An ongoing list of how to best work with a designer based on one designer's professional experience:
Provide a designer with context for your projects, not just text, images, and deadlines. The more information about your business, differentiators, target audience, and goals you can provide, the better a designer can tailor their work to your needs. You are asking them to represent you and your brand, so let them get to know you.
Provide examples of what you like. Don’t say “we trust you,” just to turn around and then say, “This isn’t really what we were looking for.” What were you looking for? Avoid this needless circle by telling and — better yet — showing your designer examples of what you are looking for. This will jumpstart your project in the desired direction.
(Follow up on #2) do not ask a designer to copy exactly what someone else has done. Not only are you asking your designer to unethically steal someone else’s work, you are undervaluing their potential contribution to your project. Your designer may come up with something even better than what you saw someone else do. Your business is not the same as whatever business has the ad/website/poster/etc. that you want to copy. The businesses are different, the selling points are different, and the solution should be different.
You are not the only client. Designers have other work for other people who need it done, just like you. They cannot often drop what they are doing to help you with your crisis. This is true whether the designer is a contractor or an in-house employee.
(Follow up on #4) If you DO expect a designer to always drop what they are doing to help you with your crisis, then pay them accordingly (i.e. handsomely).
A designer is not your puppet. You hired them because they have something that you need- skills, knowledge, ability, and time that you do not have. Respect and appreciate the value of this contribution.
Represent the value of your designer’s work by intentionally choosing the language you use to talk to them and about them. Words matter. Asking a designer to “make it pop” sends the designer the message that you don’t appreciate the strategic work that goes into their craft. Similarly, telling people that you hired a designer to “make it pretty” undervalues the designer’s craft to others. Would you say that you hired a lawyer “to talk” or a firefighter “to spray water?” Talk about your designers and their work in a way that credits their expertise and avoids over-simplifying their profession.
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