Netiquette at 12designer
It's easy: treat everyone as you want to be treated
Netiquette rise up in the middle 80's, as a gentleman's code. Those times: when Internet was only affordable for a few, when 56K modems were high-speed, when telephonic flat rates were a chimera. At that time you paid for each minute you were connected to that narrow-band. Therefore, you had to be brief, precise, polite and considerate.
Manners, the fact of thinking about the person-behind, was and still is basic in Netiquette. And that's what we want to keep alive in 12designer. We want to generate a professional, friendly meeting point, with mature and responsible people: a place where you wich to come back to. We all have to bear in mind that the nicer behaviour gets, better results for everyone will be obtained: satisfied clients, better valued designers. Of course, this has nothing to do with censorship: you're all free, and invited to share your thoughts and concerns (btw, this Blog is the best place to do so), but always starting from a respectful and constructive criticism point.
Therefore, here are our Netiquette adapted rules.
1.- Be gentle
We know school is clearly something you left behind long time ago, but they tought us some good things: whatever you want to say, say it, but with style and manners. Cursing and attacking won't be accepted as "freedom of speech", and therefore will be eliminated. "Thanks" and "Please" are always a good playing hand.
2.- Be respectful with prices and briefings
Let's bear something in mind: many of our clients are "newbies" in this design world. They don't a have a clear idea about what a good money price is, or the importance of a good brief. A polite advise about our (or your) rates, or what's missing in the brief, will always be helpful for eveybody. In fact, it happens often that a polite comment makes the point to the client and he increases the budget (in case of doubt, dear clients, is always better to take a bit more of time to write a better briefing, or to put a couple of Euros more on top).
3.- Be a feedback-friendIn a project, feedback in basic: consists in open questions and queries, about briefing, designs, projects, everything. Answers, of course, shall be open too. As proper feedback, an example would be a polite comment that states that this budget may not be extremely motivating for designers to be part of the project. Clients, specially those who have never worked with graphic artists before, need friedly advice.
4.- Be a creativity friend: make it grow, don't mow it down
Criticism is welcome, but has to be always constructive, for everyone of us. We don't pay attention to any Degree or Bachelor, but to quality of presented work: we welcome equally both experienced designers aswell as fresh newbies. It's the work what cathegorizes them, not us. Likewise, in order to protect creativity, we protect designs copy rights: in case of copy or steal, please contact us immediately.
5.- Be respectful with everyone's decisions
At the end, client takes the decision. And it may happen that "objectively" your design is "better" that the winning one. But bear always in mind: client has to choose, and not always the technically-most-complex proposal will give him/her the best result for his/her business. And that's something he knows better than us, no matter how deceiving could that be for you. Build everything up from that decision: think why that decision has been taken, and bear that in mind for your next works. We all learn something new everyday
At 12designer good manners are, were and will be capital. We want to create a professional and nice meeting point, with grown-up and mature people: a place where you wish to come back.
