Any time you employ or work with a designer or other creative professionals, you are interacting with a valuable asset. Especially Branding Studio designers play a crucial part in shaping your brand, which in turn plays in important role in your marketing and sales efforts. So how do you interact with them in order to ensure you get the most out of your relationship?
Here are 4 ways to help you successfully communicate with your Branding Studio creatives to enhance your brand.
1) Set Clear Expectations
Any business relationship thrives depending on the expectations going into it, and your communication with creatives is no different. They can only define ‘success’ in relation to your project as it relates to the expectations you set, from a timeline to the goals you want to achieve in the project.
Setting a timeline means including time for revisions, acknowledging that the first draft will not always be the final version. But your designers need to know that in order to adhere to a timeline that matches everyone’s expectations. Similarly, be sure to tell your designers exactly what you are looking to achieve, which will help their creative process.
2) Use Examples of Desired Work
Branding Studio designers love to have relative freedom in their work, but that does not mean you can’t help to clarify your expectations with examples and references that you are aspiring to. Especially if you are looking for the new piece of creative to match and be consistent with others that have been completed by different professionals, show the work and explain which elements are crucial to keep your branding consistent.
When showing examples, be clear about what elements about them you like. Simply showing a catalogue and saying “I like the way this looks” is not nearly as helpful as specific statements, such as “I like the way this company has integrated its headlines into the graphic background in this catalogue.” Good designers won’t use the example to create an exact duplicate, but as a jumping off point to create beautiful new design.
3) Allow Room for Creativity
Micromanaging the creative process is the single best way to ending up with an end product that nobody is happy with. Designers are called ‘creatives’ for a reason – they do their best work when receiving freedom in addition to the general guidance. You’ve hired them for their specific skill set, now let them showcase that skill set in a first draft for you.
That first draft may not be what you had in mind initially. If you don’t think it matches your stated goal, take advantage of the revisions process to suggest alternatives. In that case, though, you want to be sure to keep the final point in mind:
4) Communicate Feedback Carefully
First drafts don’t tend to be the final outcome. But when you communicate your feedback about that first draft, it’s important to be specific and avoid general statements at all costs.
For example, “I don’t like this at all” sets a dangerous precedent in that you require your designer to start over, which may threaten to blow the deadline. But noting that “I don’t like the colour scheme and the fact that there is no white space in the layout” is much more helpful, especially when accompanied by qualifying statements like “but the way the image blends with the text works great.” Suddenly, the designer has much clearer directions on what to change.
Ultimately, good communication between client and designer comes down to a single word: trust. If you trust your designer to create beautiful graphics for you, and your designer trusts you to give them clear directions and feedback, the result will be noticeably improved.
To learn more about communicating with designers, and the impact good communication can make on your branding strategy, contact us.
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