How To Be An Awesome Design Client

I’ve been incredibly blessed to have a long list of really awesome design clients, and I wanted to pull out some lessons from those interactions for you. Enjoy!

So you need to hire a designer, right? You’ve done your research, found someone whose attitude or design aesthetic or persona really appeals to you, and you are ready to take the plunge.

You’re laying out a lot of money (yikes!), and trusting someone to be awesome at their job – and, in turn, making YOU look awesome. How do you make sure that you’re equally awesome as a client?

Be enthusiastic!

YAY ENTHUSIASM! In all seriousness (kind of), this is the very first thing that the designer will notice in the first few times you’re in contact with each other. By enthusiasm, I don’t mean that you have to type in all caps or act like an extroverted cheerleader when that’s not your personality. I’m talking about your enthusiasm for the reason you need a designer in the first place: the project itself.

Your excitement and passion for your project is contagious, especially to the designer whose own passion is to make your dreams come to life online. Take the time to communicate to them why your project matters to you, why you’re doing it now instead of later, and what you hope to accomplish by hiring them.

Be specific.

Being specific means that you’ll need to know several things beforehand, which means you need to spend time planning ahead.

The designer needs to know three important things:

1) The purpose of the project. This includes your target market, the content you will offer, and the format of the project (a website, an ebook, an iPhone app?).

2) The look and feel of the project. This includes the color scheme you want to use, graphics you want to include, and your own artistic vision of the end result (no matter how silly it may feel to tell this to a professional artist, they really DO want to know this!).

Don’t know what you want? Then make a list of other designs that you DON’T like.

3) The timeline of the project. This includes deadlines that are flexible, as well as ones that are not. This helps the designer know right away whether your project fits their current schedule.

Be ready to communicate.

Let’s pretend that you found the perfect designer, hired her, and the first design concept is sitting in your inbox. And YOU HATE IT. Not only do you hate it, but you have no idea how on earth this happened – didn’t you have a great connection with this designer? What now?!

You can do one of the following:

1) Lie and say you love it;
2) Tell the truth a little bit, but pretend it’s no big deal and ask for just a few tiny changes;
3) Wait a week to say anything at all because you just don’t know what to say;
4) Get upset with the designer and tell her she’s done a terrible job and you want your money back.

Now, you’re more than welcome to pick one of those responses; and that last one might be warranted in some unique situations. But in my experience, it’s always best to tell the whole truth – and remember you are talking to a fellow human being, so be kind with your criticisms.

Instead of: “This is the ugliest thing I have ever seen!”
Try this: “I really don’t like any of these colors, and this font isn’t what I was envisioning.”

Instead of: “It looks like you’re copying my competitor. Why would you do that?!”
Try this: “This design seems too much like my competitor’s. Can we change (insert specific things here) so that it’s different?”

Instead of: “This is awful. I don’t know what to do because this is not at all what I was hoping to see!”
Try this: “Now that I’ve seen this design, I have a much better idea of what I don’t want. Here’s a list of things I would like you to incorporate into the design instead.”

Yes, communication is difficult sometimes, especially within a relationship that’s relatively new. The give and take in a client-designer relationship can be taxing for both of you, and there will be times that you might want to throw in the towel. But, like any relationship that you care about, it’s worth it to hang in there and keep working at it. If your designer is worth her salt, she’s trying just as hard as you are.

Be understanding.

Remember that all of us are people, which means we all screw up, give out really wrong expectations sometimes, and react emotionally when we think we’ve disappointed someone. This is just as true of your designer as it is of you; so when you open an email expecting to see a new design revision, and find that your designer needs more time because of some life-related thing, be understanding. And thank them for letting you know what’s going on.

There may also be times when your designer really screws something up and has to apologize. In those cases, it would be very easy to respond to them like a boss who wields the power of the performance review – but that would be a big mistake. Treating people badly only makes them less likely to give their best to whatever work they are doing.

Instead of instructing them on the ways they should always be doing things so that no problems ever happen again, tell them how you’d like to be able to communicate with them throughout the rest of your project. Give them the ability to connect with you in ways that make you feel the project is getting the attention it deserves, without trashing their entire day because you made them feel absolutely awful.

Be respectful.

Honor your designer’s workflow and their unique way of being creative. When they tell you that there are two days minimum between design revisions, be ridiculously grateful that your designer knows their workflow well enough to predict this. Don’t push for a deadline that will result in your designer’s creative well being totally depleted.

Honor your designer’s time, and if the scope of your project changes (read: something extra needs to be done that wasn’t originally agreed on), ask right away how much it will cost, and how the timeline will need to change to accomodate everything. Many times, a designer is happy to incorporate new things into a project, but is not necessarily good at telling you that it’s going to cost more money. Being up front about the fact that you already know that more stuff = more time spent = more money owed basically turns you into a Rockstar Awesome Client.

Be on time with your part of the project.

It’s difficult to create something out of nothing.

Often, missing information will cause your project to grind to a halt simply because many design decisions are based on your content, or feedback, or graphics, or opinions. Your part in the project is just as important as the designer’s part.

And of course, pay your invoices on time, and pay them cheerfully! If you can’t pay an invoice on time (and cheerfully), it’s a big probability that this project is not what you should be doing right now.

Be so excited about the end result that you tell everyone you know!

Almost every designer relies on word of mouth advertising to gain more clients, more work, and more recognition. The worst thing to do to a designer is not to give them credit for the work they did for you.

So, at least for the day you launch your new website or product, talk about them. Make sure that they have linked themselves somewhere in your website footer or sidebar, so that people who think your site kicks ass can work with your very awesome designer too. Write them a testimonial that they can use on their website. Be awesome for them just like they’ve been awesome for you.

Your turn!

There are as many ways to be awesome as there are ways to suck, so please chime in!

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