Ideal customer rules

From time to time I have to act as a customer on graphic materials. I try to appreciate the time of the performer and make every effort to spend this time as efficiently as possible. In other words, I want to talk about customer responsibility.

References and sketches

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Provide 2-3 pictures that you like, feel free to draw the overall composition. A good customer can always find an example of what he wants.

The presence of references - accelerates work tenfold.

The customer’s terminology is extremely wretched, and the performer’s ability to understand free text is even poorer. But the pictures are all very well understood.

Attempts to resonate with the artist - voice communication, personally. Some try to pass their mood to the performer with obscene, courage and shouting, charge him with their enthusiasm and achieve results. In general, it is an attempt to transfer responsibility for the task to the performer. This is a very big holivar.

Just finished work

It is impossible to see the final version in the half done work. Always evaluate and make decisions based on complete options.

Very often, the customer misses good decisions, simply because it does not give the performer the opportunity to bring the work to mind.

The ability to guess a finished portrait in a few strokes is the lot of a well-played team or mega-experts.

Search tasks

When searching for a solution, formulate 3 absolutely different options with extreme values.

In mathematics, this is called a set basis. When there is a basis - the final vector is uniquely.

Extreme solutions are uncompromising creativity. Then, in these eccentric, absolutely dissimilar solutions, positive moments are sought. And from these pieces the compromise, final variant is compiled.

Define a zone of creativity

Define formal requirements for the result and be open to unexpected solutions.

One of the big problems is not the customer's homework for finding references. As a result, most of the time and effort of the performer is spent on guessing muddy images in the customer's head - the creation of references by the performer himself.

The second problem is the inertness of the customer’s thinking. Many people call it taste.
It takes effort to make someone else's decision (and someone else's inertia in thinking!). Personally, I am helped here by formal demands and respect for the work of others.

Sequential refinement

Each subsequent iteration should not contradict the previous one.

If this is not the case, you are in a cyclic search, from which it is already very difficult to get out.

A very good result is shown by the lists of "what I liked" instead of the lists of "what I do not like." Unfortunately, I myself (as a performer) very rarely come across positive thinking.

In any case - try to make these lists as complete as possible, and at the same time not contradictory. To require only a red background, and then require to repaint it in green - bad practice.

Consult with the performer

Share your doubts with the contractor, discuss the consequences of the new requirements / decisions.

The performer at his level calculates a huge number of options. For the customer, these options remain dark matter (which means they are worth nothing!). The ability to use the results of these calculations is one of the fastest and cheapest searches for solutions.

Fear of fraud / hack, many customers rely only on their decisions. Therefore, the search for the optimal solution results in an exhausting performance of each option.