You aren’t designing for yourself

One thing I find a lot of freelance designers, especially young designers, have trouble with, is the concept of designing for clients.

I recently had contracted a designer to design a website for a client. The designer didn’t like the look of the clients logo, so he made some changes to make it fit with the design he had in mind.

I must say, I happened to like this designers version of the logo better. So, being a fool, I presented the design to the client.

It doesn’t matter how much “better” the design looked for it, there’s no way you can get away with stuff like that. The client loved the design but wants his logo in it. Of course. You could see that coming from a mile away.

As freelancers, we aren’t designing to make things look good. We are designing to achieve the client’s business objectives. We are designing for the client’s customers.

It is our job to work within those constraints to come up with something that achieves those objectives the best.

Branding is one of those client objectives, and we can’t let our opinions on things we can’t change hold us back. Instead, we should see it as an opportunity to try new styles, and to make things work in ways we haven’t thought of before. Stay open minded to possibilities.

When a client is paying us, ultimately, we have to listen to them. On the way, we can do our best to help them with recommendations from our experience. But if push comes to shove, we have to realise that we aren’t designing for ourselves.

How about you? How do you deal with client objections that kill your ideas?

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• Dealing with painful micromanager clients
• How clients can hate an awesome design
• Making repeat sales by identifying opportunities
• Interview with Phil Matthews from The Web Design Blog
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