“You are not normal. Sorry but that’s the way it is. You design for people that are normal but you don’t fit into that category as, by definition, you don’t conform to the normal or standard type. You are abnormal. It’s not easy being abnormal and day-to-day life can sometimes be a struggle.
Your thoughts and ideas are so different to those of normal people that interaction in the form of conversation or debate with said normal people can be almost impossible. Sure, you do a good job of producing things for normal people but that doesn’t make you normal and the production line is far from easy. If you were normal, you’d have no idea what it was you were making or who it was for.”
Look what I’m making for you
I designed a logo for a client recently and I thought the idea I came up with was great. The design ticked all the right boxes (or so I thought) but what excited me most about it was it’s versatility. I could see parts of the logo that would really develop the clients visual identity and I felt it would work well across many mediums. The logo worked well big, small, reversed and in full colour. The icon used in the logo could be used on it’s own to enhance branding and create something which I felt was a modern and forward thinking design.
Great. Awesome. Cool. Whooppeedooo. These are the words I didn’t hear upon presenting the logo in it’s early stages. I don’t remember the exact words but the general feeling was fairly underwhelming, there was possibly the mention of not liking the colour but I don’t remember exactly. What I do remember was the client clearly not sharing my excitement and enthusiasm for the design.
What was I thinking?
See, I’d made a mistake with my design process as I wanted to make my client feel empowered and involved with what I was doing. I think this is normally good practice with larger projects that are slightly more evolved but when it comes to concepts and ideas it’s important to remember that you and I are abnormal. All those ideas and thoughts of clever logo usage and evolution of the clients visual identity are all well and good, but they are of no use to anyone except you whilst they bounce around your abnormal head. I un-fairly expected my client to share my design vision when showing them where I was at with their logo in it’s infancy – What was I thinking?
I should add that I don’t normally work like this. I think I must have read an article somewhere about involving clients in your design process and decided to give it a try. As I mentioned before I’ve no doubt this practice works in certain situations but don’t think for one minute other people will see what’s not there. I saw it, and I’m sure you would have seen it (at least I hope you would have) but we are a bit abnormal upstairs when it comes to this sort of thing remember.
Don’t fix it if it aint broken… oh wait, its broken
I’m going back to my tried and tested way of doing things, especially with logo design. Projects are like child births – the initial plan is pretty much the same but they all end up different in the end. I would suggest the following when it comes to presenting your ideas:
Keep certain stuff back from the client – they don’t need to see the nuts and bolts and it will probably have a negative impact on the whole project. Don’t forget that they are paying you to do something that they can’t do and by involving them too much might make them think they need to, or are being encouraged to chip in – even worse, they might think you are ballsing the whole thing up.
Now back to your felt-tips, weirdo…
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7.18.2011
Wow, I guess involving the client can go both ways: they either like it, or they can be confused.