Designers, Managers, Clients

(Preface: I'm a Programmer, a Project Manager, and a Manager. I'm not a Designer.)

Dear Designers,

You know what's amazing about human beings? Every single one of them is an amazing Designer.

You don't agree?

Then why do Clients always tell you what color palette to use? Or tell you where to put their logo. How big the logo should be. When to use animation. How to use animation. Where the call to action should be. How many pages the web site should have. What goes on every page of the web site and the brochure. AND where everything should go on every page?

We're so blessed to be living in a time where every single person you work with is a genetic clone of Hicks, Zeldman, Rohde, Bowman, Cederholm, or Shea.

You know that woman with a Communications degree, but works as a secretary? AREN'T YOU GLAD HER BOSS GAVE HER THE RESPONSIBILITY TO WORK ON THIS YEAR'S BROCHURE? Or the guy with the Business Degree, who is a great BS artist, so he ended up in the Sales department and is now in charge of some marketing-related program. HE KNOWS EXACTLY HOW THE WEB SITE SHOULD BE LAID OUT! I mean, he's a sales guy, why wouldn't he know the best way to do design???

I might have to turn down the sarcasm to continue.

Please hold.

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Thanks.

Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post, "Designers, Managers, Clients".

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I've managed quite a few projects that involved working with Designers (and managed Project Managers working on projects that involved Designers). So I've noticed a few things through out the years and I'd like to make a few observations and give some advice. (I know, you've been dieing for it.)

In a creative project, everyone has a responsibility. If you've dealt with the types of "Clients" I have in the past, then you can assume that they have NO IDEA they have a responsibility.

Before I tell you what everyone's responsibility is, I'm going to tell you what I believe the Client and Manager's job is NOT.

The Client's job is NOT to

• sketch out what you want
• tell artists where to put things on the screen
• pick colors without getting buy-in from the Designer or picking colors before talking with a Designer
  
• act like you're Steven Spielberg. Mr. Client, you're not Spielberg. Please don't act like you know when and how animation should be incorporated into a marketing web site. Flying logos are soooooo 1997, and they weren't cool back then

The (non-Designer) Manager's job is NOT to

• act like the Client I listed above
• pretend like you're a Designer, you're not. That's what you hired the Designer to do.
  

The Client's responsibility is to explain what the goal of the creative piece is - to explain what the organization is trying to accomplish with the piece. (You should remind them of this, they end up focusing so much on where to put stuff on the screen that they forget why they're even talking about it.)

Your Manager's job (you can show him this, its ok, he'll learn something) is to 1) protect you from becoming a trained monkey. "Put this here. Make this, this color." 2) Push you as hard as he can so your design is AWESOME. 3) Only allow you to show your best work to the Client.

You, as the Designer, must produce jaw dropping work.

Not "not to bad" work.

Not "good" work.

You need to create "OMG" work!

Because here is the secret to working with design-impaired Clients.

They've seen amazing stuff. They want their stuff to be amazing. They want to show it off to their manager, co-workers, colleagues, etc... And if you bring anything less than your "A game", they get scared because they know it's not awesome. This was their chance to have something AWESOME, and you've lost their trust so now they start dictating what needs to be done. Because they care so much about the project that they honestly believe that if they just give you better instructions the piece will turn out better.

If you blow them away, they'll be gasping for air to long to nit-pick over where the logo is, or that the page is "lacking" animation.

No more mediocre designs.

Continue to push yourself design-wise.

Your Clients want to go "aaahhhhh". If you can't do that, keep pushing yourself.

I've worked with a few Designers on projects where I've pushed them through several rounds of mock-ups. You know what happens?

In every single round the work improves.

I didn't tell them what to do. I told them it needed to better, and to stop constraining themselves to the pre-conceived notions they've created regarding working with the Clients. Don't let your previous work, or what the Client has previously approved (or "allowed to be delivered") stop you from creating the next great piece.

Push yourself.