Interview Reflection

Today I interviewed Joe Duffield who runs No Brand Print which is a screen printing company based on Mabgate in Leeds. He previously worked with a partner in a similar business called Dots Printhaus and before that White label clothing that specialised in small runs of clothing from a range of illustrators and clothing designers. I have known Joe for a number of years and have worked with him on a few projects in that time. Joe works with illustrators and other creatives regularly through his practice and has run a successful business for a number of years. He is well known in and around Leeds within the network of creatives. I thought he would be able to give me a good insight into turning creative processes into a viable business model and they challenges involved. I started out by asking him about networking and how he advertises his business. he said that he does little to no advertising and that his client base has built up through word of mouth. He says that your practice is the most important thing and that you are only as good as the work you produce. Doing a good job can lead to more work and new business in the future but doing a bad job can seriously damage your reputation. He says that being self employed "keeps you on your toes" as all the time you are working you are representing yourself and forming relationships that will determine how successful you are in future. When he talks about networking he is not talking about social media, no doubt Instagram can help you show your work to a bigger audience but a network of clients and practitioners will have a more direct impact on the success of your business. Joe is situated in an area of Leeds that has become a popular location for creative practitioners and feels that this has benefits, He knows lots of local artists and shop owners that provide work for each other and set up events that benefit them and the area as a whole.

I asked Joe what the main issues are when dealing with customers. He said he doesn't have too much trouble as he mostly deals with small businesses and individuals rather than corporations. He told me that working with corporations tends to prolong each stage of the process. Instead of dealing with one person information can be passed through a number of people making it easier for misunderstandings and mistakes to happen. It is also more complicated in terms of getting paid as you will have a complicated process and an accounting department to deal with instead of just sending an invoice to one person. One issue that is common to a large number of his customers is contacting him at the last minute to produce work with a very tight deadline. This often leads to him working late and putting in extra hours to get jobs done. This is something I need to get used to. We are set deadlines at college but they are designed to be enough time to get the work done. joe has to balance getting the job done in time, especially if it is for a specific event and making sure the work is completed to a high quality, rushing to get a job done could seem like the right thing to do to make the customer happy but if it is not up to your usual standard it could have an effect on your reputation and then your business.

Pricing is something I have always struggled with, it is a big issue for young creatives who are often encouraged to work for very little or even for free to benefit their portfolio. I worked for years creating spray paint murals and was often greeted with shocked expressions when quoting process to customers. Joe researched his competition when he started out and set his pricing according to his competitors. We talked about working out costs, wages and materials as a way to decide on what to charge. joe said this was difficult to do and as a result he had done it once when he started out and not changed it since, only upping his prices by 5% as costs went up.

I asked Joe what advice he has for someone starting out in the creative industries. He said I should just concentrate on my work. Work hard and put in the hours. he talked about how his working days changed when he moved from working for someone else to working for himself. He talked about working 15 or 16 hour days, 7 days a week. he said that everything became exciting working for himself, even if it was just putting up a shelf in his new studio, we stopped going to the pub on a Friday and concentrated all his time on improving his practice and networking. Again he did not really see social media as the best way to network, instead he talked about making connections within the local creative community, connections that can bring work in, from collectives and provide services. He also said not to go around schmoozing, just to get involved and create connections that are mutually beneficial.

I asked him about communicating with clients and whether social media was beneficial. he said that he has missed out on jobs through not checking Facebook or Instagram messages regularly. These platforms can be useful to practitioners just starting out but keeping up with a range of different communication methods can be time consuming and cause confusion. having an online presence is useful but having to keep up with a number of platforms could end up being more work that it is worth. It was interesting that Joe said he had got rid of the work phone because nearly all the calls he received were cold calls. He said that emails are by far the best way to communicate with clients, all the information is written down and can be referred back to at any point. this is also true of social media but with email all the messages are kept in one place. He told me that phone can be difficult if you are working on a number of jobs at the same time and trying to jot down all the necessary information for the job, especially if it spans a number of calls.