Design Practice

The brief just got serious, I have my first client!

Having established a firm idea on what I was wanting to do for the "What is Good?" project, the main thing to do next was to just do it. So today after I got my hair cut I popped into a lovely cafe in Morley, having never been in this cafe before I had no idea what to expect I was just going to get a coffee to go but I was pleasantly surprised with the delightful atmosphere which had a very 'homey' feel. I loved it, and as I sat there drinking my latte I couldn't help but think "Ok, this is my client." Their menu lacked the qualities of a good design, probably using Microsoft Word which is ok for a quick mock-up, but the feel of the place I thought could be so much better with some exciting visuals and illustrations. Having that 'homey' feel gave me some great ideas of what I could do, using different eco paper stocks for menus and their business cards, they also offer hampers, catering and buffets to order. They even do THEMES! So I asked the people who were working there and presented myself as a professional graphic designer and proposed verbally some ideas about what I could do for them, they even asked for a business card, to which I couldn't give but they took my number anyway.

They were looking definitely for some new menus as they were looking to expand their menu lists and seemed very interested in the visuals especially for windows and such. the ladies that were attending the place said they would pass my name and number onto their manager and I could maybe come with some visuals and things (I'll have to look at pricing too) on wednesday.

I'm going to look at creating some proper visuals over this weekend and will talk to James in the print studio on monday about pricing on papers and the vinyl cutter which I would really like to use, I also want to talk to Justin about how much I could charge for this.

Overall I'm uber excited, and I suppose if it doesn't work out I can do it hypothetically but even so, I have a name for my client and a contact, Anne and Chris Mansell are the owners of Bee's Knees: Delicatessen & Coffee Bar.