There is a Paris Hilton quote that I must share with you.
Life is too short to blend in.
Speaking of which, let’s talk about references – the boring old shtick of piling on irrelevant or deceivingly represented logos on a ribbon somewhere on your website and hoping for the best.
Sometimes, it can also contain scattered sentences taken out of context and signed by a random person. Don’t get me wrong – these may be real people talking about some important problems you solved for them, but it’s rarely actually impressive to your audience.
Once upon a time, I got awarded for taking a completely different approach to the subject of references on a website.
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A)Every project you do is 1 logo. If someone hired you to do 4 projects, that’s a reference in itself.** B) Every logo is connected to a very small amount of text – max 300 characters. In that text, you describe something about the nature of the work you did – problem, scope, solution, or deliverables. Whatever it is, it must include a number (count, percentage, year), and your client must be OK with you publishing that. If you don’t ask for too much, they are usually happy they don’t need to come up with a corny sentence for you to publish as a quote, so they say yes.
That’s it. From then on, every client will be able to see much more in the material provided, and you can take full control over the “picture” it all paints.