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by Julian

How to use Dropbox to share files, drawings with Chinese clients and Amasia team

2011/12/12 in FAQ

  1. Dropbox can be used in China. You just need to tell your client or we will tell the client how to use it.
  2. Important information: Chinese cannot visit http://www.dropbox.com.  We discovered that one has to add the letter “s” after “http”.  The correct site is https://www.dropbox.com.  The first url is blocked in China but the second one is secure.   Once the program is downloaded from a Chinese website, it can be installed and used without problem.
  3. We highly recommend Dropbox for international collaboration, especially for sharing large files or constantly updated drawings. I know many designers are reluctant to use anything other than email.  But because of the time difference and numerous revisions during design, it is vital to use the best file sharing systems.
  4. If you want to start to use Dropbox now, or want to recommend your friends to use this great software, click the link to get started.
  5. Once you install Dropbox, pls create a folder in your account called “ABC Company – Amasia”, share it with architecture[at]amasia-group.com, if you are an interior design firm, pls share it with another department of Amasia using another Dropbox account: interior[at]amasia-group.com;  we would also like you to share with another account of ous who is in charge of the brochure translation/translation review…her Dropbox account is  elaine[at]amasia-group.com. So, always share your folders with two of our Dropbox accounts.
  6. After that, you may create another folder called “ABC Company proposal for Beijing Hot Spring Resort Project” that you are willing to share with not only Amasia, but a potential client. The information should be different, more focused on what the client is looking for.
  7. If you have trouble to use this software, pls leave a comment below this post, and we will get back to you.

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by Julian

RE: Eventscape – Specialty Architectural Fabricators: what other information you need

2011/12/10 in Architectural Fabricator/Contractors, FAQ

First of all, all your marketing materials need to be translated into Chinese; click FAQ above to find out how much we charge for translation services.

Second, I would like to see a standard contract that you use for overseas projects, which will need to be translated also before I introduce you to a potential clients;

Third, give me some examples of the fee you charged for projects which might be interesting to our potential clients. Most likely some very high end private clubhouse would want to use your service, or some top brands’ shops like LV which you did, or boutique hotel…provide more information as much as you can in these categories;
Four, you will need to partner with some local design firms or fabricators to lower your cost and make the communication more efficient. Prepare a seperate document specifying your requirement and expectations to them.

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by Julian

What’s the steps of proposing for a project that I am interested?

2011/12/08 in FAQ

There are generally THREE steps:

  1. You start to prepare a brochure/presentation for the specific project, which should be related to the project and meet the client’s requirements. Do not expect we will approve your brochure if most of the projects on your brochure are not related to the project you are proposing on, no matter how good your design is;
  2. If you need to prepare a new one, then finish that in one week – ten days, and give us some time to translate. If you do not think you can do this in this period of time, then ask us if there will be enough time on the client’s ends. If they cannot wait for that long, you can take your time and prepare one for the next possible job. If you are a paid member of this site, we will forward your brochure to the client no matter we have better choice or not, if you are not, then we will see if it will have chance to win the job, and decide whether or not to forward to the client.
  3. If the client likes your brochure, and would like to find out more, then we will help you to prepare a proposal to send to the client. Normally it’s just a draft proposal because at this time the client may not be able to provide sufficient information for us to prepare a precise proposal. A revised proposal will be submitted to the client after they give us more feedback to the draft proposal. Amasia will charge translation fee for both the brochure and proposals no matter you are a paid member or not. You can use your in-house translator but we do not recommend you to hire somebody else to translate these documents. Very few translators are qualified due to their lack of knowledge in this area.

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by Julian

What is Pay Request the client needs to process our payment? Why are we requested to submit that in addition to invoices?

2011/12/06 in FAQ

In China, the process of submitting a bill to ask for payment is different. You have to submit a pay request form first, once such request is approved by the different departments of the client, as well as the tax government, then you submit an invoice to their accounting department directly for payment.
You can leave messages to the pay requests explaining the work you have finished, and the form should be big enough to allow over ten signatures. It’s not appropriate to do that on an invoice.

