3 Things Designers Get Wrong

Key Takeaways

when you're a designer you agree to accept money from somebody to solve a problem so now we're into problem solving mode and we're trying to understand their problem it's not our problem and there was an architect i was speaking to and he said like my house if you were to go and visit me is full of artwork i'm a i'm a lover of art and i collect lots of art but when i go and design a space for my clients i don't want to impose any of that art on them and so that's a really big distinction whereas artists they're really trying to share and express an emotion a unique thing that they experience with somebody else and if they feel the same thing i guess the art is said to be successful and so i think a lot of times and this is a disservice to young creative people at at any level to think that they're artists and to walk around with that kind of attitude so you hear this a lot with client vendor relationships where people artists designers creative people tend to say oh you know if if the clients didn't mess this up it would have been so good and i can't stand that they're changing this to the whatever it is they're they're making it worse well you're using a very skewed and distorted lens as to what is good what is good for you isn't necessarily good for them and considering if they pay you a few thousand dollars to design their logo and they don't like it and it's a multi-million dollar business well you can see what kind of risk they're taking on there to do what you want and what you think and what you learned in design school without any skin in the game if their business fails what is it to you all you all you really care about at this point with that mindset and that attitude is is this going to win me an award is this going to be a calling card that reflects me it's all egocentric and that's a really dangerous place to be so rather than try to be original just try to be good that's a difficult thing just try to be good the next part is already talked about it less risky so you need to understand that the client has options you're not the only person they're talking to to assume that would to be to make a great mistake on your behalf right so if they have multiple options and and you could put yourself in the buyers mindset are you going to go with the riskiest option probably not if you haven't been in business a long time that represents risk if you're not a good communicator that's risky if you don't have a good track record that's risky if you don't call them back right away or you present wild and crazy ideas and speak from an egocentric place those are all risky things so we don't try to win clients because we're the best option we win clients because we present ourselves as the least risky option and that's going to be different depending on who you talk to next is undifferentiated work absent a story is undifferentiated you're going to compete with everybody what i mean is this as you present your work to the world if you just show the end product you don't talk about process you don't talk about who you are you don't talk about anything else then all i have to go on is one person's work versus another and to the untrained eye it's actually very difficult to spot nuanced differences between one color one type face and the layout than the other so now all they do is they say well you guys bid against each other and i'll just pick the lowest cost so you have to give them a reason to care about you this is not about being original this is not about being risky or just being wild and out there and avant-garde it's about saying here's how i got from here to here and if you work with me this is pretty much how it's going to play out so you're diminishing risk and you're creating uniqueness in what you offer hi my name is greg gunn and i'm the producer of the future podcast and yes we do have a podcast in fact we've been having one for years and that's exactly why i'm here talking with you you see it's really good and i think you should listen to it if you like what we do here on youtube then you're gonna love what we do on the podcast you'll get to hear intimate conversations and personal stories from some familiar faces and others you might not know about yet plus you can listen to it while doing something else and you won't miss a thing so if any of that sounds interesting to you go visit thefuture.com podcast or find it on your favorite podcast listening app i hope to see you there bye