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Way back when, in the days of t-squares, triangles, waxing machines and lots of bloody X-acto cuts, I met my first Mac. The year was 1987. I was a design student at the University of Maryland.
I had a paid internship in the university’s publications department where I spent the next six years. And this is where I met the Mac Plus. Introduced in 1986, the Mac Plus was the third in its line and cost a whopping $2499. It had a 9-inch monochrome display and a resolution of only 512×342 pixels. Typography was still fairly crude but far better than what the PCs in the school’s lab could do.
In our design program, there was one lab with a few PCs and crude paint software. And yet, to draw a squiggle on the screen felt like magic. Not many students took interest in these computers. Our projects required clean typography. One way to do that was to trace by hand and paint with gouache. Yes, we actually hand-painted our type, mainly headlines, but if you were insane enough, small type as well. I was insane and also poor.
Students who were bankrolled by parents could afford INTs — a type of transfer like a custom Letraset. We gouache types felt superior in our willingness to hand-craft our type, but really we were just jealous. And yet, even though this was painfully slow, we knew we were developing an intimacy with letterforms, drawing and spacing them just so — a skill that comes in handy even now because out-of-the-box type often requires some manipulation.
I digress, but it’s important to put this into context. For one thing, phones were still largely connected to walls (younger readers take note). There was no free music on the internet. There was no internet, at least for common folk.
I had never seen a Mac and I’m not sure I had heard of one.
I don’t recall why but I understood that this computer was cool. Probably because our boss would allow only certain of us to touch it. It sat unused much of the time because A) is was very small and hard to do a newsletter layout with it, and B) we weren’t yet able to output camera-ready layouts. We still hand-specified our manuscripts, sent them to a typesetter and used cave-man like tools to put a layout together.
There was also no such thing as halftones on the computer. In fact, it would take a few versions of the Mac before we stopped making halftones in a dark room (oh, the drudgery) to mash up with our computer-created layouts. Back then, we knew we were a little slow to adopt all the technology. Our new boss was resistant to the computer and discouraged us from using it fully, much to our annoyance.
Steve Jobs’ story of how typography came to the Mac is well-known. But for those who don’t know, he had taken a random calligraphy class at Reed College because he had seen beautifully done posters around campus. He spent hours learning about letter and word spacing, thinking he was just killing time and having a creative outlet.
“None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”
—Steve Jobs
Steve also said he wanted to put a “ding in the universe.”He certainly did that. And he also put a ding in people’s hearts.
(Image Credit: Blakespot / Flickr)
A wave of admonishment ran through the design world recently when the Department of the Interior (DOI) used a popular design crowdsourcing site to solicit ideas for a new logo. (You can read petitions and arguments here and here.)
It raises the hackles of designers when high-profile organizations (last year it was the National Endowment for the Arts) use the design equivalent of trolling—capturing everything in its indiscriminate net for very little investment.
There are a number of unsavory aspects to this practice, but most importantly, the client doesn’t benefit.
It is a terrible waste of time for a company.
Even though I wanted to ogle the submitted design work, my head spun to take in all those solutions (600+), many of which were inappropriate or just plain bad. There is much to say even about the creative brief submitted by DOI, but I’m focusing here on the cost to the organization.
Faced with too many choices, we reach an overload and we fail to make good choices.
Many books have been written on the subject of choice and decisionmaking, and there is science that supports the conclusions about the impact of too many choices. Armed with a little bit of knowledge from some of these books, we can all make better choices and decisions (see list at end of post).
In his book, Paradox of Choice (affiliate link), author Barry Schwartz talks about the pitfalls of too much choice. (You can also watch his TED talk on the same subject.)
“All of this choice has two effects on people. It produces paralysis rather than liberation. The second effect is that even if we manage to overcome paralysis and make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice than we would be if we’d had fewer options to choose from.”
The fallout from these two key effects of the staggering choices in today’s world manifests itself in more ways. There is an inherently lower satisfaction level which causes us to regret our choice more. It makes us imagine that there had probably been a better choice. And this regret makes us even more dissatisfied.
More options also creates higher expectations, simply because of the sheer number of choices. Faced with many options, we’re convinced we can pick the best one. The final blow to our happiness in our choice when we have many options, as opposed to fewer, is that we tend to blame ourselves for our lousy choice.
