Category Archives: Rants & Ramblings

I continue to be amazed at the crap people send me each time I advertise a job for a logo designer.

Here’s one:

“You can view some of my work on my website – [URL removed]”

There were no logo design examples. Only web design work.

I replied:

“Dear JC,
To apply for the graphic design position, please reply to this email with your CV and a short portfolio of logo work (2MB max.)
Thank you,
Andre le Roux”

Response:

“Dear Andre,
Unfortunately I do not use CV’s as I have my portfolio online.
Please feel free to some of my design work on my Facebook page…”

Huh?

Really, it’s not hard.

1. Google “CV”
2. Type one
3. Proofread
4. Send

K?

PS: I’m not actually asking for your CV. The position has been filled. This is purely an example of how to not go about applying for a job. If you’re a logo designer looking for work, go to LogoGround.com.

We did it. We should’ve done it sooner.

After months (years) of planning for and talking about moving to a new city, we are here.

No amount of planning is really enough. At some point you have to accept that, grit your teeth, commit and go. It was a big stab in the dark for us, moving to a city we’ve never actually been to before. We now have our new office and Internet connection set up and are back to full speed.

It’s one of the perks of doing business over the Net. We moved from a huge city to a small town on the coast. Everything happens a little slower down here. People are friendlier, the weather is better, the air is clean and there is little traffic or crime. We really should’ve done this sooner.

I started a new Internet business, unrelated to design. It has reminded me just how hard it is. For months I waited for the first sale to happen. I was invisible and close to giving up. Eventually it did happen, but from there to having a good income stream is a long road. I am now at about 15 sales per month (±$400), growing each month.

I’ve learned:

1. The profitable Internet business I’ve built up over the past decade should be cherished. It seems obvious, but if you do the same thing for 10 years the grass on the other side looks like green cotton candy.

2. Build, bookmark, forget, repeat. That’s my new motto for Internet business. While you are building a new site it always seems like a world-changer. Get it built and “shipped”, then let it simmer for a few months while you work on another project. When you return with fresh eyes it’s easy to see flaws in the thinking and improve/scrap the idea.

3. Don’t give up. Pigheadedness is the one common denominator for successful Internet entrepreneurs.

Prediction time.

I see a domain bubble. Domain name sales and prices are climbing at an unrealistic rate, in my novice opinion. The prices being asked and paid are out of sync with the real-world value. As with the dotcom bubble, easy-money-hype is the primary driving force that propels domain prices ever higher. It’s going to burst.

After all, Icann’s Rod Beckstrom says “It is our fundamental obligation to increase innovation and consumer choice.”

Domains won’t dry up, but the hype will.

Just launched: ChairBay.com

This site joins our company’s existing ElectronicLight.com affiliate experiment. ElectronicLight was doing quite well a few years ago, but we got screwed by our supplier and did not bother rebuilding the site. Recently relaunched, ElectronicLight.com is back with a vengeance. ChairBay.com offers essentially the same thing, only for – you guessed it – chairs.

The idea behind it is to create an affiliate site that does not pretend to be anything else. Just links to products. The value to the user is that those links are categorized and point directly to the relevant categories on the sites of many different suppliers. Chair shortcuts/bookmarks, if you will. This approach worked really well 5 years ago, but since then search engines got tough on sites that are full of affiliate links.

I’ll keep you posted on how these sites do.

I was going to call it “intellectually challenged” clients, but apparently that’s a real condition.

I’m referring to simply stupid. The ignorant, impatient, self-absorbed kind of stupid, often encountered in clever people.

Selling to this breed is difficult on a good day. All of the information is there for them, the options are laid out clearly and logically. And still they find a way to muck it up. Convinced of their superiority, they write an ALL-CAPS email to support to explain how stupid our site/system is.

These clients are a very small minority of course – and a good benchmark. Design and build with them in mind. Assume that the people using your site/system are stupid and hellbent on blaming you for it.

There is a limit here though. Some clients simply aren’t worth the trouble they cause. It’s good to decide beforehand what level of abuse you will tolerate. If a client consistently strays over the line, taking up valuable time and making you wish you hadn’t quit smoking, fire him.