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by Julian

How to make your company and brochure more appealing to potential Chinese clients

2011/12/05 in FAQ

  1. Most of the decision makers for a project in China do not like to browse your website to find out what you are capable of, especially when it’s all animated and in another language. Many of them even do not like to look at your presentation/brochure on computer, they prefer something printed and put on their coffee table by their secretary, so you need a brochure of high resolution in both language, in addition to your website, which can be enjoyed like a magazine or a book.
  2. The layout should be as professional as a magazine. Here is an example of professionally designed brochure except for the fact that there should be more information, and show more styles you can do. Do not use an inappropriate portion of huge fonts to emphasize something you think important. You can also take a look at the website of one of the most established international design frims in China. It is very convincing. Click here to find some other references for your brochure design. And here.
  3. We cannot show you samples of brochure produced by other designers, we are not allowed to do that.
  4. Do not forget that your competitors in China are all like Wilson Associates, very experienced in working in China, so we will not consider recommending your firm unless your marketing materials are competitive enough.
  5. Remember that your brochure will be printed by the client’s secretary using a normal printer, A4 paper, or use a laptop to show to the chairman on a projector. So the scale and size need to be suitable for these purposes. Some designers make the brochure’s layout unusla and creative but not practical. We may have to cut a picture into half if we try to print it out and mail to the client ourselves. The best brochure design is a .pps or .ppsx format which takes exactly the screen of a laptop, perfectly for showing on projector, and it is suitable for printing on a A4 paper too. PowerPoint can make some nice effects of the pictures and the titles. You can convert it to .PDF too of course and use full screen mode to check the effect.
  6. I have to mention the magazine again. Pls try to design your brochure using a design magazine as a model, some good pictures need to be big enough to cover an entire page which you see on the magazines a lot, some less important pages can be smaller emphasizing part of it.
  7. Check if there is any picture that is blurring. Take that out or make it smaller.
  8. Do not ring your own bell except you can list something to prove it. Those words like “award-winning/exceptional” would distract the potential client’s patience/interest and ignore something more important. Some designers would try to convince you because they try to understand the clients, always listening…those are…excuse me, stupid remarks because every designer says, including the students in college! To be honest, when I see a brochure from an international designer trying to sell herself/himself to me, and it is full of such words, I just ignore it. We need to work with designers who have a brain of selling herself/himself.
  9. Because of the language and cultural diferences, it takes more time for an international design firm to prove its ability as well as find out what the client wants. So your brochure is very important. You need to prepare a brochure listing all your projects that are related to the project and focus on the expectation of the client, with the same style/nature/quality they are looking for.
  10. All the related and important awards and publications are suggested to be listed in the brochure too.
  11. The brochure should consist of  photos of identical projets finished, in addition to some but not many renderings, sketches, drawings of design development level details.
  12. Each brochure/presentation/practice profile should have a section of company profile and possible leader architect’s profile (the one who will visit China for presentation). Another section of each brochure should be your company’s understanding of how to work in China, the difference of doing business if you do not have much experience in China, showing that you are prepared for conflicts and challenges.

China’s constuction is booming  and most developers are inexperienced in working with international designers. Therefore do not expect them to provide clear and complete information, such as the schedule and budget, at the beginning. Such details will definitely be determined by the client only when a designer is selected. In China it takes more time and efforts to sign a contract if an international design firm is to be hired to do the job, especially when neither parties is experienced in working with a foreign company. So just make sure it is attractive and what the client want in the first place.

How much do we charge for making a set of brochure for you?

Typically we charge $300 for this kind of work. We would divide your works into different categories which might be interesting to a potential Chinese client, and then will choose the pictures which style and design are favored in China to emphasize them. We know how to explain the projects and the designers too, so we will add the words of our own, in addition to the texts provided by the designer. The format and layout would be suitable for the client to use. So yes, we do better work in this particular area. You may be able to find a professional graphic designer to do a nice job but we know what the clients want.

