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Home > Articles and Features > The Design Cartel Manifesto

The Design Cartel Manifesto
Why the TDC, and what we hope to accomplish

Mr. Red. TDC Administrator. July 05/2005.

The Graphic Design landscape is changing. Many of the ‘old guard’ are holding on to the old principles of design, and more importantly, the marketing of that design. Accordingly, while many designers have sat and wrung their hands, the internet has become dominated by low-end design sites, price low-balling (to the point were quasi-truthful marketing tactics have to be employed) and Search Engine manipulation that has made it almost impossible for anyone to find good design firms and/or freelancers.

The Design Cartel is (hopefully) about changing all that. When I started my own design firm in 1996, it was easy to get search engine placement, and clients were able to find my site. From that I was able to develop a fairly successful design business. What’s more, it didn’t break the bank. That is no longer the case. Search engine listings are dominated by sites who manipulate rankings through a myriad of means – shell web sites (one firm owns many different domains and links them together in an elaborate link farm), reciprocal linking from sites that have nothing to do with design (the sheer numbers elevate the design sites involved) and pay-per-click advertising (which has become far too expensive for any start-up designer, or even an established one) via Google and Yahoo.

The Design Cartel will be a web site for designers, about designers, and by designers. We’ll feature the latest ‘in the trenches’ tips, tutorials and information that will help designers get their businesses off the ground. The Design Cartel graphic design forum will be an online community of designers who can discuss, argue and yes, even flame each other, about design issues. But the heart of The Design Cartel will be our networks – 1) a loosely affiliated group of design websites that will, through page rank and reciprocal linking, raise all the sites involved and 2) a contributors directory, for people who wish to support the TDC through articles, tutorials and other submissions.

To keep our site philosophically pure, we will not be featuring banner ads, Ad Words, or other advertising that will corrupt the editorial bent of the site. In order to help finance what will be a formidable task, we will be offering sponsorship links and other ‘paid’ ad inclusions (one example will be the maketplace area of our site). The simple truth is that running a site that is as ambitious as The Design Cartel is costly, so we will have to monetize the site in several ways. However, we’ll reserve ‘right of refusal’ and will not promote sites, businesses or services that are, in our view, detrimental to the industry. We’d rather promote Joe’s Design Blog than Tony’s $30 Do-it-Yourself Logo-Design Software. You'll probably not even notice the advertising that we do allow.

And before we get accused of trying to be 'yet another designer forum', let's get one thing out of the way - we’re not in the business of competing with established forums, blogs or sites. Rather, we want to work with these sites, as in our opinion – “a rising tide lifts all boats’.

At the end of the day, this is your web site. Use it to promote yourself and your design services. Have a Design themed Blog? Let’s tell the design community about it. Offering Design PodCasts? We’ll feature them. Need help with a particularly grueling project (or perhaps a nightmare client)? Why not ask seasoned pros what they would do. If you’re a newbie, just hang out – the seasoned veterans will be glad to help out. This, The Design Cartel Manifesto, will contain all our thoughts, opinions and goals as they relate to growing this site and forum. If will undoubtedly change over the next few weeks, months, as we develop and evolve both the site, and our forum (you can check the latest version in the forums here). To that end, we’re always open to members’ suggestions and criticism (there’s a Talk to the Administrators and Moderators forum - for TDC registered members) so hopefully, we can develop this into a really special place

Who are we? That doesn’t matter. This is your site. And as such, the admins and moderators will only be known as their handles - Mr. Red, Pink, White, Orange, Blue, Yellow and Green. Oh sure, we’ll also be on the forums using our true identities, but as TDC members and just like the rest of you.

We need a place to call or own as well.

Mr. Red. and The Design Cartel Admins and Mods.
July 2005

The Design Cartel Manifesto

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If submitting an article of feature isn't for you, why not join The Design Cartel network? Simply place a link to our site on your home page, along with one of our logo .gifs, and if your site is approved (in order to keep the relevance of our network high, we only link to related/appropriate sites) we'll link to you. Once you've linked to us, submit your site information here. (Please note, all site submissions are subject to moderator approval and we don't link to everyone that submits a site). If you don't want to link to us, or have a resource that you'd like to share with other TDC visitors, you can list it in our Online Design Resources area in the forums (registered members only and subject to moderator approval).

If you don't want to link to us, or have a resource that you'd like to share with other TDC visitors, you can list it in our Online Design Resources area in the forums (registered members only and subject to moderator approval).

The Design Cartel forum is a privately owned and hosted forum dedicated to the discussion of graphic design and graphic industry issues. Individual postings represent the individual opinions of participants and do not neccessarily represent the views and/or opinions of the forum operators, sponsors or other participants. The forum is moderated by Design Cartel staff, who reserve the right to remove and/or delete any postings that are deemed racist, sexist, inappropriate, profane, harassing, defamatory or at odds with the general theme of this forum. The Design Cartel also reserves the right to reproduce any material posted to the forum in The Design Cartel advertising, promotional materials as well as in any future publications, e-mail newsletters or seminars. By utilizing this web site you agree to the Terms of Use. By using The Design Cartel forum you also agree to our Forum Rules.