SEED Conference (Part 2) - Carlos Segura

The first speaker was Carlos Segura. He gave a good rundown of T.26, his type foundry, and rebranding his agency did in 2004. The work for both was great, but I found the presentation to be disappointing, because it did not seem to be prepared for the conference. I know a lot of us have canned capability presentations we do for prospective clients, and this is what Segura's presentation felt like. Still, he was very inspiring and had some great advice for those of us running agencies. He said he does not respond to RFP's or do estimates. He asks the client for their budget and that's it. I totally agree with this. Estimates are a waste of time, and are usually wrong, or if you work on a detailed estimate all weekend, you don't get the work.

• Say no as often as you say yes.
• Make it clear to the client that they are not the end user of the design.
• Don't worry about having a plan, or an ROI. Do what you love and the money will come.
• Have some savings so that you can do what you love and fail.

I thought the most interesting work he showed were some photos of manhole covers made in China, India, and Mexico. He also mentioned his Cartype blog and photos of car door handles.