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by Julian

Local CAD team, construction drawings, MEP/structural consultants, local renders and local supporting designer

2011/12/01 in Architecture design, FAQ, Interior design, Landscape Architecture, Our Services, Planning

Typically we would suggest the use of a local CAD team or local designer for helping with all the CAD works and computer generated renderings before the Construction Documentation phase:

  1. They are comparatively cheap and fast, and they use the metric system and know the local codes.
  2. They speak Chinese and understand the client’s expectation and comments; no translation is required.
  3. Because the the time difference, They are working during your nighttime and can send their work to you for review before you get to the office.
  4. They can review your conceptual design/plans before you present to the client; they can make sure your plans meet the local codes and the client’s expectations.
  5. Hiring a LDI from the beginning will significantly avoid the problems of cultural communication breakdowns between designer and client.
  6. Chinese clients do not feel comfortable paying for revisions, but the local CAD person does not ask for compensation.
  7. You may pay Amasia to pass the money or pay the LDI directly.
  8. Amasia has connections with many local design firms who are keen on working in an international team to learn.   Most of them are very experienced. You will be able to focus on reviewing their drawings and telling them how to revise.  No need to worry about hourly charges because in China LDIs revise until approved.
  9. They normally start to work with our interior designer /architect when conceptual design is approved.

MEP/Structural consultants/contractors are always hired by the client directly. All our local supporting forces are just for design.

Standard Fees for International Designer’s Local Supporting Force

  1. A local interior designer / landscape architect / CAD professional’s fee would be around $15 / hour.
  2. We charge $800 for an interior design rendering.
  3. We charge $1200 for an architectural design rendering.

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by Julian

How should I prepare for the next opportunity to work with you?

2011/11/30 in FAQ

Just assume you will be hired to design some projects that are good fits for you, start to prepare different presentations/proposals/brochures for the next possible opportunity. So when the actual job opportunity comes, you will be quick enough to grab it. If you wait for us to tell you what to prepare, what to submit, normally it will take too long and we cannot wait for that long.

I have seen some designers have more than 500 connections in Linkedin, well, normally I do not want to work with them except he is a marketing manager, not a designer. If you spend so much time on building the network, you won’t have much time to design and prepare marketing materials.

So my suggestion is, start to be suspicious about the power of the popular idea of networking, study the potential needs of future clients.

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by Julian

How should you arrange your travels when working in China?

2011/11/24 in FAQ

  1. The most critical travel is your first trip. Why? Most of Chinese clients have never heard of paying for designers’ travels, not to mention daily compensation when the designer travels to China. They never do this when dealing with Chinese designers. It’s always the designer himself that buy the tickets and pay for hotel when they go to see the client, before signing a contract or during design process. In China the design firms take more risks than the western design firms. So you need to be patient if a potential client insists you to pay for your own trip, give them some time to understand the different rule. Amasia will do that for you of course but please be cooperative by not charging for your travel days before you are assigned for the job. No you do not need to pay out of your pocket for the ticket to China. Some potential clients will understand that while some may not.
  2. It is unecessary to have two member of your team to come to China for the first time. Because the initial meeting may be not that related to the design, rather than getting to know each other and introduce the project. When you come to present your design, it will be important for you to have a key assistant to be there listening and writing notes. The reason I mention this is that your first trip is paid by the client before they meet with you, a foreign designer from far away, it’s kind of risky for them to spend the money, and it’s not a small amount of money since our income level is much lower here – the money we spend for an international business round trip ticket is equal to the annual salary of a worker/secretary!
  3. If you have one of your assistants traveling with you, please try to arrange a longer stay in the city where the job is located, so that after the presentation you and your assistants can work in the hotel for two or three days, and then present to the client again. This is a very efficient approach that many international design firms have taken in China for years. In almost every case of this kind of international cooperation we heard complaint from either the clients or the designers about delaying of various things, like payment, traveling to China, or delivery of design…If you want to travel alone, then Amasia will arrange one or two local designers/CAD person to help you to speed up the process. You will be able to enjoy the signtseeing of the city if you do so, and won’t be so tired.
  4. In most cases your travel budget is included in your design fee, and the contract will specify how many trips are included. If additional travels are required later on, then the client will buy tickets for you. Typically a designer needs to travel to job site for min four times.
  5. If it’s an interior design project, then you will need to stay in the job site for a few days for installation, and before that, during construction we want you to come for at least once.
  6. Nowadays we do not rely on travel for presentation, Gotomeeting.com and other similar applications are very helpful. You will be required to present this way once every two weeks when not traveling.
  7. Normally we suggest designers to set the budget for each travel to China to be $6,000-8,000, including business class round trip ticket and hotel.  That’s not enough for many top designers. Please figure out a number and tell us in advance so that we know.

