Bite Your Tongue!
I was down in Austin, TX the last few days for the South by Southwest Interactive Festival. One of the many interesting panel discussions I attended was entitled "5 Things Elite Designers Should Stop Saying." Graphic designers are often quick to complain about things clients or co-workers say... "make the logo bigger" often tops the list. This discussion, however, focused on the things designers say that may be taken just as negatively, and rightfully so. Lines that came up among the group included:
- "You should calibrate your monitor."
- "You can't do typography on the web."
- "As a designer..." (insert anything here)
- "It shouldn't take you long to code this."
- "Let me explain to you how this process works."
- "Trust me."
This list went on. So remember, think about how things say before you say them. As designers (see that?) we often think we are right and don't explain why, especially when dealing with non-designers. Back up your opinions, and design expertise, with a solid argument. James from Yahoo! led the discussion and planned on posting the full list of quotes on his blog, which I'll be sure to link to. Thanks James.
Comments
As a designer… (let me say my words xD) I often don’t like my job to be defaced by my clients who are not web nor graphic designers, yet they treat me like underestimating my creativity skills. They want all big and huge, photos in GIF to make navigation faster, Times New Roman => Apply to all, Comic Sans, colorful RGB 255-0-0 layouts OMG STOP!!! >.
Oh dear… “It shouldn’t take long to code this”. That’s the equivalent to the infamous client’s “you can do that in an hour, right?” or their mentality that there’s some magic button labeled “project” that we just have to push to get their work done.
However, point taken. If we want clients to respect us, we have to act like humans, too, and not be elitist about things. It’s possible to educate and command respect without talking down to them.
no one likes to feel devalued by being critiqued by those we feel we are more qualified than but I’ve found the end result is sometimes better if we do listen, maybe they are right and we’ve overlooked something, maybe they aren’t and we can confirm our decisions. At the end of the day if they are paying for it its best for everyone if you shoot for a 90% result. get them into the right place and care less that they move around the furniture. staying friends with your client is a lot less stress and more profitable in the long haul, over time they will trust your judgement more (if you are right) and they’ll appreciate you wont be fighting for just your own point of view. in the end who cares if your not carving anything in stone?