A no-BS guide to getting cheaper, faster, better design (etc.)

The hidden power of a little client elbow-grease.

Consider the figure of the client in the popular imagination and it looks a lot like Mad Men era suits. The client comes in, gets wined and dined, and sits in a room being presented to, saying “I like it / I don’t like it.”

Consider now the creatives in this scenario: scrambling to find a way forward, making compromises, agreeing to reworks and 'I'll know it when I see it' statements as we react by extending timelines, adding scope, and charging fees.

If this is how the world looks to you, you're not alone. Too often, the studios, designers, and agencies of the world let that assumption stand. This is a mistake, obviously, but also does a real disservice to would-be clients.

But there’s another side to the conversation often left unexplored: the power of clients to make the design work better, cheaper, faster by doing the work that we wish they did.

Come again?

Great clients get better work, they get it faster and they pay less for it. Great clients are great because they do the work that keeps the process smooth. And it’s cheaper-better-faster not because of favoritism, but because of the effort it takes to get stuff done.

When efforts synchronize, it’s like a well-oiled machine. Passive clients, range from the benign “I won’t get in your way, but I also won’t send complete feedback unless you remind me” version to the more pernicious “I’m going to make this an uphill battle for you” variety. It’s faster because it’s faster to work with the current than against it. It’s cheaper because it takes less work. And it’s better because we spend the time we do have building upon and perfecting rather than making change after change until something sticks.

Here's a guide to becoming the client-partner your dream creatives dream about... cue the unicorn-rainbow.

Do your homework

1. Understand your objectives. Seriously. Crystal clarity is so useful and so rare. Why does this project need to happen? What should it accomplish? How will you know if you’ve succeeded?
2. Define your metrics. What you measure informs what we should prioritize as we’re creating and testing the work, so make sure you know how you’ll measure your success. For example: if you’re repackaging to appeal to younger customers, you might measure incremental sales to your target demographic as your key metric. Maybe the solution here would be creating a different product size… say, a single serving version. Alternatively, you might measure social media engagement with the brand among your target. In that case, you might focus more on the graphics.
3. Lay out your timeline. Go beyond just the delivery date. Understand your timeline and its implications. Who needs to weigh in? What information is still pending? Who is taking vacation in the middle of the project? Include any event affecting the timeline.
4. Write up a brief (really). All set with the first three items? A brief will force you to think through your objectives and to articulate them clearly before you even begin. You may think you’ve got it all on lockdown *up here*, but you’re only ever one question away from being caught without very basic piece of information about the project.
5. Gather all project assets. Your company’s typeface. The final version of the text that’ll be laid out. The latest version of the logo… have all your inputs, things will fly by.
6. Formalize roles. Who is the point of contact? Who makes decisions? When will we have access to the decision-maker? Who are the stakeholders? How will work be evaluated? Will there be third party vendors we need to meet? What obstacles do you anticipate?
7. Communicate your expectations. Tell us why you hired us, what you expect from us, and how you expect things to work.

Build relationships

Every relationship begins with a courtship. Working partnerships between studios and companies (and other organization types) are no different.

1. Hire people you trust. This is about managing anxiety: if you’re anxious, you might find yourself emailing your agency at midnight with something you saw on Instagram which may have nothing to do with the true goal. In turn, you’ll waste time, there might be an unscheduled phone call, and by the time everything’s untangled, you’ve delayed the project. If you work with someone you don’t feel you can trust, the project will be painful every step of the way.
2. Seek people for how they work as much as what they make. See ‘trust’ above. You want people who are your advocates, who will be tougher critics than you, and who will communicate well and clearly.
3. Never, ever pull rank. It means you don’t have a good reason to make the change you’re requesting. See item “clarity” above.

Be a great client-partner

1. Be Organized. Keep track of the timeline, files, requirements and so on.
2. Keep your deadlines and commitments.
3. Be consistent about the goal. Seriously, changing course constantly is terrible for everyone.
4. Prepare for each meeting. It saves us all a recap and the long slog of detective work over who said what.
5. Be thorough in your reviews.
6. Do the stakeholder legwork. Make sure everyone who needs to weigh in has weighed in, then consolidate all feedback, needs, and news into a single briefing.
7. If things change, let us know. Sh*t happens, but we don’t know until you tell us!

If this seems like a lot of work, it is. But the work of keeping everyone on track and things running smoothly will be part of the project in every case. If clients don’t do it, design partners do. Which translates into more time and effort spent making sure we’re moving in the right direction, adapting to changes when there’s no clarity, and just garden variety mind-reading and cat-herding. More revisions. More rapid changes in course. More meeting time getting everyone on the same page, which affects the timeline, budget and quality of the work.

What now?

Great clients are made, not born — and its our job as designers to give you this information. We want you to hit all your targets, make every deadline and have budget to spare.

If you’re ready to be this kind of partner, let’s get to work.