TT Part 2, Week 9 : Ms VinSze Yong Design Workshop (Illustrator)
- Kali
- 29 нояб. 2020 г.
- 3 мин. чтения
Work with clients. After all, it is so important for us, novice designers, to know how to work with clients and provide them a quality product. By my stupidity, I already made a mistake with my potential client once. It so happened that we agreed and discussed the details of everything my client wanted. I worked for 3 days on the creation of branding, color scheme and aesthetic logo. But at the end, on the day of the negotiations, the client refused my services without paying anything. That is, I did not ask for an advance payment and the client did not justify his desire to refuse. It didn't work very well, but I learned my lesson.
Ms VinSze, with whom we have been going through our training for almost 2 years, explained to us in detail and qualitatively where to start, when to request an advance payment and how to hand over our work.
You can be an endlessly talented designer - and endlessly fill up orders and lose customers - if you don't learn how to communicate with customers correctly present your work to them. A few rules I learned after the Workshop:
1. Don't dictate terms ...
“I’m a designer, I see it this way”, “Either this way, or no way”, “You don’t understand, you are not a designer”, “Any specialist will tell you that ...”
Design is an applied work, it is primarily about solving brand problems, and not about art or your self-expression. Therefore, do not be offended by the customer if he does not agree with you, listen to his proposals and try to understand what is behind them.
2. ... but don't be led by
"The customer is always right!" All customers think so, but you don't have to. If you make edits at the request of the client, but contrary to common sense, then the result is a weak layout, made under the control of a beginner. Who needs it?
Therefore, balance is important. Do not settle for endless alterations, it is better to stipulate the number of options in advance. The client does not imagine your labor costs, and if you do not agree with him about the restrictions, then the edits will be endless, because the client will always find a reason for dissatisfaction.
3. Speak more clearly
This means “Explain your thoughts and decisions in an easier and more accessible way, like to your friend who is not strong in design”. Don't try to show off or impress with smart foreign words. This often has the opposite effect: the customer thinks that they want to cheat him, is considered an idiot or even bullied him.
Remember: you and the client are on the same side and are working on a common cause, so it is important to understand each other correctly.

4. Define brand problems, client wishes and your goals. Yes, at the start, clients often do not know and do not understand what exactly they want, so it will take a lot of time and effort to clarify everything. Try to understand what image the client sees, ask for more references and work through each one to see the world through the eyes of the client.
5. It is important to understand that you do not design for the client, but for the client's clients, that is, for his target audience.
References :
7 tips for dealing with clients as a designer, Joshua Philoctete, 2020, April 1. Retrieved from :
How Designers and Clients can work together, Sathish Natarajan, 2017, December 2020. Retrieved from :
https://clutch.co/web-developers/resources/how-designers-clients-work-together
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