Work together with your designer

Graphic designers can synthesize abstract ideas in images; however, they cannot take images from their heads one after the other as if they were pigeons coming out from the hat of a magician.

A designer gathers information, investigates, analyzes, to submerge into the problem of design to get the optimal way to communicate the appropriate message to the right audience.

For this, the designer needs your help as the client. If you hire one, you are not hiring him to make some drawings the way you want to. You’re hiring him to think, to help you with a communication problem.

Just does a self-analysis, what do you really want? Do you want a logo, or do you want your audience to recognize you and have an image that stands out? Do you really want a website, or do you want to reach more people, that they find you and they buy what you sell?

As you can see, a designer can help you with this and more, but for this, you have to do two things: let him do his job and help him to do his job.

How to let your designer do his job?

As I mentioned at the outset, a designer can synthesize ideas, information, and concepts into images with a goal: to communicate. He knows how to do his job and he needs you but not telling him what to do.

I like to do the following comparison with other professions. You do not go to a doctor to tell him “I want you to give me a recipe for amoxicillin to treat my stomachache”. Nor do you go to a lawyer to tell him the strategy he should take in your case.

You go to a professional because you have a problem, and often you do not know what the problem is exactly.

In the same way, you approach a designer with a problem, and he will surely know how to help you. If not, he may guide you to who can do it.

How to help your designer do his job?

As I said before, ideas do not come out as if by magic. This famous phrase applies here:

Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working

Pablo Picasso

Designing is a process, it is work, it is communication. For this reason, first, you must know what you want to communicate, or what you should communicate, which is not the same and sometimes does not match.

Help your designer because you are the expert on your business and he will talk about it, he will talk about you.

The designer must ask questions, many questions, you need to give him information, he has to know your business, your industry, your customers, your competition, your environment. He must guide you and you should dedicate time.

Forget to hire a designer and take it as if he were a baker who receives your order and sometime after you only go to pick up your cake.

Do not expect to hire him and let him go straight to his computer and return the next day with that great idea that you were thinking.

And if so, do not be surprised when you see what the designer did and you say, “I did not like it”. Of course, you will not like something in which there was not enough designer-client communication nor worked the objectives.

As a client, you must understand why design decisions are taken and the designer must understand the client’s expectations, desires, needs, and purposes.

In Conclusion

Give importance to the work of your designer because what he does will represent you and your business. Listen to what he proposes and the reasons behind those proposals.

Work with him as a team. Explain your wishes and expectations. Answer his questions and ask any questions you might have about your doubts.

Sometimes you may be busy and not have time for the designer, you can let him work alone. Just remember that if the information he receives is not of quality, it is possible that the result will not be either.

If you do not like the design proposals, talk to him about them. Do not use terms as a simple “I don’t like it” because, even if you do not want to, the designer is not there to please your tastes, he is there to help you with your communication problem (The medicine is not what you want, but what you need). It is better to explain the reasons why you believe that a design proposal is not meeting the goals both have been looking for.

Both of you keep in mind the target audience, they are the ones who will receive the message.

My goal was to give you a small guide on how to work with your designer for your own benefit and obviously your company.

If you have any comments, do not go without leaving them here down below. Also, if you want to communicate directly with me, use the contact page, it is always nice to hear from you.