Why taking the distance from your work is important

Did you ever get upset because your work has been rejected or was not treated with the “respect” it deserved. Does criticism about your graphic design irritate you and you think sometimes that the feedback was not good because “they” didn’t get it. Maybe you are too attached to your projects. Having the right distance helps react better to criticism and to understand if a feedback is valuable or not. Its the “Watching from outside” perspective. This perspective saves a lot of time and nerves.

Why are we attached to our work.

It’s not unusual to hear graphic designers and art directors talking about “their” projects. Most of the time it sounds like they created something extraordinary out of nothing. I must admit that the terms used in the design community may mislead our thinking – terms like “creation” and “producer” want suggest us that a graphic designers produces or even better creates something. We call them our babies, like they where born out of our mind.

This mindset binds us to the work and we think of it like it where our property. Something we have to protect and give shelter. Nobody should know about it until we are ready to show it, defended from criticism and enforced in the path it has taken. I’m exaggerating obviously, but I’m sure you get the point.

The reality – you are a tool

So lets take a step back and look at our projects from outside. We have clients – this clients want (in most cases) communicate to their clients/investors/customers/workforce. They want to sell/lease/… THEIR product. The knowledge about this product and everything surrounding the product is property of the client. In fact is integral part of their job. The problem your client has lies in the configuration of this information. The information presents itself in ways to fit in the context of your client. Basically the client needs the information to build the products.

Your job is to transform this knowledge to something the customers of your client find appealing. The knowledge to be able to do this is your property, not the materials you are working on. Its in your head so  to speak. This is the service you provide, this is why you get paid.

What’s the deal

There is no point in being attached to something that is not yours. You don’t have to protect something that belongs to someone else. So if you get feedback about a project you can separate them into two categories:

1. Its about the the product or the information about it
2. Its about your ability to transform the information into something appealing

You don’t have to care about if the Feedback is about the product. I had quite a few projects canceled after the presentation, because they discovered through my work, that the product was not ready for the market. They didn’t have the look from outside.

If its about your abilities as a graphic designer then you have to understand who is making such remarks. Comments about your abilities most of the time mean something else. “This is a bad design” may just mean, I don’t understand the message. If you look at it this way you have more options to address this. The cause can be readability, misunderstandings in the briefing, … or simply that your skills lacked in one area. None of this problems can’t be fixed and to say it yet one more time. You don’t need to protect a design which doesn’t deliver the right message.

An example

Typeface, colour and the hexagon are from the original CD of the company. The plant separates it from the original and stands for the personal growth of the students

A client of mine opened an academy where his clients could attend seminars to market relevant topics. They briefed me, that the academy was to be self contained financially and will become bigger with the years. It should rise the awareness that my client was “the one” who is the right partner in the sector he was operating – for products, services and everything else.

The element of the plant is carried through the CD and the images are used more than the original Corporate Design of Maico

I made a logo and corporate design reflecting this briefing – it was based on the CD of the client but different in order to let it stand on its own. Like a cousin, not a child so to speak. The presentation went very well and my client liked my design – but…

1. He realized that it was too self contained and too self confident. Entering the education market so strongly was maybe not a good idea as they had partners in this market for years and they might see it as a danger to their market.
2. They had the impression that i didn’t pay enough back to the main brand – in terms of authority.

The hexagon has been replaced with the logo of the company – the Academy now is only a division.

Point 1 was their fault, point 2 mine because I wanted a strong self confidence in the Corporate Design. But I had no problem in changing the CD to conform the new briefing – its part of the process. I made the “cousin” to a “son” and solved both problems by integrating the Academy into the CD of my client. Not much work and both the too strong self confidence and the lack of authority transfer disappeared.

Image use is reduced and the contents are now in the grid of the Maico Corporate Design

You can see, that not holding on to tight on your work will benefit the project itself, you and your client. But one of the keys is good feedback.

But getting feedback the right way is difficult and worth more then one future lessons

I have found today this video about a typical interview of a focus group in the stone age. First watch the video by clicking on the image above, then read my comments.

Ok, it’s a campaign of DraftFCB – an advertising holding. It’s ment against clients, who seem to be too stupid to understand the great idea. But this is the classic view of a creative department towards clients. The client doesn’t get it – but its the right solution for him.

Now you as a creative, an art director or agency have to ask yourself three questions:

• Did I miss the point, misunderstand the briefing or my research on the market was wrong?
• Do I have the right solution, but in the execution I’ve gone too far? Do only “creatives” get it this way?
• Did I get it right, but my presentation was so weak, that the idea did not come across?

If you respond to any of this questions with yes, go ahead and start over.

If you fail on the first question you propably didn’t do a rebriefing.

If you fail on the second you probably applied too high standards on the “receiver” end – assuming that you understand the meaning does not imply that your client or his clients will get it. If you present to a focus group ask yourself if the focus group is the correct one.

If you didn’t present well you killed your idea by yourself.

And to switch sides another time If you are really sure about your idea and you client will not buy it, then try to sell it to its competitor. They will probably don’t buy it either, unless you tell him, that its competitor didn’t want it and if he takes it he will differentiate himself.

You maybe know the saying: “If you don’t know where you are going, the road takes you there.” So you end up somewhere without knowing if its the right place. In the graphic design and advertising business this is the last thing you want to happen. You don’t want to present to your client a product, which doesn’t get the point your client wanted to communicate. Did you misunderstand the briefing? Did your creativity lead you out of the boundaries your client want to accept. To know what happened, and even better to avoid such a thing to happen you need a creative brief. I know what you are thinking, so lets start and destroy some myths about the creative brief.

