The Business Side of Creativity: The Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Running a Small Graphic Design or Communications Business

An update of the invaluable business companion for freelance graphic designers, art directors, illustrators, copywriters, and agency or design-shop principals.

For over a decade The Business Side of Creativity has remained the authoritative guide to setting up and running a small creative organization. This updated and expanded edition revises the best-selling classic to include even more facts, tips, strategies, and advice for beginning creatives.

Every year the market for creative services expands, but the competition increases even faster. Today, success hinges not on talent alone but on a thorough understanding of the business side of creativity.

Hailed by reviewers as the creative business “bible,” The Business Side of Creativity is the most comprehensive business companion available to freelance graphic designers, art directors, illustrators, copywriters, and agency or design-shop principals. Cameron S. Foote, a successful entrepreneur and editor of the Creative Business newsletter, guides you step-by-step through the process of successful self-employment―all the way from getting launched as a freelancer to running a multiperson shop to retiring comfortably―and everything in between. Sample business forms and documents to help put information into practice are included in the appendixes and are also available for download.

How should you organize? What should you charge? What marketing techniques yield the best returns? How do you know when it’s right to expand? What are the most effective strategies for managing employees? How can you build salable equity? The Business Side of Creativity delves into these questions and hundreds more, giving you practical, real-world answers and invaluable, expert advice. 5 illustrations

Cameron S. Foote is the president of Creative Business, a Boston-based business-information resource for the design community. He is the author of The Business Side of Creativity, The Creative Business Guide to Running a Graphic Design Business and The Creative Business Guide to Marketing.