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Visual Language LLC

Visual Language LLC

Writing and Design by Ellen M Shapiro

  • Books
    • The Secret Buttons written and designed by Ellen M. Shapiro
    • Clients and Designers
    • The Graphic Designer’s Guide​ to Clients
    • Alphagram Learning Materials
    • Let’s Read Hebrew!
    • Hand Drum Rhythms
    • Food Trips Cookbook
    • Landscapes & Gardens
    • China Books
  • Magazine
    Writing
  • Essays
  • Client
    Portfolio
  • Media
    &Events
  • Expert
    Witness
  • Contact

The Graphic Designer’s Guide​ to Clients

  • 246 pages, 6 x 9, paperback
  • ​Published in 2014 by Allworth Press
  • 97 images illustrate 17 case studies 
  • ​Icon set by Felix Sockwell 
  • Cover illustration by Laurie Rosenwald
  • Organized by client business or sector

“Ellen Shapiro’s Graphic Designer’s Guide to Clients not only provides every important tool to find, woo, and cultivate good clients. Ellen instills the most illusive of attributes in her readers: confidence, clarity, and a magical sense of empowerment. This is a necessary book for everyone building a design business.”

Debbie Millman, chair, SVA Masters in Branding Program

“All designers crave real-world success and experience, and this book is packed with it. It’s like having drinks with your favorite designers after their best pitch.”

Drew Hodges, founder, SpotCo

“Your clients like you. They inspire you to do your best work. They even pay your bills. Too good to be true? Not for the clients and designers profiled in this important book. Ellen proves that if these clients and designers can do it, you can too.”

Ed Gold, professor emeritus, University of Baltimore; author, The Business of Graphic Design

When Clients and Designers was published, Communication Arts magazine invited me to do a column based on candid interviews with designers and their clients. Over the next few years, 11 interview articles were published in CA, and Allworth Press suggested that the content could be the basis of a valuable book.

New media and more comprehensive projects required more marketing and advertising savvy. I learned from reviews that readers wanted specific instruction and guidance, so the book opens with five chapters of step-by-step advice by a range of experts. Every chapter is summarized in takeaway boxes.

As Debbie Millman noted, “This is a necessary book for everyone building a design business.”

Boxed quotes highlight the designer’s advice to the reader
Get your copy on Amazon $13.99
(make sure it’s the second edition)
Each chapter focuses on the designer’s approach
The story of 6,000 book covers, each a minor masterpiece
Kit shares his secrets of the ideal client-designer relationship
17 designers were interviewed and contributed visuals
SpotCo changed the way entertainment is marketed
How to meet client expectations without sacrificing your own

More books by Ellen Shapiro

  • The Secret Buttons written and designed by Ellen M. Shapiro
    • Q & A with 5th – 7th grade teachers, students and parents, including video of Caterina making an important illustration
  • Clients and Designers
  • The Graphic Designer’s Guide​ to Clients
  • Alphagram Learning Materials
  • Let’s Read Hebrew!
  • Hand Drum Rhythms
  • Food Trips Cookbook
  • Landscapes & Gardens
  • China Books