instructions worth learning by heart

Once again Seth comes up with a primer that I wish all the clients we've ever had had seen before they came to us for help

read them all here

Help me out by pointing out the work you'd like this to be on a peer with. If you want a website to be like three others (in tone, not in execution) then point it out. In advance.

Be clear about dates and costs. Not what you hope for, but what you can live with!

You don't know a lot about accounting so you don't backseat drive your accountant. You hired a great designer, please don't backseat drive here, either.

But even more I wish this list had been seen before I started the business, I could have been clearer with our clients, and sought better questions to ask of them

Bonus link:
Rich Westerlink said in response to Seth

My employers and clients have won awards on projects where I've done client-side creative direction. But it's doubtful those projects would've received notice had I let the agency have its way.

Btw, those awards are in a drawer. It wasn't the awards that mattered. Never is. It was that the campaigns worked.

So if you're talking to me, I don't give a damn about awards. Yes, many clients say that. I mean it. Show me the designs and campaigns that made millions in profits or launched an unassailable brand.

And tell me why what you did worked when someone else could've done a faster and cheaper campaign with supporting facts. If you're honest, I might believe. And hire you.

I agree with his input too, there's a difference in winning awards from your peers and gaining rewards for your client though doing something that works [good design] rather than catching attention with eye catching graphics, witty headlines, great photography and what not but fails to sell one more unit of the product.

All the designers and creatives out there are not always the best fit for your product, just as all the clients out there don't necessarily need what we're designing.

Great design is what happens when great designers and great clients collide

Tagged with:

• ninefish
• Strategy
• Think
• design