All Part Of The Process
As part of my next student workshop, I’m planning to talk through the process of taking a good brief from a client and leading them through the process of working with a designer. It’s important to realise that most clients are not acustomed to being a creative partner in say a branding project or website design and build.
Most people will only commission a project like that once in their career so it’s vital that they know what to expect and what is expected of them. Obviously in order to lead anyone, you need to understand the journey. Vandaley Design recently published an interesting article on developing a client process (HERE). Whilst it focuses on web work and is at times quite loose when it comes to pricing I think it’s a good framework.
Every designer has a process and a way of working that they believe is best and suits themselves and their clients. What is really critical however, is standardising those processes and sharing them with your client. Not only does it take the mystery out of the creative process it also helps to build trust which is so key to any partnership. Obviously some processes are too in-depth but it’s a good idea to create a client-facing version to answer any questions that they may have. Things like ‘What deliverables can I expect?’, ‘What is the usual timeframe?’ and ‘What do you need from me to create a successful solution?’
