for a graphic designer, contact me and let’s sit down together to discuss.
Project updates are one way I educate my clients and business associates on what I do. I might start my 60-second at 
Eh…too much fun stuff this weekend to sketch. Probably not the way this challenge is intended, but I did days 6-8 all at once.
Day eight was creating something then creating it ten times smaller or larger, then again ten times smaller or larger. I don’t know how this could even work on this small page, so I know my scale isn’t right. I think the point is the larger the item is, the more detail you can include. I’ll be honest. I’m tired and dinner is almost ready so there isn’t a whole lot of detail going on here tonight. Tomorrow is another day.
What can you create from your clothing or something else that you regularly wear on your body?
Now spend some time looking very closely at a small natural object and use that as your inspiration.
Just got this great book: “Creative Sprint” by Noah Scalin & Mica Scalin. It contains six 30-day challenges to jumpstart your creativity. The idea is to create an environment for yourself when you need to be creative, so when you need to change hats from doing more analytical stuff to more creative stuff, you have a process. Today was all about drawing tiny things.
Back in 2011, I decided to set a goal for reading. My husband reads a lot, and I decided if I didn’t have a goal to shoot for, it wouldn’t happen, so a book a week it was. I was successful! I reached my goal, and when 2012 rolled around, I looked back at all the books I had read. I started out with professional development books, and after about eight of those I knew I needed to mix it up; curiously, I found that professional development books all start to sound a lot alike.