4 ms·

As a designer, there's nothing I hate more than clients who come to me with preconceived notions of what they want or need, nevermind actual sketches of their "

by Gibbon 18y ago

As a designer, there's nothing I hate more than clients who come to me with preconceived notions of what they want or need, nevermind actual sketches of their "vision". It often leaves little opportunity to improve on the idea, or a hell of a lot of nudging to get them to accept something better. My last logo job had about a hundred sketches, further refined to a dozen candidates, from which I presented the top three. The idea that an artist/designer/musician can't be called upon to think up fresh ideas is laughable. Any truly competent creative can pump out ideas a fast as they can draw/write/play.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
Zev 18y ago
Unfortunately, for every competent artist/designer/musician out there, there's at least one (and most likely more) hack that can't cut it and isn't competent at their job. And for someone who's job doesn't deal with what is more traditionally thought of as needing creativity, it can be hard to distinguish the competent people who are good at their job from the hacks who imitate.
- Gibbon 18y ago
  You find competent designers the same way you find competent electricians, surgeons or programmers. Ask around, get recommendations, look at their portfolios and talk to them about their methods and processes.
  - Zev 18y ago
    True, but: If you don't know what to look for, what good does talking looking at prior work or talking shop with them do? For all you know, they're completely making everything up as you go along in the conversation. Getting recommendations from people is the best thing to do, but people are much more likely to need a dentist or an electrician then a writer or musician for something. So solid recommendations may be slightly harder to get.
- Confusion 18y ago
  Lacking creativity does not make one a hack. As an example, take movie critics. Good critics are good at pointing out the strong and weak points of a movie. If involved early in the process, their advise can be used to improve the movie. However, most of them completely fail at coming up with movies by themselves. That doesn't mean they are incompetent: it just means that their expertise does not cover 'being creative'. The follow-up question than is: is 'being creative' a required skill for a designer. I venture: no. As the author points out, the sketches and ideas of the client can convey a lot of information about his business: not only factual information, but also the harder-to-express features that distinguish a business from others. It may very well be enough starting material for someone with less creative skill to produce an excellent design, completely covering what the client had in mind, while including all possible designer finesses. Of course, everyone has some creative skill and some may very well be enough. The very best can come up with original ideas out of thin air. We respect that and strive towards that ability. However, that does not mean that those that cannot do that are immediately demoted to 'hack' status. That would denounce many great artists and thinkers as 'hacks', because they were only capable of executing ideas to perfection, while not being able to come up with those ideas themselves.
ja2ke 18y ago
You hate when clients have an idea? I think it depends on the client. Someone having ideas is fine -- I like that a lot in fact. You can get some good collaborative brainstorming out of it, and it often gives me insight into how the client sees his/her business or product. It's not the act of having an idea that's bad. What's bad is when the expectation, spoken or (worse) unspoken, is not that the client's ideas are the starting point for a conversation between the two of you, but that you're going to do what this article suggests and just "polish up" the client's idea verbatim. That is, with nearly nonexistent exception, a road straight to horrible design town. Just like how good programmers aren't just "good at computers," or "good at math," or whatever, good designers aren't just "good at drawing." Like good programmers, good designers are good problem solvers. (The problems they solve are just different.) Most good designers I know relish solving problems and coming up with unexpected or interesting or clean and efficient solutions to challenges as much as (if not more than) they enjoy the actual act of putting pen to paper (or hand to mouse). Obviously a good designer should be someone who produces aesthetically pleasing work, but that's not all they do, at least not if they're good! If you're not letting your designer help you solve your problems, you might be under utilizing your designer. If your designer isn't helping you solve your problems, you might have a bad designer.
njharman 18y ago
Not a designer but that is certainly the impression I have. I imagine coming to a designer with a design and asking just, ya know, snazz it up a bit is like coming to a developer for a fault tolerant, scalable to hundreds of machines, transactional message system and saying "Hey, we got all these win98 and MS Access licenses so just ya know use those. I hear there's a wizard in Access that makes it practically automatic."

by Gibbon 18y ago

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

Zev 18y ago

Unfortunately, for every competent artist/designer/musician out there, there's at least one (and most likely more) hack that can't cut it and isn't competent at their job. And for someone who's job doesn't deal with what is more traditionally thought of as needing creativity, it can be hard to distinguish the competent people who are good at their job from the hacks who imitate.

Gibbon 18y ago
You find competent designers the same way you find competent electricians, surgeons or programmers. Ask around, get recommendations, look at their portfolios and talk to them about their methods and processes.
- Zev 18y ago
  True, but: If you don't know what to look for, what good does talking looking at prior work or talking shop with them do? For all you know, they're completely making everything up as you go along in the conversation. Getting recommendations from people is the best thing to do, but people are much more likely to need a dentist or an electrician then a writer or musician for something. So solid recommendations may be slightly harder to get.
Confusion 18y ago
Lacking creativity does not make one a hack. As an example, take movie critics. Good critics are good at pointing out the strong and weak points of a movie. If involved early in the process, their advise can be used to improve the movie. However, most of them completely fail at coming up with movies by themselves. That doesn't mean they are incompetent: it just means that their expertise does not cover 'being creative'. The follow-up question than is: is 'being creative' a required skill for a designer. I venture: no. As the author points out, the sketches and ideas of the client can convey a lot of information about his business: not only factual information, but also the harder-to-express features that distinguish a business from others. It may very well be enough starting material for someone with less creative skill to produce an excellent design, completely covering what the client had in mind, while including all possible designer finesses. Of course, everyone has some creative skill and some may very well be enough. The very best can come up with original ideas out of thin air. We respect that and strive towards that ability. However, that does not mean that those that cannot do that are immediately demoted to 'hack' status. That would denounce many great artists and thinkers as 'hacks', because they were only capable of executing ideas to perfection, while not being able to come up with those ideas themselves.

ja2ke 18y ago

You hate when clients have an idea? I think it depends on the client. Someone having ideas is fine -- I like that a lot in fact. You can get some good collaborative brainstorming out of it, and it often gives me insight into how the client sees his/her business or product. It's not the act of having an idea that's bad. What's bad is when the expectation, spoken or (worse) unspoken, is not that the client's ideas are the starting point for a conversation between the two of you, but that you're going to do what this article suggests and just "polish up" the client's idea verbatim. That is, with nearly nonexistent exception, a road straight to horrible design town. Just like how good programmers aren't just "good at computers," or "good at math," or whatever, good designers aren't just "good at drawing." Like good programmers, good designers are good problem solvers. (The problems they solve are just different.) Most good designers I know relish solving problems and coming up with unexpected or interesting or clean and efficient solutions to challenges as much as (if not more than) they enjoy the actual act of putting pen to paper (or hand to mouse). Obviously a good designer should be someone who produces aesthetically pleasing work, but that's not all they do, at least not if they're good! If you're not letting your designer help you solve your problems, you might be under utilizing your designer. If your designer isn't helping you solve your problems, you might have a bad designer.

njharman 18y ago

Not a designer but that is certainly the impression I have. I imagine coming to a designer with a design and asking just, ya know, snazz it up a bit is like coming to a developer for a fault tolerant, scalable to hundreds of machines, transactional message system and saying "Hey, we got all these win98 and MS Access licenses so just ya know use those. I hear there's a wizard in Access that makes it practically automatic."