How can you iterate on your design pitch without losing momentum?

Understanding “who you are talking to” is of fundamental importance for the success of a presentation. A good exercise could be to outline "buyer personas", just like marketers do. But then there is also a magic that sometimes occurs... an intimate connection with the brand because you feel it in your heart.

First thing understanding the audience, then seeking feedback, making gradual changes, staying goal-oriented, tracking modifications, and remaining flexible are all vital components of refining a design pitch effectively.

I absolutely agree with the process described. It is correct to start from the problem, put it clearly on paper and then offer the solution with a product that is "new and useful", which is ultimately what design must pursue.

As a designer, I really understand that when we show our designs, it's not just about displaying what we've made. It's about telling a story of how our design helps solve a problem for the people we're designing for. We need to explain the problem and our solution in a clear and simple way. What's the issue we're tackling? What do we want to change? How does our design make things better? It's important to show why our solution is better than others and how it benefits the people we're designing for.

The images used should always reflect the business and the users you are representing. Maybe in a more advanced view, the images also should be followed by some the branding principles. Be sure to include images that are showing diversity if your brand is encouraging diversity. You visual aids should also help every people around you so it is good to add some accessibility approaches when using images in your design. For example, when we need text on the image, be sure that the contrast is well defined. But the best way to add text to an image is to put it next to the image in order to facilitate the reading of both elements.

In fact, our brain can understand much more from an image than from many words, that's simply how we work. I always start my projects with sketches, they allow me to find a connection with my clients, to translate their words, their desires into something more concrete to start from: a shared direction.

As a designer, I truly feel the importance of images. I agree that "A picture is worth a thousand words," and from a design perspective, it serves as an upliftment to our creations, providing breathing space amidst the black space. Visuals make our design solutions easier to understand and more engaging. We can utilize different kinds of visuals such as sketches, diagrams, or videos, depending on what best suits our project. It's essential to ensure they complement our message and resonate with our audience.

Designer should be a great presenter and always ready to practice in order to deliver a better message for the audience. When you practice, be prepared that there might be a moment when you need to improvise a little bit. Moreover, invite some friends or relatives, and ask for honest feedback. In my experience, I had to do a presentation in english when younger, I was afraid so I practised a lot and I asked my mom to be the audience. The first feedback was not really good but when always rehearsing, the feedback became better. And the final presentation was not really bad according to the english teacher. During your practice, value non-verbal communication. You'll see, it will help a lot.

Having an open attitude is essential, as is listening. Sometimes it really is enough to listen, carefully and deeply, to arrive at a result that satisfies the client's expectations. Feedback is absolutely fundamental and must be functional to improvement: it measures the arc of distortion between what the project should be and the point it has reached.

This can be really seen when you conducted a competitive analysis for a quantitative research and the feedback sessions with your team. You need to identify the key points and the list of improvement that your competitors made and how you can improve your solutions. You can write in your report the strenghts and weaknesses of your product and then bring them to your team. From there, they can use your report as a foundation to give more feedback to bring more improvement to your design. From there you need to refine the design according to all of those findings from your competitors and your team. Keep in mind that you may need to know how to talk to different people during this process.