Suddenly, your job, which was probably already taxing just got taxed further.
One of the reasons Trader Joe’s is so successful and popular is that they limit the choices. They are aware of how a mindboggling array of choices affects our ability to choose and be satisfied. Think about the last time you stared openmouthed at the cat food or cereal shelf of a grocery store. You sigh, your shoulders sink and you tire just thinking about making a choice. There is a cognitive cost exacted with this type of decision.
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In the case of a crowdsourced logo, many organizations lured by almost free and hundreds of choices don’t take into account the massive cost of staff time to adequately evaluate the choices. The money they imagine they are saving will get spent on staff time probably better spent another way. Factor in the time lost on confusion and second guessing, and the cost is even higher. Now, instead of evaluating a few very solid solutions based on a really useful brief, you’re navigating through too many wrong solutions that make choosing harder.
This is why crowdsourcing design is fundamentally flawed. All the focus is on the form of the thing (its looks). Form is important. But the form is only a small part of an effective identity—strategy, appropriateness, uniqueness, flexibility, lasting power.
These same theories apply not just to crowdsourcing design work but also to soliciting too many bids (unless there is a requirement to do so).
It’s something to consider if your staff is already wearing too many hats, you’re concerned about cost (in a broad sense), you reputation to protect, and most of all, you want the quality of the output to match the level of the work you do.
There are two ways good ways to avoid all this. One is to be very clear about your goals, purpose, tone/personality, audience, uses and needs. And the second is to sharpen your skills and confidence in selecting and evaluating the right designer (or design team).
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Have you ever used a crowdsourcing site for design? Do you know anyone who has? If you’re willing to share your experiences, please do. There’s very little out there on what happens next.
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Books on decisionnmaking and choices
These are all excellent books on making both personal and business decisions. They cite similar studies but each book’s focus is slightly different. (These are affiliate links.)
The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar
Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
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{Above: Creative commons image from “flickr/iamdonte”}
Michael Pollan needs little introduction. But even a celebrity journalist can’t rest on his laurels. Much ink is spilled on the common pitfalls of presentations, and the suffering they inflict on audiences everywhere. Yet presentation best practices are still lost on most presenters.
Not so with Pollan who drew a crowd of some 4000 at University of Portland’s Food for Thought conference last Saturday. Pollan, a little incredulous at the crowd’s size, wondered if some of us were in the wrong place. “You’re sure you’re here to see a food writer?” he asked. Read the rest of this entry »
The RFP (Request for Proposal) signals opportunity for a creative firm! They’ve made it to your list of qualified firms. You’ll have multiple options from which to choose, pouring over creative samples and price ranges. Sounds like a win-win for both parties?
Not really.
For every creative firm that sees opportunity, another sees a cost to avoid. For every client that sees opportunity, another sees it as an onerous task that derails their real work, and is confused about the process.
The process might seem to favor the creator of the RFP. But there are hidden costs. Even the best-run RFP process has built-in flaws. You can get the most out of the process if you recognize the built-in flaws and costs, and then use workarounds. Read the rest of this entry »
A better path for your next communication problem
(Download the white paper for The Tree of So-So? Or the Forest of Effective.)
creative commons license / flickr user: Today is a good day
Few businesses these days can afford to throw dollars at any communications unless they see some value—value being the relationship between cost paid and results achieved. Nonprofits especially can’t afford to, with budgets and staff strained as they are. Why then do so many organizations approach projects in ways that hinder their ability to be as effective as they could be?
There comes a time when it happens to the best of us, and it can happen for different reasons. A fumble in the client’s accounting department that takes weeks to sort out, a bankrupt organization or business, or you found the wrong client. It’s a hard pill to swallow. Worse is when you have to pay a subcontractor with your own money because the client didn’t pay.