Creative briefs are too complicated

You don’t have to start with the high profile creative brief. If you are not used to make one start slowly. Just put on it the most basic things. Client Details, the responsible persons in the clients firm and in your firm. The main goal of the project in 1 or 2 sentences. A short abstract of the briefing. The dates of the steps. You can build a form for it so you just have to fill it out. Later when you get used to it you can expand it.

A creative brief is to abstract to help you

This is really a pitfall for most creative briefs. The balance between writing about the facts and to not limit the creative output. You should in the beginning stay pretty down to earth and later on you can write a little bit more abstract. For example if your client wants a flyer for a sale – write in the creative brief “Flyer for a sale” instead of “Promote a sale”. If you want it to be more open write “Cheap way to promote a sale”. So don’t misunderstand the term creative brief.

Writing a creative brief is lost time

In fact you save time. Think about the time lost when you have to redo a project because you where mislead. It also helps you to get back into a project if some time passed since you last worked on it. Its common that you start a job and it passes a couple of weeks before you really work on it because you did not have all the materials. By the way, you get usually faster the more creative briefs you do. And don’t forget, you do for yourself already a creative brief when you read the brief and rearrange the information in your head, you just don’t put it on paper.

A creative brief is only for internal use

Use the creative brief as a the rebriefing tool. Rebriefing is the process where you send your client before you start an abstract of the briefing to confirm that you understand everything. By sending the creative brief to your client you show that you are a professional and you show that its important for you to make your client happy.

Creative Briefs are cure for everything

A creative brief is just a starting point. Its the launch pad for your ideas but it does not show you the solution. It will help you keep on track, but its not a creative technique. Just by doing the creative brief you maybe not get a better result but you will get consistent products. Its part of a workflow, its not the workflow. So if you write a creative brief and you don’t stick to it or you haven’t got the process managed than its useless.

Some resources for you reading

So you got interested in writing a creative brief. Good. Here are some links to example creative briefs and some further theory. Pick the parts you like and build your own that fits your needs.

• How to Write A Creative Brief + Samples & Video
• The creative Brief – from the Chartered Institute of Marketing
• the perfect creative brief (look at the comments – very inspiring
• Creative Brief: CLient, Goals & Expectations – from Method of Mayhem, nice and short

If you are not in the situation where you get a good creative brief (how a good one looks like will be a topic of a future lesson) you have to rely on the information you get from the contactor or the client himself. If you have direct contact to the client you will have to make the right questions. Questions related obviously to the project, to the client himself (if it’s the first project you do for him) and on the goals.

The first rule is the following – the client won’t give you all information you need. Why is that?

Self blindness

Your client doesn’t hide important information from you on purpose. He knows his business and you know yours, and because he is doing his job and doesn’t know how to do yours he is coming to you. But as with anything you know best, you assume that certain things are obvious. An example:

You are a fan of the formula 1 racing circuit and you talk to someone that knows nothing to little about it. You talk about Ferrari and McLaren and so forth – but you will not mention that Ferrari has always red cars and McLaren (since it collaborates with Mercedes) silver ones. They may ask how you distinguish them, maybe by the numbers on the car? Sounds silly, isn’t it? Just because it’s obvious to you, but the other persons can’t know it, since it doesn’t have the basics.

The same thing happens to your client talking to you. They will tell you the new features of a product and why is so cool – but all the underlying basics are lost.

Ask like a child

A child has to learn about everything, its naïve and doesn’t have a broad knowledge. It makes questions about things that for us are so obvious that we don’t mind them anymore. The strength therein lies in these obvious details. By understanding the basics of a market, a product line, a segment of population, a standard behavior … you know what to do to stand out of the crowd with your project. Or on the other hand you know what is a no-go. Don’t be afraid of making childish questions, you just have to state why you are making them. You need the information to check you project against it before you proceed a present it to the client.

A child is never a discriminator, but is not politically correct either

Nowadays politically correctness is a must, discrimination a no-go and showing that racism is not tolerated a daily routine. But you have to watch out – don’t be afraid of asking questions which may seem racist, discriminating and not politically correct. A practical example:

You have to make a brochure for a B2B-client which manufactures machines. You have one page which states that your client is the best partner you can get and show an image of a young man and woman shaking hands sealing a deal (not a creative approach but shows the point). This message might well miss its target because the deals are made between “men” in their 50s. You want to give strength to your message with a picture, but you say with it, we are the best partner for young people, even more when we sell to a woman. Your client might not discriminate women, neither the client of your client, but they may have conservative values about who does business.

Or say you choose a stock image of a business meeting. I now often see interracial gatherings in these pictures – this might be the case in big cities, but if your client is a small-medium sized firm which resides in central Europe the chances to have black or Asian people in a meeting will be low. Not because central European businesses are racist, but because there are number wise enough black or Asian people to get usually into a meeting.

You see, you risk that your client rejects your work because you didn’t reflect the world he is living/working in. You can’t imagine his world, you have to ask him: How do your business partners look like? Are there Asian or black people in your firm/meetings?

Think like an adult

You may ask like a child, but you think like an adult, because you ask the questions to get to a goal. Business in general is goal oriented and your business is to bring the message of you client to its target. I do not suggest, that you ask hundreds of childish questions to you client – but you have to make enough to get the feeling of the client’s world – or of the world of clients-clients. Evaluating how many questions you need is the adult part of the process. You can also separate these from the briefing, by visiting your client (to see the manufacturing) or its client. Its part of the briefing and it’s the base of your work.

How channel all this information and how to make a simple creative brief is the topic of one of our next lessons. Stay tuned.