Designer’s Goal: to visually communicate/solve your goal/share the message of your industry or target market uniquely within your identity or brand direction.
Working with a designer can be a wonderful and smooth process if you know how best to communicate with each other. Understanding each other’s expectations and what each person needs is also very helpful as opposed to just letting the designer loose to create with little input. We’ve compiled a handful of tips on how best to work with a designer given our experiences in hopes of helping your project move quickly and efficiently with the best end product possible:
1. Trust Your Designer and Understand Their Value
Functional design extends your brand and allows your customers to trust you, enhances your service through clear communication and makes the user experience more valuable. That being said, there is reasoning for the choices your designer makes from the first proof to every round that they send. Not sure how best to move forward to communicate with your designer? Designers have learned to be very flexible because they are used to constantly working with many different styles and personalities; they are used to constructive criticism and find it valuable in achieving a successful end-product. At the same time, your designers can help give you ideas for how to work most effectively and efficiently, so if you are foreign to the process don’t be afraid to ask what to expect.
2. Know Your Goal and What You Want to Achieve
What is your ultimate purpose for the project? Who is your target/customer and what are their values? Give the designer a specific problem to solve. Speaking of emotions or feelings can help direct the design instead of literal direction. i.e. “Make blue” vs. “We want something more calming and relaxing.” Think about what your basic business needs are and ask the designer how the design satisfies those needs. If it isn’t apparent to you, emphasize those points as problems to be solved.
When working with a team, it is important to get buy-in on the project’s content and direction from the beginning or early on. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for a job to come to a drastic halt because one of the major decision makers was included at the last minute for approval only to totally change the entire direction of all your time, energy and hard work.
3. Organize Your Info (strategy, idea, copy, target audience, creative assets)
image.works offers free copywriting services to every client. Utilizing this can help develop your goal and messaging direction from the start. While some clients choose not to utilize this service, it is important to begin with clear content for the designer. Changes in your copy or images can affect the layout of your overall design, so try to provide the most complete messaging up front. Designers are not copywriters so if you have challenges with the messaging in the middle of your project, your designer will more than likely step back and get a copywriter involved, which can extend your completion date.
For larger projects, creating an outline can be helpful to map out the overall flow along with image options, logos and other content. It is helpful to provide copy in the order of how you would like it – the designer may switch things around if spacing becomes a problem, but generally they work to keep it in line with how it is given to them.
Providing complete assets, such as high-res images and vector logos, also help the designer provide the best product possible. A designer cannot improve upon low-res images so if you plan to provide your own imagery, make sure to send print-ready images (300 dpi resolution is ideal). Images taken from the web will not be usable and can infringe on copyright ownership issues. Changes in initial specs, copy, printing processes or key components can hinder project timelines and delay jobs. Rush jobs that come in incomplete may end up taking longer to produce than organized jobs.