31 Information/creative overload

Walter mentions keeping notes handy as a sanity check and to keep in sync with the original brief – thats certainly something I’ll be trying to teach myself….

When I’m not working for “the man”, I spend a lot of time creating interactive PHP-driven sites (games, utilities etc) to amuse friends and family….and of course myself! Anyhoo, I have a tendency to get massively caught up in the excitement of the project, and as my mind wanders in fifteen different directions – solving all my IA issues at once – I often find myself neglecting/re-inventing the clever piece of presentational content I applied to another page the week prior! My shins are black&blue; from the amount of times I’ve kicked myself recently ;D

posted at 03:53 am on August 8, 2006 by Tony Carbone

32 bruised but willing

I worked for an incredibly mean-spirited business owner who treated web design (and designers) like an assembly line (with near cookie-cutter design principles) while treating clients like cattle. For the nearly 7 years that I survived within this company, I learned how to design quickly but not creatively (and rarely to the customer’s total satisfaction). I’ve sinced moved on and now I feel trapped in the ‘hurry up and get it done’ mode that I’ve become so familiar with and suffer from design sterility.

Many of your responses have been an eye-opener to me – thank you all for your perspicacity. I now feel that there’s a balance between the ‘step back and survey the situation’ and ‘get it done now’ paradigms we face as service providers. But is it possible that being in an environment that crushes creativity for such a long time make breaking free from such boring design principles an impossibility? If not, how would I approach this dilemma. I yearn to expand my creativity but find myself repeating familiar habits over and over again.

posted at 07:05 pm on August 9, 2006 by Kevin Smith

33 Good to see it happens to the best

I have to admit, the design ‘crisis’ was something I thought was just me. I find it really hard to design at my best when I am being nagged, pressured or I simply don’t have enough time – but that is often the way it is. It is great to get some advice about what to do to keep the process going

I have done the ‘I told you so’ design, and sure enough, that was the one the client liked. I should have known!

I was reassured to hear about the best design happening first and then having them progressively deteriorate afterwards. I find that so often, but then get nervous thinking that I must be ‘cheating’ if I manage to turn out something in double quick time.

posted at 12:33 am on August 13, 2006 by Nancy Williams

35 Excellent Article!

I’m a one-woman web design AND web programming shop. The key frustration there being the AND. It’s tough to switch between debugging hundreds of lines of PHP code and creative design work.

A break of some sort is absolutely essential to make the switch. Sometimes, I have to admit, a weekend is just the thing!

As for creative brainstorming, when I have trouble with the creative process, before or after feedback, I do just start playing with things: color, brushes, shapes, whole layouts. If nothing else works, that seems to do the trick.

posted at 12:03 am on August 29, 2006 by Cindy Dykstra

36 In Response to kevin

I was stuck in a similar rut with a former employer & found a great deal of life in doing pro-bono work for non-profits. More often than not, it was just the outlet & spark I needed to keep forging ahead. They enjoyed the creative process, they enjoyed being part of the development process & we both learned a little something. They learned some interesting ways to draw up solutions & I learned that there is always something, somewhere that will spark you’re creativity; sometimes free reign is that breath of fresh air.

posted at 10:46 pm on August 31, 2006 by Justice Guyberg

37 Set the expectation

Different client’s have different expectations of a designer, and that is something that I address before hand.

If they are expecting you to simply be a Photoshop monkey at their disposal then the relationship will be tested during the design process.

But if you let the client know exactly what the design process involves beforehand, then you could avoid potential confrontations further down the track.

The most important thing I make clear with all my clients is this simple fact: Their personal tastes have nothing to do with how the design should look. Although this might seem shocking, it usually always gains immediate respect points in my favour.

And if they want to direct the design process from start to finish, then they do need a Photoshop monkey – not a professional designer. Because anyone can point and click where they are told, but a professional designer puts serious thought into where those points and clicks go and what their output will be.

One of the most common misconceptions a designer faces (even I fight this on a daily basis) is that our job is nothing more than to make something look pretty. When you hire the services of a professional designer, they will produce something that is in the best interest of the client’s company and target demographic – regardless of what the CEO’s favourite colour is.

As a side note, and this might make an a interesting case study, last year 3 of my web sites were nominated for West Australian Design Awards, and this year one design was nominated for the same award.

Call this coincidence if you want, but those very 4 designs were the only ones where the client has said “go nuts� and not interfered with the design process at all.

I don’t like to think that is a coincidence. But it does validate my theory that as a designer I must be getting it right and it is the client who is wrong.

posted at 06:27 am on September 11, 2006 by Michael Ott

38 Right you are

@ Michael Ott

“The most important thing I make clear with all my clients is this simple fact: Their personal tastes have nothing to do with how the design should look. Although this might seem shocking, it usually always gains immediate respect points in my favour.”

I agree wholeheartedly – The first thing i do with my clients is send them an estimate proposal along with a document explicitly stating what they should expect from me and what i expect from them.

Guess what it says I expect…

“Design freedom, I am the professional designer not them “

- if they don’t like it they can kiss my ass. My name is on the line and i’m not going to let another client piss on my painting.

hehe – what a rant

posted at 05:33 am on September 29, 2006 by franklin lyons

39 German translation available

Hi all, since I think this is valuable reading (thanks for sharing your insights), I published a German translation at:
http://mediengestalter.gleichjetzt.de/de/node/63

posted at 06:00 pm on November 2, 2006 by Axel Christ