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Trip

Trip

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I've been thinking lately about an idea. Recently I have been out-of-business (no life job, and no graphic clients). So I was thinking about starting up a small design business through macosx.com. Interested? Read on:

WHAT?
A group of members from macosx.com (myself being included) could start up a small corporate design business together. Each member would have an important part of the business and everyone would be included in the growth of the business as a whole. And no matter how little business we get we'll still have some bonuses on our side: 1) we can put this business onto our future resumés. 2) we can get the experience of working for a small business.

WHO?
Basically only members from macosx.com can start this thing out. If enough people get involved we will go into further detail on we're going to get the business going, a business name, logo, advertising and such. *Only the people who are 100% dedicated to joining the business should apply. We don't have room for 300 people who are willing to dedicate 10% of their time.

WHEN?
Whenever we get a good team picked out for the business then we'll start working on the full picture. Comments are excepted for this area currently.

WHY?
Like I stated above: this will help give anybody in the business some good experience of working with a REAL company. And the company will also allow members to use it as a object on their resumé if they choose to leave the business at a later time.

Questions, comments, thoughts?
 
I like the idea, and I'm not sure how much free time I'll have (because I'm in the process of finding a tangible job) but would be glad to help out. I can do web design, and have a copy of photoshop that I could learn, although I don't know the graphic design thing yet. Let's get it going!
 
i like mr. k am interested, however time is also an issue for me, since i get a ton of work to do for school, i know photoshop and illustrator farily well, and i have basic html, css and js skill,

but i would need a better idea of the time and skill aspect you were looking into

IM me, (in my profile)
 
Instead of IMing anyone I'll just post here:

This will be a REAL business. Meaning there will be specific amount of hours of work we'll need to put in every week. And we will be working with REAL clients looking for REAL websites/logos/business cards/etc.

Not sure right now (because I have school as well, and am looking into a job) but we might set it for anywhere between 2 to 5 hours a day. It all depends on the final group and the time that we decide on.
 
I'm interested. I know Photoshop, HTML, and CSS, some of the basics of Javascript, and I can learn pretty easily. Time isn't too big of an issue for me, considering the amount of it I spend here, despite my day job and school schedule.

We'll need to set up some things, however. Like a method of payment; perhaps a joint Paypal account. And we'll need to get a business license, which will cost money. And there's more, but we'll go over that later.
 
Good arden, glad to have you aboard!

I have all of that stuff in mind still. We'll talk about that as soon as we get everybody fully aware of this and we get as many people as we can willing to donate a lot of their time to this project.
 
My dad talked to me this evening about if I want to start my own videography business, what I'd need, what I'd need to do, etc. I immediately thought of this thread. So who knows, I might make that a part of it.

My (far from complete) "business" website is www.hostultra.com/~nexuscc/jabmulti/ so you can check out the design and what I've come up with for stuff I can do. Then you or I or someone can start a conceptual site for this business, if it actually starts to go somewhere.
 
Uh, no offense arden, but I'm afraid that site sucks :(
Trip, I have a major piano competition in a month, I need to focus on that for awhile, but afterwards I'd love to join in! I've always wanted a bit of $$$ :D
The only thing is, for a few months leading up to each competition I'll probably be unable to contribute as much, because I am practicing most of the day.

Lesee, I know CSS, PHP, MySQL, XHTML, and I'm learning Cocoa programming (should be finished in a few weeks). I can do SOME graphix stuff, but since that seems to be what other people are good at, and since I
1) don't have PS, and
2) don't like doing it
I'll stay out of that part :)
I am pretty good at making the website designs and stuff though.
 
So dlloyd if we gave you a layout (will be pre-sliced and such) you could throw it together and make it work on the web for us? :)
 
Without a doubt! :) That's the easy part. The hard part is making the design in the first place. Programming the PHP back end isn't easy either, but code, for me, is always simpler than design :( (If, however, you show me a design piece, I can usually tell you how it was made, and replicate it. As long as it isn't heavily hand-brushed :D)
 
Check my design site now, I did quite a bit of updating last night. (Not as much as Scott did on this site, of course, but I had less to do. ;)) I'm not surprised you think it sucked, I had barely worked on it up until last night... it is, however, meant to be simple in design, so the layout is not supposed to be drop-dead gorgeous or anything.

If you're really good at coding, chances are you won't be so good at visual design. It's something about how the brain works, the two are on opposite sides of the creative spectrum. I personally am a designer, and I've always had trouble picking up programming languages (HTML and CSS are not programming languages, before you say anything).

Trip, I suggest you start something up and take people on when they offer their input and decide they want to join. You don't have to get everyone who might potentially want to be involved, involved from the start. If you're going to do something, do it and let them catch up.

And if you need any advice on starting this puppy up, just ask me. I can probably figure a lot of it out, and my dad has a business license and is really smart in general, so I can ask him as well.
 
I don't want to dissipate your good energy... but the real problem with doing graphic work... it to find real customers that pays for what you do.

Find customers first, everything else I am sure you will do very well.
 
chevy: I already have a list of clients that I've worked with in the past who are all willing to get things from a new business like the one I would be putting together.

arden: thanks for your input, though it wasn't really helpful I'm sure it'll be someday. ;)

I've decided to put this project on hold. Right now I've got two design firms that I'm working with, hopefully the one I choose will be the best. So this business idea is going to be delayed for a while. But still input/requests are welcome!
 
I know the feeling Trip, my freelance business has all but floundered recently. Too many fish in the sea so to speak, with all the unemployeed design people out there freelancing now.

If you need someone for InDesign work, I would be able to help out a bit. I have alot of press and web printing contacts, as well as others in the print industry. Also getting good with proper no-tables based cross-browser XHTML and CSS layouts.

Latest trial is a large scale MySQL based data mining project for real estate, which is going into the startup and angel process right now.

It's a pain in the you know what doing this kinda stuff, but it's rewarding. Good luck with the firms, let us know how it turns out and if you want to persue this any.
 
I'm very happy to read that you have customers.

Keep them happy ! And if you have spare time (and only if you really have spare time without risking to loose your customers) then you can try to fish some new ones and build a business.
 
What exactly is your intention in starting this business, Trip? Is it because you want something to do, or are you seriously interested in opening a business in the design field, including all the headaches that entails? If you're really serious about this, then you should pursue it whole-heartedly; if you just want something to work on, then you might want to put it on hold for now.
 
I AM putting it on hold for now. I'm looking into 2 design firms to work with currently. But if neither of those works out (or if I feel it's not going to work out) then, yes I am going to start a real business and yes I'm going to work with all the real problems that come with it. :)
 
This idea is far from dead. It's in full swing, keep your eyes on TannerSite.com within the next couple of weeks.
 
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