Burn your portfolio : stuff they don't teach you in design school, but should / Michael Janda.

Includes index.

INTRODUCTION --Burn your portfolio...really? --Acknowledgments --HUMAN ENGINEERING --The big fat secret --The extra mile --Soak up advice --You are not your work --Be nice to everyone --Drama is for soap operas --No more flying solo --Gripes go up --The stress bucket --Two types of grandpas --Be a wall painter --Every position can be electrifying --Lead or be led --Half the victory --The value of downtime --I'm not a writer --Toot your own horn --Don't work in a vacuum --The graphic design megazord --Live as a team, die as a team --Everyone does something better than you --You are responsible for your own time --ART SMARTS --OCD is an attitude --Polishing turds --Hairy moles --This is not verbatimville --Shock and awe --Art is meant to be framed --It is never to late for a better idea --Filler failures --A river runs through it --Comps or comprehensive? --Design like the wind --Type fast --How to eat an elephant --The Venus initiative --Process-a-palooza --Hiking your way to successful projects --Solving end-of-day rush --Why projects blow up --The lo-fi PDA --Bring out your dead --Shake the bushes or get bit --Red flags and extinguishers --Brainstorms are 90 percent bad ideas --The communal Brain --TWO EARS, ONE MOUTH --The ultimate email formula --Beware the red dot --Email black holes --Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto --Canned communication --Tin can phones --Vicious vernacular --An army of support --Friendly updates --Deadline ballet --Big brother --The domino effect --Avoid the W.W.W. --Be afraid to click "send" --The tragedy of time zones --HAPPY HEAD HONCHOS --Designers are from Mars, clients are from Venus --Let your client leave their mark --"Forgiveness" points --

Let your client be the 800-pound gorilla --Do your genealogy --Never give your client homework --Assume that people are clueless --Long-term relationship value vs. single transaction profit --Oddities at the start mean oddities at the end --Don't be the desperate girlfriend --Stand in manure, smell like manure --Never fire a client? --"We decided to go another direction" means "you suck" --There are such things as stupid questions --You can't get mad at math --You have 65 seconds to land a job --How to ask for a raise without asking for a raise --MIND YOUR BUSINESS --Do what you love; the money will follow --A business that looks orderly --Making cents of it all --How to calculate a burn rate --The fixed-bid pricing dartboard --Beware of line-item pricing --"No charge" doesn't mean "free" --How to flush out a budget --Twenty-piece chicken McNuggets --Nonprofits for non-profit --The code of fair practice --Contractual mumbo jumbo --"Etcetera" has no business in your business --You don't have to sign off on this --B.A.M. lists --One line that changed everything about collections --A business is an organism that wants to die --If I've got a dollar, you've got a dollar, but no partners --If you want to win the game, you have to know the score --There is no such thing as a "meet and greet" --How to make a capabilities presentation --Floods happen --Flexibility, not freedom --Never do undocumented work --Next worry date --Nickels and dimes are for lemonade stands --Only terrorists like hostage situations --Oh where, oh where has my hundred thousand dollars gone? Oh where, oh where can it be? --Don't do anything you can pay someone ten dollars per hour to do --"Skin in the game" usually means "free" --Three-month "lifetime" guarantee --"Bring your own boss," whatever that means --How to bite the bullet --Index --About the author.

Offers advice on real-world practices, professional do's and don'ts, and business rules for those in the graphic arts.