Coordination of design in the project by the customer - errors and their solutions
Those who have ever ordered the design of something, whether it’s a website, a logo, a booklet, and so on, or made similar on request, should be familiar with this point in the project - “design approval”. Often the most painful. The reasons are different, and one of the most common is the wrong choice of design criteria by the customer, and as a result, an incorrect statement of the problem, and the result is a broken deadline, damaged relationships, lost money, and so on. That's what I'll write about how to turn this nightmare into a holiday;)
I evaluate the design from the position of "I like / I do not like."
Design development is the same project as everyone else, and like everywhere else it should have clear criteria for the completion of the project. Your personal preferences and tastes are a very incomprehensible criterion, you need to be either a psychologist to figure it out, or you will have to explain very thoroughly and clearly what you like before starting work. It is not simple. And it is absolutely not necessary for the project (I will write about it below).
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Decision. There are two options, either to explain in great detail what you want using the designer simply as an “application to Photoshop”, or to abstract from personal attachments and evaluate only in terms of usefulness to a business or your project. Since your audience still has different tastes, a design that does not personally suit your tastes will like or dislike about the same number of people as it does to your tastes.
As a customer, I don’t understand the design at all, but I think that it’s very important to distinguish the “cool” design from the “uncool”, and therefore I show the very first layout to everyone I know.
In fact, such an assessment will not give a useful result - all these people will firstly be judged on the basis of their personal tastes and preferences, and not the interests of the project for which this design was made. Secondly, they will never agree, everyone will say something different. Thirdly, they will all include such design validity criteria, which your designer could not read a word in the statement of work, so by default he has no chance to please your homies' squad, which means that a lot of work will derail and most likely perfectly in vain. Thirdly, you seem to express the maximum degree of distrust to your designer, and force him to work not with you but with an uncertain set of unknown people - it is almost impossible to work in such conditions.
Decision. No need to understand the design for the business to evaluate it. It is enough that the layout contains all the elements that you have agreed on, and that it was about the same in appearance as the rest of the work in the designer's portfolio, then you can be sure that you were not thrown.
We agreed on one thing, but when I saw the design, I realized that it was all wrong, and therefore forced the designer to redo everything for the same money and three times less time.
Tin, but it also happens. Absolutely frivolous approach. You can not negotiate with a person about one thing and then in the process to change the rules of the game. Unless you pay the time spent by the contractor.
Decision. Pay for work already done. Understand that a designer is also a person, his time is worth the money, he will either receive it or die of hunger. Keep in mind also that a designer can work at idle not only through his own fault.
All :) The remaining mistakes are already rooted in the wrong choice of designer, wrong TK, and the like, about this another time. And of course, not only the customer is mistaken, but this is not about this time.
The most interesting thing is that you should not like the design :) This does not affect the success of the project. Is amazing? And what is the effect? Product photo, service description, informative headlines, informative emotional photos or illustrations. Everything. Why? Your customers never react to your advertising and design in it like you. They react as consumers, it is important for them to quickly and without obstacles to understand the essence of your offer, why they should buy it (goods, service), and how to do it. Everything. Nothing else matters.
Conventionally, the design can be divided into two categories of complexity:
1. Very simple, competitors are not important.
2. Difficult, it is important to differentiate.
In the first case, it is important that the key information about the product or service is communicated in the layout. In this case, it is desirable that the design fit into the mainstream of the style of your product industry. The rest is not important, it will not affect the result.
In the second case, you need to choose in what way you will select your product from the competitive row, and which part should lie on the design. And if there are moments related to the design - they need to be described in great detail in the ToR, give a sufficient number of examples of similar styles, photographs, drawings and all that is required. You can write TK yourself or make it a separate stage of the project, and make it either with the same designer or with a more experienced one. And then, again, all finished layouts can only be evaluated according to the criteria formulated in the TK.
PS: If something is wrong, I want answers to other questions - write, it will be useful. Moreover, I am still going to write about right and wrong TK, with examples, and how to keep such projects in the right direction. And with your submission maybe write about something else :)
The most common mistakes of the customer
I evaluate the design from the position of "I like / I do not like."