This happened to a colleague recently. His situation falls into the third category, but my guess is, the wrong client doesn’t think of themselves as such. And for good reason. Problems in business relationships are rarely about business, but we have to pretend they are. In other words, the human condition is at work—fear, confusion, ambivalence, lack of clarity, insecurity, guilt, ignorance, shame, to name a few. As soon as one of these conditions sets in, it is hard to solve the problem by reviewing agreements—however clear and in writing they are. A creative person managing a project might have explained the entire process. But there can still be assumptions made on both sides that weren’t communicated. A project gone awry does not mean it wasn’t well planned. Stuff happens. Visit AIGA’s Design & Business section of their website for good information on business practice for creative professionals.
A challenging client might trigger a gut-level reaction early on. But we ignore it for the multitude of reasons we ignore signs and signals. Maybe the client suddenly became worried about spending money or they lacked a clear vision (and embarked on a project before having clarity). There’s nothing like getting any ball rolling to highlight uncertainties! Hope is a wonderful thing, but not if it prevents us—client or creative person—from speaking up. This is not to excuse bad behavior, only to explain it. There is no choice but to take responsibility.
This post is not about all the steps to take to avoid nonpayment (future posts). It’s about what to do next if a project is cancelled and/or the client just won’t pay. The course of action is not necessarily different from dealing with a flaky accounting department or a bankrupt company. But it does need a different kind of reflection. Note: this assumes you were clear about process, had an agreement, provided a written estimate with terms and developed a clear brief about the goals of the project.
• Clarify the client’s position. You may not get paid but there might be useful information to carry into your next project. The client’s reasoning—whether you agree or not—will determine your next step. Ask if there was something specific they did not understand about the process. If they were confused, was there a reason they didn’t speak up earlier? This shows you are eager to understand, and, at the same time, the client reflects on their part in the process. You may find out if they lack funds (and are ashamed to admit it) or are choosing to withhold payment.
• Own your part. A martyr is a person who takes more than 100 percent of their share of the responsibility. A victim is one who takes less than 100 percent of their share. Note the emphasis on their share. Taking 100 percent of your share may only mean 30 percent of the total shared between parties. Put your part into perspective. Review it objectively. Mistakes are golden opportunities (you’re laughing now) to improve. If you were clear verbally but didn’t put something crucial in writing, note that, and do it differently next time.
• Send an invoice and follow up with a late one. It may not get paid but this is an important step because carrying out your normal business operations takes the personal edge off and gives you some confidence. Describe the work done. Attach the original agreement with terms, if one existed. Follow up, multiple times if necessary.
• Clarify your intellectual property rights. If you have provided tangible solutions, explain that their use is a violation of your copyright. Even if it was your intention to allow the client use of or alteration of the design work, that right is understood to be transferred upon receipt of final payment. This is important, not as a threat, but as an education. You help pave the way for future creative consultants by having educated a client. You won’t get a “thank you,” but you’re saving the client embarrassment or a possible law suit. Perhaps you’re not feeling generous, but the good will come back to you another way.
• Negotiate partial payment. Restate your case and appeal to the client’s sense of right and wrong. You might just settle on an amount you can both live with. It may happen that the amount is a reflection of each party’s responsibility for the situation going awry.
• Surrender attachment to getting paid. I’m not certain what amount of money would cause me to sue for nonpayment but I know that the psychological cost of a law suit, however justified, would be too high. Bad psychic mojo would wreak havoc on me. Sometimes there is power in walking away, but not until after you’ve done due diligence, of course.
There are true creeps but they are few and far between. I have friends who live to tell it. It is little comfort, but a nonpaying client is most likely feeling shame or fear, or both. You can always find more money. It will be harder for the client to bounce back from their actions. If this kind of thing has happened more than a couple of times, your instincts may be in need of a tune up. If you’re sure you were professional throughout, you are better off walking away (after taking the above steps). Gather up the pieces quickly and put that otherwise wasted energy into your next project.
(Download thisWhite paper: Good, Fast, Cheap as a PDF.)
Google the phrase “Good Fast Cheap Pick Two” and you get over 78 million search results. There are only 1.7 million for “Fountain of Youth.” Apparently people desire good, fast and cheap more than they do the secret to staying young. I see requests like this posted in online venues like LinkedIn. Is it the economy? Is there a growing sense of entitlement? Or is it more benign than that—businesses don’t realize that asking for good, fast and cheap will hinder their ability to be effective? Read the rest of this entry »
…and this time with a cousin in the creative community, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for their Art Works logo design contest. While not openly advertising it as a contest, NEA is asking for completed design work to be submitted with the proposal. Some may ask “So what?” But there has been long-standing opposition in the creative community about speculative work. For thorough explanations of this issue, see here and here. The fact that this has come up so often makes one wonder why such a notable institution would engage in this way.
