Haha, talk about the current economy. Shaughnessy's third sentence is all too true; times are tough and work is scarce. How does your newly-opened studio go about finding clients?
First place to start is those businesses that need some design help. Like, really need it desperately, like this one above. Holy crap, Papyrus and a crescent swoosh? This needs some freakin' help, but you can't just go up to them and say "hey, your logo sucks, let me fix it!" because that would be incredibly rude and they'd throw you right out. So, a pitch is in order, which Shaugnessy says is almost more important than the final presentation. Boy, am I glad Chris North made us do pitch books with presentations. But first you have to start gathering names for you little black design book, or a database of contacts as he calls it. This is to get a list of businesses that you want to design for, no matter how impossible to book, and promote to them.
Your portfolio has to be all buff and sexy before you go pitch your ideas. I like that Shaughnessy promotes using digital projections because they make your work look really polished and sleek. Show materials that go with what you like designing. He suggests using a narrative context, like putting your stuff in order of how you made it to show the thought/design process and then the final piece that the item was used in/for/by. Websites are a great way of showing off work, but it's easy to get too self-absorbed and talk about how awesome you are, so show off the work and it should speak for itself if you're an awesome studio. Then, send them promo materials (hand-writing the address gives you an aesthetic advantage). This can be a good way for lots of people to see your stuff, but they sometimes get thrown into the massive piles of other studio promos, so the best way to avoid it is keep it simple: start with a post card with one piece of work and the most basic info on the back. If you want to get daring a few weeks or months after, send a more direct poster, email, flyer, or whatever. But don't bombard them with too much stuff or they're bound to get annoyed and end up throwing away your promo piece, no matter how fancy it is.
Raw Design Studios in London has no problem going non-traditional with their raw meat promotional mailer (above). The raw meat image unfolds into an A3 poster showcasing their newest work (below).
Overall this section was nice for learning how to promote a studio without being too intense about it. Getting new clients seems to be a fine balance between self-promotion and self-indulgence; you want to make yourself with amazing without making it obvious that you're trying to do so. Kinda confusing, but basically I think Shaughnessy really wants to tell his readers that the best kind of promotion is your work: if it's amazing, clients will find it, and it's as simple as that.
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