Having commissioned quite a lot of art and designs from the creatives of this world i thought i might share some tips.

General rules (you know them already and like to be treated this way, but just to remind you)

1) Dont pester, if they don’t reply, wait 24 hours before trying again, remember lack of planning on your side does not mean a crisis on their side, if its a rush job tell them up front so they can price (and plan) accordingly.

2) Agree how many edits you can make at the different stages, before paying the deposit, a single page agreement is fine.

Specific to creatives

1) Let them create, give a rough outline and then some very specific details (the important ones), you will find that they fill in the gaps better than you do, but if they ask for more details give them simply and clearly and for goodness sake never say something like “your the artist isn’t that your job”, if they are asking questions then they are trying to do a good job, help them help you

2) Portfolio is everything, good creatives will love their job, and will ‘create’ in the same way geeks ‘fiddle’, if they don’t have a good portfolio don’t employ them, it does not have to be client based, but it does have to exist

3) The best time to get hold of a creative, is when they have just finished their education (or if they have none, straight after their first decent paying job), its when they are eager and full of fresh ideas but know how to behave and deal with clients (yes i know that’s a nasty way of looking at it but its true)

Money and Rights

For DECENT work, $100 is your ball park for single detailed images ( for example of a realistic looking person ), or $250 for an original design (say for a company site), better artist cost more, poorer artist less, your judgment ($10 for anything artistic is a normally a waste, don’t be tempted), its is normal to pay 50% up front, then the final 50% upon sign off of the final images, you will then receive the master images, DO NOT accept compressed image formats as masters you want PNG/PSD/etc files with their layers intact.

Rights are a funny thing, and worth being firm up-front with, you have purchased this art, it is now yours!, an artist should of course be allowed to use their images in their portfolio, and should receive full credit where suitable, but you can change the final image if you want and the rights do not revert to them at any time in the future, always be honest on what the FULL extent of the use of the image or design could be up front (so again they can charge suitably). Rights are the only thing i have found that its no good discussing, if they want unacceptable rights (say a yearly rental of the work with a financial review annually {yes i have met that}), thank them kindly and state that “that is unacceptable for my business model”, and move on to the next artist/company

Hope these help

*Update**
As requested, the biggest place to go to get artists/designers at this point in time is http://www.deviantart.com, the best way i find is to put a post in the “work advertised forum” at http://forum.deviantart.com/jobs/offers/, then while you are waiting go and browse the categories you are looking for, most artist state if they are open for commissions, if in doubt just send them a ‘note’.

As a designer I am well aware that I suck, I am one of the people responsible for Scott Good’s quote of “The worst applications that people use are the ones they use at work” (from his Lotusphere session “BP202-There’s no fixing ugly How to make a great first impression with your applications” an amazing session which left me ashamed of my sub standard design work but determined to do better).

My bible to this end is Steve Crugs book “Don’t make me think” or as I like to call it “Amazon got it right”, a truly fabulous book (my one is dog-eared having been passed round colleges and even family), this morning much to my excitement i discovered he has published a new book called

“Rocket Surgery Made Easy:The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems“,

I purchased a pdf version and ploughed into it.

This one has the same easy feel and readability of his first book, but for me has a slightly different target audience, its one of those books that you place meaningfully on a project managers desk, or read your self, but not to actually use just to have the tools to hand to fight the good fight and guide your wayward manager/user base when they skimp on testing, it also shows you what to do with any test results you might get (chapter 10 “debriefing 101” is a particular gem which I intend to print out and take to the next meeting in which we “address functional issues” / “listen to the users bitching”), with plenty of pertinent FAQ’s, it can flicked through for a quick fix, or read cover to cover with out falling asleep (rare for any IT based book), very much recommended.

Back from Lotusphere and this is what i brought back

1) If your sticking with Notes for dev then learn xpages (best place is with Matt White at http://xpages101.net/ or at the http://xpagesblog.com/).
2) Mobile device support Android/iphone/blackberry, do not leave them out of ANY apps.
3) Flex is the RIA of choice.
4) Learn how to use Amazon s3 storage*.
5) Give lip service to dojo but use Jquery really.
6) Learn how to hack xml raw code (for Xpages/Websphere/Flex).
7) Ugly is out Out OUT*.
8) Tweak what ever your doing to sound like REST services.
9) Platform wise: for the client, Windows beats Mac, but Mac beats Linux (Eclipse is the future in all cases), server side: Redhat is the way to go.
10) Oldy but goldy: if your not learning Java, hurry up!!.

Well cloud computing really, but so far the only bit that is really cloud seems to be the storage, processor renting has not changed, however there is a bit more integration with other services.

**and Web 2.0 is in In IN (well thank you for that IBM)

There is other stuff like “we have gone API crazy, please integrate everything with everything”, but i recon that is the main points

LotuSphere Disclaimer: I have no intention of giving you any serious or useful information this lotusphere (well while not while im actually here at least, as there are too many people doing that already, go to planetlotus to find them

Now sharing a room with someone is a fab way of cutting the old LS costs down but after 2 days of sharing a room with the wretch, the cracks are showing,

what has he done you ask, well i tell you, he is tidy and reasonable, which is as far as im concerned is a crime against all that’s conference!!, i present exhibit A:

look at this bed!!, it has been slept in by a drunk person!!, where is the vomit, where is the ripped sheet and pillows on the floor, it a travesty, but there is worse to come:

he folds and lays out T-shirts before passing out, its wrong i tell you, tomorrow night i would not be surprised if he started hoovering, now THIS is how a hotel room should look

somewhere between a nest and a pit, with the sheets on the floor, socks should craw around the fetid air, growling gently.

P.S. I also attended a very good session Mr Tim Davis on blackberry and IPhone apps, but i turns out that i committed a number of terrible faux pas, that include asking question during the session and sliding out once i had got all the info i wanted, (i feel shamed)

Now I’m not a big ranter at IBM (after all it has helped me keep bread on my children’s table these many years), but this small thing is simply totally stupid!

As a flex developer, I was well aware of ILOG and their famous Elixir product that has some of the best Visualisation stuff (Gantt charts, Dials etc) that you can get, but I did not have a project I could justify buying it with, but suddenly I had one which I could use the calendar element for, so off I go to the companies website credit card in hand, only to discover that IBM have purchased them, “cool” I go, “better integration with domino etc etc, now where’s the ‘buy now’ button?, it used to be around here?”,

Colour me surprised, but its gone!!, replaced with the stock IBM “We’re here to help”, if you click on the “Request a Quote” you are submitted to the normal questionnaire, that basically says “we only care about big corporations that we can fleece”, I cant even find out how much it costs anymore as the “pricing information” link does not give you any information of the prices (or in fact any prices at all)

“but wait!” I hear you cry, ILOG used to be a small company, so its easy for them to do small sales, its different for big companies, well fair enough, I wonder if there is a small company still selling the product on line, and their is, their name is ADOBE (Ooooooo Tiny!!)

Mine got!! there is a price

When I click on this link I’m taken to a normal e-commerce site, with purchase options, licence types, and a variety of payment methods (including even paypal), nice and easy to use and not hard to do

come on IBM sort it out, your embarrassing us here!!!!!