Maintaining your Position by Keeping your Client Satisfied
Effective tips for graphic designers
by April M. Carter
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I realize it's a lot more fun to pick color palettes and browse paper folios than it is to manage databases and oversee paperwork, but only a designer with an appreciation for the latter tasks' necessity will find himself coveted by his client.
The most important services a designer can provide are:
Clear communication of message - your job is to communicate a specific message. Clearly. Concisely. And the hierarchy of information is vital to the message's effectiveness. Consider the six questions you learned in grammar school or that college press-release-writing course: who, what, where, when, why, and how; then, get rid of unnecessary information, or at least minimize or separate it from your design to indicate that it is superfluous.
Realize: clearly communicating a message is your responsibility.
Answer the six questions.
Keep it succinct.
Accuracy of information - my personal goals for every project are to create striking and clever promotional materials and to translate the message without losing its intended meaning or screwing up the technical parts. I would rather submit an arguably flawed design with 100% accurate information in favor of a kick-ass design rife with error. This is where a lot of designers cringe. For most, spelling, grammar, and general proofreading are considered weak suits or, worse, not the designer�s responsibility. You�ll find that even if you�re lucky enough to be working in tandem with one, an editor won�t be your friend if you continually hand him incorrect work. If you don�t know how to spell or take care of grammar or proofread, either learn, or collaborate with someone who you�re sure knows their stuff.
Realize: accuracy IS your problem.
Do what it takes to make it right. Check it twice, use proofreading checklists, employ an editor.
Be confident that the work is accurate before the client sees it.
Effective use of media - Be appropriate. While flame-embroidered bras may bode well for a tattoo/lingerie shop, don�t pitch the idea to an investment-banking firm looking for ways to �expose� itself. Your clever ideas are only genuinely clever if they�re appropriate to the client and to the audience.
Realize: your livelihood is dependent on pleasing the people who pay the bills.
If the client is new to you, review their history of promotion to a) see what you�re up against, and b) ensure that your approach is not exactly the same as what he�s been seeing.
Imagine yourself in your clients� shoes. Would you stand behind your design� or run away screaming like a little girl?
If you�ve thought of something so clever you can�t stand not to execute it, why not turn it into a self-promo? One perk of being a designer: when it comes to self-promotion, anything goes.
Management of projects � You probably dislike having to deal with the fax machine, or the printer who promised the work last week, or the bill that hasn�t been paid by your employer, but seeing that these tasks are taken care of is a monumental factor in ensuring your position. Everyone would like to draw all day, but the number of people who are fortunate enough to have such jobs is small. (Having had such a job myself, I can admit that I prefer something that requires �dry� tasks, too, for variety.) So, you�ll have to learn how to manage the business side of the, well, business, if you desire to have clients marveling at your two equally talented sides of the brain.
Realize: demonstrating not only creative talent, but also an ability to handle numbers and relationships will make you irreplaceable.
Stay organized: come up with an organizational system or fully learn the one in practice so you�ll always be able to quickly retrieve anything that might be requested of you. Usually, filing chronologically from back-of- to front-of-folder will help.
Make a paper trail: I recommend saving everything � all prints and proofs, all electronic versions, all paperwork between client and between vendor. This covers yourself against someone else�s error (or proves your error) and provides a solid basis for your billing. Also, a project can be almost seamlessly reconstructed from the paperwork that accompanies it, and retaining files can help with those wishy-washy clients who surprise you with, �Maybe we should just go back to what you originally had.� Surprise them right back with a, �Here ya go.�
Streamline your process: Mastering efficiency will help you in two ways � you�ll please your clients with your quickness and free-up time for making more money! If you have repetitive tasks, come up with standard processes for completing them. For instance, each week I am given an Excel spreadsheet containing hundreds of records, and the end product is always the same: fifteen web pages, each containing a portion of the data on the spreadsheet. After a couple of weeks of doing it, I created a process that made completing the task a series of simple steps, without having to think about it too much.
Meet deadlines � It is my suspicion that many deadlines are not met because the projects are forgotten about or are not scheduled well. Of course, there are delays caused by the client or the printer or the programmer or acts of God, but there�s no reason for not allowing time to ride anything that comes your way.
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April M. Carter offers designers and illustrators advice about successfully bridging the gap between art and commerce. She can be contacted at
[email protected].
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