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by Julian

How do you get appointed by the owners? Do hotel / property owners come and find you, asking you to suggest designers?

2011/11/20 in About, FAQ, Our Services

We are not appointed by the owner. They saw our websites and realize that we have good resources of international desingers, and we are experienced in collaborating this kind of projects, so they call us and ask for recommendation of best designers. We are not obligated to help them, and they do not pay us. Amasia is an agency representing design firms, not the client. Now we are changing our role a little by creating a few membership websites…we want to hide ourselves more, supporting from behind the designers.
Amasia is an expert of internet marketing, that’s how we are well known/respected in this area. Have you seen a website like this one? No. Amasia is a leader, we do not follow people, we are followed.

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by Julian

What kind of visuals would you or the client be expecting from us during the different phases, especially in the first phase of ‘initial payment’?

2011/11/20 in FAQ, Interior design

We always expect computer generated renderings.

If at the beginning of conceptual design phase, you would rather use Gray-white 3D models to illustrate space planning and interior architecture concepts, that’s fine, just add some inspiring images boards to help us to understand your concept.

We do not want to see just some image boards/mood boards during conceptual design presentation. Those deliverables need professional to understand. Some clients will not approve those. So yes, at least some 3D models with just gray and white color during the concept phase.

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by Julian

Why do you suggest rendering budget in four phases? Normally we only produce renderings at the beginning

2011/11/20 in FAQ

That’s true. Most clients only require renderings at the beginning. And we know designers only produce them at the beginning too. The reason we are suggesting designers to produce renderings at later phase because in China renderings are almost the only thing the decision makers/chairman would want to see in each phase. If we can show him nice and precise renderings at each presentation, it will be much easier to get approval from him.

Since working in China you always have to expect changes of orders/instructions from the chairman/client, even though your design has already been approved, it’s safer to produce more renderings than you think necessary. If the chairman sees the rendering, he will know exactly what the spaces will look like. Otherwise he may approve your design but later on he wants to change it, because he was not really clear what your design really is.

So even in Design Development phase, we suggest you produce a few renderings using the most updated materials and plans. They will help to get the approval faster, trust me.

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by Julian

Tell me more about the translation of design intent drawings and shop drawings

2011/11/20 in FAQ, Our Services

Normally Amasia handles all the translation if you do not have an in-house translator or a designer who speaks mandarin. Your design intent drawings will be translated and labelled in both languages. When the LDI takes over to produce shop drawings, they are not allowed to delete the original English. So when they give the construction drawings/shop drawings to us to translate, it will be easier. At this point, we do not need to translate everything. We will just translate those items important for the designer to review.

All the documents need to be in both languages, whenever possible.

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by Julian

Is construction drawing the same as what we call shop drawing? Who does that?

2011/11/20 in FAQ

Yes, construction drawings are what some design firms call shop drawings. After Design Development phase, your detailed design intent drawings and specifications will be sent to a LDI (Local Design Institute), rather than a contractor, to produce construction drawings, or what you call shop drawings. In China in very few cases it would be the contractor who does shop drawings. They just review the drawings and build even though they are qualified to produce shop drawings/construction drawings.

The LDI/Local Design Institute will work on MEP design and further develop your detailed design intent to make sure the contractor can build on them.

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by Julian

Who picks the designer for a hotel, the owner/developer or the operator?

2011/11/20 in Architecture design, FAQ, Hotel & Resort, Interior design, SPA

In China, the owner is almost the only decision maker for this. No developers/clients would know that in other countries the operator has a big influence. NO, they would never let the operator choose the designer. If the operator dislikes the architect/designer, then they just have to deal with it.

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by Julian

As a hospitality interior designer, how do I quote if there is no operator’s area program?

