I LOVE what I do. I love designing, creating things with an idea, and providing beautiful stationery to my clients. I don't normally like to rant about the downsides of being a graphic designer, or spread negative around about my clients because that's not my job. However, over the past several months, a climbing percentage of clients have seem to have left an important accessory at home: COMMUNICATION. I do feel the need to explain what I'm referring to and provide some solutions to the problem.
In my business of providing a service to a client, and with the main tool for communication being over email, it's EXTREMELY important to be detailed and open and thorough in our conversations back and forth. This is true for an initial convo, all the way through an 8-month-long order process. In a "designer / client" relationship, there are a few key items of business that need to be understood and utilized to make the relationship successful.
First, it is known that much is lost over written communication, by default. Providing me with "extra" details not only helps me and eases my confusions, it also helps the client as I am able to provide designs and proofs that will actually be in the ballpark of what the client is looking for.
For example: a client places an order for an invitation suite. Great! The client explains she is looking for an invite design that will accent their upcoming elegant wedding. Great! Wait.... in my head, there are HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of ideas that would fall into the "elegant" description. Okay.... what's your venue like? Is it an indoor or outdoor wedding? What other unique elements are you having? What sort of florals are you planning? Are you going for a more modern elegant, or a traditional elegant?
The second, but probably the most important, aspect to successful written communication is the USE OF PUNCTUATION. without using any punctuation it is very confusing and hard to understand what part of a clients email is meant to provide me with what information to be able to begin or complete their invitation suite or monogram or that sign that they want to put at the door that might have a border but no the frame needs to be larger and then we can use yellow for the design so lets use black or gray for the font.....
As it's extremely hard to detect intonation in written communications, using punctuation is key in portraying your mood and your preferences. In an example below, I have a hypothetical client's response and feedback to receiving proofs for their monogram:
Me: "Hi Becky! Here are a bunch of ideas to get started with your monogram! Let me know how they look, which one(s) you like best, and any changes you'd like to see. Thanks!"
Becky: "I like the third one"
Me: <inside my head> ..... okay.... great.... Are you referring to bd3.png? Does "like" mean "eh, I like it enough I guess" or "awesome, let's go with the third one!"? Does she want to see changes to make her love the design? Is it good to finalize, as-is? Hmmmm did I upset her with the proofs?
Now, please hear me: I understand certain personalities are more "laid back" so to speak, both orally and in their written communications. I try my best to "assume the best" over email, and not look into it too much. There are a million things that can effect an email response. WITH THAT SAID, as your designer, I will ALWAYS do everything in my power to create a feel or provide intonation over my emails. I may not be perfect, but my goal is for you to enjoy the proofs and designs I'm providing, NOT TO HAVE TO DECIPHER my email messages.
As my client, please do the same for me. I want to give you designs that YOU LOVE and are excited about. But doing that is almost impossible when our communication is not open, thorough, and detailed. Working together over email can be challenging, but with a little bit of extra "work", the design process goes much smoother and is much more rewarding!
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