The Importance of Being – True to Yourself

Freelance & Work

These past few weeks have seen me devote ridiculous amount of time towards the coming National Karting Challenge – a fact that has not gone unnoticed by my mates. In fact, even several colleagues at work should have noticed me working on this project during off-peak hours. Not good, but I do believe this will all be worth it, and especially so since I'm basically the solo designer responsible for every single visuals. I'm not one to quit halfway, so even tho these guys are asking for more than they deserve (or mentioned towards the beginning of the project) I'm really quite relishing the coming week. By then all this crazy deadlines will be over, and the posters will start cropping up. I look forward to sneaking around trying to catch a glimpse or two of them!

On another front, our team has dwindled even further at work, with one of the Senior Account Executive leaving the team (4 years worth of experience – or should it be considered a waste of time?) and another new face leaving (Indonesian girl – a shame she's gone). While this pose no surprise to me, I'd be amazed if that stuck up boss of mine doesn't feel even a slight suspicion towards the general feeling at work. More and more talents leaving and surely he must know that something is wrong with the procedures and structure he had implemented at work.

St James Power Station

Alas, I myself have had my efforts diverted elsewhere – towards the karting event, and towards another, more intriguing development:

St James Power Station is looking for a Graphic Designer. Application deadline: 30 August 2007.

Holy smokes!

Unfortunately, my portfolio isn't exactly tailored to appeal the aesthetic style of St James – I doubt they'll be interested at all in Annual Reports nor Newsletter. The good news however, is that I'm very psyched about this particular design style – and I've been doing a ton of digging up old works, along with new works that I feel would appeal to them. I really just have to keep focused and get this month over and done with!

Iris Judotter & 33third

One of those newer projects is one that I will be featuring in a short while. It all started with an innocent conversation I had with a colleague of mine. She owns a small local record label – started with her friends. One thing led to another and I find myself volunteering my services to help her "star" artist with a small job – a brochure/flyer to promote her new album. Her name is Iris Judotter, and she is really quite talented – do check her music out at www.myspace.com/judotter. Solid local talent, and I was very psyched to help her out.

While I look around for inspiration and the likes, I stumbled upon this interesting music-related series of books called 33 1/3 (33third.blogspot.com). Each book in the series is titled upon an album of consequence throughout music history, and are authored by different writers. The style of writing and what the book is all about, are all totally up to the writers' imagination – and amazing imaginations they are! Some talked about the album's significance towards the generation, or about the story behind the making. Some talked about the style and essence of the album itself, or about the lyrics of each songs. Some pushed the boundaries of music literature even further, like what Kate Schatz did with "Rid of Me". Here's an excerpt about that particularly intriguing book:

"Rid of Me" is both romance and psychological horror, its chapters shifting perspective between Mary and Kathleen. Both are escapees from oppressive men and a small town. At the opening, Mary kidnaps a willing and complicit Kathleen -- blindfolding her, binding her wrists and leading her to their new home in the woods -- woods that women are told never to enter.

Instead of talking about the album, or the music, or the band behind the album (PJ Harvey), Schatz chose to 'collaborate' and alternated herself between the music and the writing process, letting the album take her away and writing along an excellent thriller as she rubs the music into her brains. Take a peek into the story here: http://www.amazon.com/PJ-Harveys-Rid-Me-Story/dp/0826427782 and enjoy the amazingly creative style of writing!

I wanted to do the same with Iris, and as I perused through her album, I found that one song which I really fell in love with – Four Leaf Clover. Her honest soothing guitar melted beautifully with her subtlety angst-ridden and heartbreaking lyrics. And then she hit me again with a distinctly evolved remix of the same song, showcasing her versatility and evolution.

I listened, I drew, and I produced:



I do hope she enjoyed my visuals as much as I enjoyed working on it with having her catchy tune play over and over again as I labored. I wanted to visualize her emotional lyrics, depicting her as a silhouette melting into swirling waves of ecstasy and beauty. This is very selfish of me, but I care not if she likes this or not – I will be putting this up in my portfolio. And should she ask for another, I don't think I would mind working on a different concept – but naturally I'll have to break away from this image first. In either case, I'll have to work much harder and produce more posters for my St James application!