2011/11/20 in FAQ, Hotel & Resort, Interior design

China’s developers are inexperienced in developing luxury hotels. Most of them do not know they need to hire an operator/consultant first, then hire an interior designer. They think they can wait to hire an operator when the hotel is built.

So in many cases, an international architect has to suggest an area program himself and then discuss that with the client, without the involvement of an operator. Because the client might be still selecting an operator when the architect has already finished his conceptual design.

So it is likely the architectural design has finished its Schematic Design, without an operator. The interior designer just needs to deal with an awkward situation like this. Because the architect has already been involved, so they should be able to make the work easier for the interior designer. We’ll see…and decide what to do.

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by Julian

If the client is sending funds through you (Amasia) – How long will it take before it reaches a bank account in my country?

2011/11/20 in FAQ, Our Services

Honestly we really do not want to get involved in this kind of situation. We would prefer the client pays you directly, or use their own agency to do so. If Amasia pays you, we will need to get approval from the local tax government, that would take 1-3 weeks. Other than that it should be easy, I am the only one who would need to approve the payment in my company. Let’s say it will need one week to two weeks if I pay you.

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by Julian

Is there any additional documentation except for brochure that you need from us at this beginning stage, in order to increase the chances of the client appointing us for the project?

2011/11/20 in FAQ, Interior design

The most important document is the brochure, other than your website. There are some other documentation that you can prepare in advance:

  1. CERTIFICATE OF COMPANY INCORPORATION; It will not only let the client know that you are a legal design firm, it will also be needed later on when a contract is to be signed, and when the client pays tax in China;
  2. Any certificate shows that you are authorized to buy furniture and sell furniture, if you are a decorator.

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by Julian

Will you be sending your proposal along with our translated brochure / practice profile?

2011/11/20 in FAQ, Our Services

Yes of course. We will always send a translated brochure/practice profile to the client first, and then prepare a proposal if the cient likes the brochure.

We may not tell you about the project at all if you are not a paid member unless we have worked on projects before or you are very established in China. If you are a paid member and the client dislikes your brochure because it does not show much experience of your firm for the style that the client is looking for, or your brochure is not translated, or it is not prepared professionally, there will be no need to prepare a proposal and waste your time as well as our time. If you still insist to prepare a proposal, we will have to charge for our time to help you to prepare a competitive proposal and send to the client.

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by Julian

What information will you have in your proposal if you prepare it for us?

2011/11/20 in FAQ, Our Services

First of all, we only help the paid members of this site to prepare a proposal.

What we will have in our proposal are mostly clauses that deal with all kinds of situations that likely to happen when a Chinese client hires an international designer, based on our experience. For example, how to deal with the Chinese tax, local codes, LDI, etc. Our proposal is very practical and it suggests the best way of an international design firm working with a Chinese developer, which is an modified/optimized business mode to avoid all the problems that are likely to occure. For instance, China’s currency control policy makes client paying to an international bank account very difficult and time consuming. Very few clients and designers know about that, not to say how to solve the problem.

If you are a member of this site, we will modify your typical proposal and add all these clauses for you. You can then translate it yourself, or hire us to translate it. The final version will be approved by you before we send to the client. We do not charge for modifying your proposal if you are member, but we will need to charge for our translation service.

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by Julian

Will you be sending the proposal of your version or our proposal to the client?

2011/11/20 in FAQ, Our Services

Some designers are experienced in working in China, and they have their own version of proposals/contracts in both languages ready. That’s perfect. While most of international designers are not, they would prefer Amasia to prepare a proposal for them, once it is reviewed and approved by you, we will send it to the client.

The reason we suggest for some design firms who have no idea how to deal with Chinese clients to let Amasia handle the proposal and contract is that we know a lot more than almost any client and designers. Do not assume the clients would know how to handle this kind of cooperation if you do not know. Currently only some large Chinese developers and large international design firms know how to avoid all kinds of difficult situations.

Amasia, as your representative, would never send anything to a potential client without your review and approval. So we may use our version of proposal which normally combine yours and ours, we will always copy you when we send it to the client, and normally it is in both languages.

However we may send your brochures to a potential client without letting you know, before a proposal is prepared.

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