In the drafts I found an article, which is already two years old. I did not polish it, I did not finish it, I did not dare to publish it.
For me those thoughts are no longer that relevant, but maybe someone will like it.
Two years ago…
Recently, I often hear from clients questions like “How do you feel about edits?”. This means making changes to the layouts, to the logic of the interface.
I got the feeling that everyone with whom the client had to work before, was treating changes as evil, that destroys their idea and vision.
In Russia (probably, in many other countries as well), design is often (and it is not clear for what reason) is considered not as a service, but some kind of a gift. “Here, take what I drew, and don’t meddle with your own wishes” — in the minds of many designers it’s sitting somewhere. Instead of understanding the customer, providing him services he exactly came for, designers starting a resistance. What for? Go through compromises and concessions. The path of peace is always more productive and less expensive.
In my practice, adequate feedback was more common (was it luck?). I always tried to make out the feedback with which I did not agree, tried to understand the point of view of the client. Some of these comments can be discarded by simply explaining why this should not be done by giving a couple of cases (generally, case is a strong thing).
That feedback, which concerns only the personal taste of the client… Well, nothing can be done here. He is a client. It is necessary to make those changes. Such cases are often can be avoided simply by filtering customers back on the stage of contacting you. This comes with an experience.
In the early stages of work as a designer, it is very important to understand (and the sooner the better) that this is a service industry. When this understanding comes, your life as a designer becomes way more easier.
I am Sasha Tikhonov, co-founder and art director at Flyphant.
We are Flyphant. Mobile applications and web development, graphic design, motion graphics — this is all that we are not only able of but also love doing.
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