15% Profit Margin

My boss has a tendency to 'preach'. Admittedly, he is successful and charming – definitely a negotiator that can tackle hard agreements, spout influential bull crap and yet still come out looking fresh and good. He talked to our now isolated team – 1 Art Director, 2 Designers, 1 Account Exec and 1 Editor – about the story of L*****, about how he wants us to grow, and of course about his promise of abundance and profit sharing. In the process he managed to somehow make it look like the company is not doing well at all.

His lecture today was based on calculations made on the spot that I do not feel justified. This calculation is made to compute approximately how much sales is needed to justify hiring an extra person.

Average Salary = $2000 x 12 = $24000 /annum
13th month = $2000
Costs = $500 x 12 = 6000
Leave + MC = $1000

Totaling to $33000 – add CPF to that and it's roughly $37500.

Now comes the shocker – which should not come as a surprise to those actually reading – 15% profit margin!!

Judging from that, it means that one extra head would need to raise the sales target by $250000!!

He then went on to show how the company is doing fine ($1.6 mill last year in sales), and with us 6 people ( = $1.5 mill) so its quite right there – he's earning a mere $100k. But now that one has left and another two is coming in, we will have to work harder and try to raise the bar further.

$250000 per person per annum = our compact team (lets count it at 7) will need to raise $1.75 mill in sales, amounting to $145k per month in total sales. So his proposal was that we set the benchmark at $140k, and there will be another benchmark every $20k onwards. Every extra $20k that's earned will be divided by 2 (zipper through this, not explained why) and then the profit (15% of that) will be divided equally amongst everybody. If we reach $160k for the month, we'll get $1500 divided equally. At $180k, we'll get $3000 divided equally, and on and on. Nothing is concrete of course, as he himself mentioned how this is the way it'll be done if he's "generous".

I can't help but feel a need to correct him, even in the blogosphere – even as I know with certainty that he won't care, don't care. Surprisingly, when he was talking, I actually felt myself admiring him – his style, his confidence – the marks of a successful man. And I can feel the audience – my colleagues – being captivated by his intentions, and I know for certain that they feel not what I feel, or perhaps they do so too, but those feelings of injustice and unfairness are buried deep deep down, so deep inside them it'll take a real hard slap to wake them up from slumber.

Allow me to at least try it, or at least reveal my version of the calculation.

My initial reaction when he mentioned that 15% was one of outrage and disbelief. I cannot believe that the company is charging a mere 15% profit margin to cover costs, design services, expenses and what not and still be profitable. Obviously I was wrong, as even that small profit margin is enough to cover all of the above and more – earning our director the minimum 6 figure sum yearly, with little to no effort.

Nevertheless, I was sure that the profit margin charged by my company is way more than 15% – at least double that. A quick browse through past quotations and proposals proofed my suspicion right. The company charges between 50% to 20% on design charges alone and not including markups earned from printing and the likes, our profit margin should average around 30% to 40%. For the purpose of this calculation, I think its prudent to assume the worst – 30% profit margin.

First off, I'd like to calculate the amount needed to sustain an extra person. I also felt $2000 average is a bit low, so I raised it to $2500.

Average Salary = $2500 x 12 = $30000 /annum
13th month = $2000
Costs = $500 x 12 = 6000
Leave + MC = $1000

Totaling to $39000 – add CPF to that and it's roughly $45000.

That's quite a lot more than the initial $37500, but lets proceed and calculate the sales required to necessitate having that extra employee. $45000 / 30% = $150000.

That's a stark contrast to his lecture. One employee can easily earn $2500 and yet will only need to raise the sales by $150. In fact, lets even add to that and give everybody $3000.

Average Salary = $3000 x 12 = $36000 /annum
13th month = $2000
Costs = $500 x 12 = 6000
Leave + MC = $1000

Totaling to $45000 – add CPF to that and it's roughly $50000.

$50000 / 30% = $166666 – rounding up to $170000.

Still reasonable and achievable, considering his calculation of needing $250000 per extra head.

Based on that, the company is doing exceptionally well with $1.6 mill last year. $170000 per head amounts to $1.02 mill (6 people), lets even add additional costs here and there, rounding it up to $1.1 mill. The company is in the black, by $500k! Pah! What crisis!

There is a gem of a lesson behind all this however. 15 is the magic number. I can easily imagine him justifying that 15% profit margin, because that is most probably the profit margin that he started with, when the company was brand new. As we plow through our 18th years however, that 15% is obviously no longer appropriate, and we charge a premium for our margin –  sometimes as high as 50%. This 15% profit margin would serve a good benchmark for me to gauge my design fees in the future.

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