How To Communicate Design Decisions To Clients Without Pissing Them Off
Most clients will simply lay down their design needs and probably give you a few specifications to work with.
They will lay the burden of providing a suitable design on your creative ingenuity.
Subsequently, you have to defend your choice of design and convince them that your way is the way to go.
So, here are a few tips to follow when communicating design decisions to clients:
1) Show your understanding of their needs and how you are going to solve their problems.
Regardless of your good intentions, unless you can effectively communicate with your clients that you understand their needs, and show why your art will help to fulfill their desires, you’ll end up overhauling that impressive work.
2) Establish your expertise. Command your client’s respect or they will second guess you at every opportunity.
By showing your client that you are good at what you do, it becomes way easier for your design decisions to get accepted.
3) To avoid miscommunication and misinterpretation, go visual.
Make simple sketches while communicating. Once your client is in tune with the visual briefs, then this can be translated into actual work.
4) Explain your reasoning. Tell them why you opted for blue over red.
The best way to achieve this is to share some statistics.
Quote a study or talk about your observation from over the years.
Statistics provide an objective analysis of the reason behind your design decision.
5) Avoid using technical terms.
It will lead to miscommunication and some clients might be too embarrassed to acknowledge that they don’t understand you. Speak in simple plain language.
Finally, the art of communication can be mastered and used effectively to win new customers and get a repeat patronage.
It is particularly important in the design business as it might be the game changer when the race to win a new client is on.