Step by Step guide to starting your own graphics group
How to start and run a Graphics group:
Some Tips to help you:
- First things first - You need to think of a name. Go for something professional and make sure that somewhere in it, you make clear that you are a graphics group! So many people mistake graphic groups for breeding groups due to poor name choices. Don’t go for "Happy Howrses" or something too childish. "Grenade Graphics" creates a much better first impression.
- Learn how to make some type of graphics, whether it is icons, banners, layouts or signatures. There is so much you can do, you just have to learn! You need to choose what software or website you are going to use for each type, I can send you some examples if you would like.
- Manips make the world go round. Learn how to make manips. Howrse players go crazy for manips. Very few players have the skills to make great manips so there is a much greater demand for them! Manips are the key to all graphics... Layouts and banners especially.
- Advertise constantly. Your first aim when advertising is to find new members! You need to prove your skills as a competent graphics artist to potential members, not just customers. When you have made a high class graphics name for yourselves, you will need help keeping up with demand!
- Create a sign up form for members. You need to know as much about them as possible. A great thing to put in this form is are they a member of any other graphics group. If they are, you don’t want them, they won’t be able to give you the sole commitment your group needs for the standards you need to produce!
- You must try out members before you accept them. Players do lie and oversell themselves and you don’t want to end up with a player who can even post an image in a forum. One the other hand you don't want to rule out someone before a try-out, you might miss out on someone with amazing skills.
- Find a base. It could be a member’s forum or an external place but you need a base. Make topics for different areas of the group to organise your thoughts. Some examples of topics are Signups, Tryouts, Chat, Place an Order, pending customers, info, past customers and even an FaQ topic so people can find out more about you.
- A necessary part of a graphics group is a signature. This will go on the bottom of every piece of stock your members produce. It may only be in small font but I recommend using the same on the bottom of every image/graphics. People will start to recognise it! Make sure it is eligible!
- Once you start orders coming in you need to keep a strict list of current customers, pending customers and past customers. Then members don’t end up doing the same thing for the same person twice and if someone has spare time, they can get working on another one! Share out the Jobs. The quicker you do the graphics, the better your reputation gets.
- Make the group some graphics of your own! You need to make your own graphics for advertising because that’s what peoples first impression of you will be! Spread the banners around forums, mail them to random players and make yourselves known! Maybe PM some champion players and offer to make them some epic graphics, get your stuff on the map!
- Enter as many graphics competitions as you can. Make sure your groups name is on every entry and you make it clear who you guys are. Graphic comps are the perfect place to show off your skills and even make some money/gifts/prizes out of it!
- You will need to make forms that customers can fill in to order your graphics and a place for them to do this. Each type of graphics will need a different form. PM me if you want me to post some forms below as examples. The aim of there is to find out what the customer wants and more about them, so you can make it more suited to them!
Some Tips to help you:
- Always put the group’s signature on the bottom of every single thing your group makes, and make sure it isn’t easy to crop out. Be aware that people do steal your work.
- try and get members not to put their own names on it, but the forum where you are based! They need to know how to access you.
- make sure all members have links to the base in their own forums and pages so if people go looking for your group through them, they can find it!
- host your own graphics competitions! Where else is best to find new talent?
- search through entries into other graphics competitions to find and then approach high skilled artists and see if they want to join you! Some players don’t see how good their work is and don’t like to approach graphics groups!
- keep all things you make somewhere, maybe everyone can have a different topic in the base, then you can refer back (for example if the example in the next tip occurs)
- if you get a customer ask for a graphics, check the list of past customers to see if they have placed an order in the past. If they did, it might be best to let the person who made the graphics last time make it this time also, they will know what they like.
- never turn a job down. Even if it seems too easy and basic, it’s still an opportunity for advertising!
- sometimes there is not enough space on avatars for a signature but you could ask the player to put a topic about your group in their forum or something on their page instead. Make a list of all players who promise to do this and occasionally check up on random players. If they have deleted it then politely ask them to put it up again. After a certain period of time, say... three weeks? You could delete their name from the list.
- make a list of rules, you don’t want members getting jobs through you and doing them and putting their own name on them and taking all the credit for it. You are in this together.
- be aware of what days members and unable to help with graphics, you don’t want to assign a job to a member who has gone on holiday for three weeks!
- if a member doesn't accept a job within 24 hours, assign it to another member, time is of the essence.
- Graphics groups do require a lot of admin so if you are the leader or founder, if is your job to make sure all the forum topics i have mentioned are present and that everyone understands what is expected of them