Design development is the same project as everyone else, and like everywhere else it should have clear criteria for the completion of the project. Your personal preferences and tastes are a very incomprehensible criterion, you need to be either a psychologist to figure it out, or you will have to explain very thoroughly and clearly what you like before starting work. It is not simple. And it is absolutely not necessary for the project (I will write about it below).
')
Decision. There are two options, either to explain in great detail what you want using the designer simply as an “application to Photoshop”, or to abstract from personal attachments and evaluate only in terms of usefulness to a business or your project. Since your audience still has different tastes, a design that does not personally suit your tastes will like or dislike about the same number of people as it does to your tastes.
As a customer, I don’t understand the design at all, but I think that it’s very important to distinguish the “cool” design from the “uncool”, and therefore I show the very first layout to everyone I know.
In fact, such an assessment will not give a useful result - all these people will firstly be judged on the basis of their personal tastes and preferences, and not the interests of the project for which this design was made. Secondly, they will never agree, everyone will say something different. Thirdly, they will all include such design validity criteria, which your designer could not read a word in the statement of work, so by default he has no chance to please your homies' squad, which means that a lot of work will derail and most likely perfectly in vain. Thirdly, you seem to express the maximum degree of distrust to your designer, and force him to work not with you but with an uncertain set of unknown people - it is almost impossible to work in such conditions.
Decision. No need to understand the design for the business to evaluate it. It is enough that the layout contains all the elements that you have agreed on, and that it was about the same in appearance as the rest of the work in the designer's portfolio, then you can be sure that you were not thrown.
We agreed on one thing, but when I saw the design, I realized that it was all wrong, and therefore forced the designer to redo everything for the same money and three times less time.
Tin, but it also happens. Absolutely frivolous approach. You can not negotiate with a person about one thing and then in the process to change the rules of the game. Unless you pay the time spent by the contractor.
Decision. Pay for work already done. Understand that a designer is also a person, his time is worth the money, he will either receive it or die of hunger. Keep in mind also that a designer can work at idle not only through his own fault.
All :) The remaining mistakes are already rooted in the wrong choice of designer, wrong TK, and the like, about this another time. And of course, not only the customer is mistaken, but this is not about this time.
How does this even work?
The most interesting thing is that you should not like the design :) This does not affect the success of the project. Is amazing? And what is the effect? Product photo, service description, informative headlines, informative emotional photos or illustrations. Everything. Why? Your customers never react to your advertising and design in it like you. They react as consumers, it is important for them to quickly and without obstacles to understand the essence of your offer, why they should buy it (goods, service), and how to do it. Everything. Nothing else matters.
Conventionally, the design can be divided into two categories of complexity:
1. Very simple, competitors are not important.
2. Difficult, it is important to differentiate.
In the first case, it is important that the key information about the product or service is communicated in the layout. In this case, it is desirable that the design fit into the mainstream of the style of your product industry. The rest is not important, it will not affect the result.
In the second case, you need to choose in what way you will select your product from the competitive row, and which part should lie on the design. And if there are moments related to the design - they need to be described in great detail in the ToR, give a sufficient number of examples of similar styles, photographs, drawings and all that is required. You can write TK yourself or make it a separate stage of the project, and make it either with the same designer or with a more experienced one. And then, again, all finished layouts can only be evaluated according to the criteria formulated in the TK.
Summary
- Agree as much as possible on what needs to be done.
- Try to describe everything in detail, using design examples, photographs, illustrations. The closer the examples to what you want to get, the better. As you know, it is better to see once than hear a hundred times. Ideally, examples can be taken directly from the designer's portfolio.
- Try not to deviate from your own arrangements.
- If you need something to change in the TK - renegotiate, but keep in mind that the period and the cost of the contractor will increase.
- Choose an artist whose work you like and maybe could be suitable for your project.
PS: If something is wrong, I want answers to other questions - write, it will be useful. Moreover, I am still going to write about right and wrong TK, with examples, and how to keep such projects in the right direction. And with your submission maybe write about something else :)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/62247/
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