The AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) has a series of discussions called the Small Talks. Each small talk is held at a different design firm. The design firm gives a half-hour to hour-long presentation about their company. Background information, their culture, some examples of their work. And then it’s open to questions by the audience. Sometimes the questions are slow to come out, because people dont’ know what to ask. But there are good questions that bring up interesting discussions. So i’m going to archive all the questions asked at these small talks.
- In this market do you go out and find business or mostly rely on referrals?
- How do you handle doing proposals–how much information do you include? Have you been burned for including too much and not getting the job?
- Do you use digital or film?
- What do you look for when hiring photographers?
- Do you feel that you are understood by your clients?… Who you are as a firm (type of work you do) but also the work you do for them. Is your work understood?
- Do you use brand briefs? (if the design firm does branding)
- Do you find your clients want to seperate out your costs?
- How many options do you like to present?
If you have any interesting questions to ask a design firm, please post them in the comments here