The design community is chiming in from various corners like today’s Huffington Post article and comments on the NEA’s own Web page for the contest announcement itself. Debbie Millman, president of AIGA sent out a tweet today questioning NEA’s intentions.
If you had the energy to wade through the 23-page RFP (request for proposal), you’d note the curious lack of creative brief (I discuss briefs here). A government agency needs pages and pages of liability, rules and restrictions. But for such a seemingly important project, for which they are willing to spend upwards of $25,000, the fact that the creative criteria for the work is so thin seems negligent.
Here is the RFP. There are also two amendments—answers to proposers’ questions. Some questions revealed a lack of reading the most basic elements of the proposal, which NEA found themselves repeating over and over: how many design options can I submit? One. Some questions revealed a laudable desire for more information. One asked why they were asking for design solutions in a proposal. NEA justifies this request saying: Since we believe that art works for everyone, this is meant as an opportunity to solicit ideas from as broad a public as possible and invite this country’s creative community to engage with their NEA.
While this is a nice thought, the benefits are not to the country’s creative community; they are to NEA—free ideas, no guarantee that any idea will be selected and ownership of all submitted ideas.
Which brings me to a few big problems with this RFP (aside from the obvious).
The “winner” believes they can get $25,000 if their proposal is chosen. NEA makes no claim to compensate that amount; it is merely their budget’s upper limit. I’m sure NEA has figured out that it’s in their best interests to pick a design that they can live with (but which represents them well enough), and have money left over. This is what multiple free ideas gets you—leveraging power. And once the work is done, it’s hard to justify the worth. The designer did give it away for free after all. Why would the recipient bother spending $25,000?
Another problem is the lack of a well-fleshed out brief about the Art Works program. The thin criteria designers are reacting to amounts to designing in a vacuum, rather than designing for a purpose. The “audience” is the American people. Given our health care debate, you’d hardly think we were one people. Not that it’s impossible to design for such a diverse group, just that you would think an organization like the NEA with a $25,000 budget cared enough to communicate more.
Also, it is surprising that a government-funded organization, also receiving donations, has the staff time available to receive, organize, print and review hundreds, maybe thousands, of submissions. Is this in line with their mission? And I’m on their side!
If the NEA had kept to the original (implied) spirit by limiting submissions to students, it could begin to justify the contest if they were to build an educational campaign around identity development. But the project is open to the world at large. And the fact that they are also claiming ownership of all submitted ideas means that they are freeing themselves of liability should they decide to use those ideas down the road, uncompensated.
There is more to say on this subject than I should write in a blog post. I’ll just end with this ironic statement from the RFP, which is the third of three interpretations of the word Art Works, as seen by NEA.
3. “Art Works” is a reminder that arts workers are real workers who are part of this country’s real economy. They earn salaries, support families, pay taxes. Artists are also entrepreneurs and placemakers, who revitalize towns, cities, and neighborhoods – both the economies and the ethos of them.
I couldn’t agree more.
Update June 2: Read D.K. Holland’s piece in Communication Arts: “Where Our Wild Things Are: Graphic design ethics in an age of exacerbation.”
Starting a project without a design brief is a bit like setting out on a long backpacking trip with no map or compass…only worse. There’s really no harm in wandering aimlessly in the wilderness, especially if you have no destination in mind and there’s no fear of getting lost. (This might be called fine art.)
But daily, designers go into the wilderness without a map or compass (some of their own volition), often pressured to begin work without a sense of direction. While no-parameter design might sound like every designer’s dream, this approach is a recipe for failure. (More benignly, a designer loses the satisfaction of doing effective work.) Even the most innovative, risk-taking client has specific goals to achieve and audiences to speak to. Many fear the delay caused by developing a good brief. The opposite is true: There is nothing like no brief, or an incomplete one, to stall a project. The stall is just later, when it’s more costly to start over.
Clear direction describes the project’s purpose, hoped-for results, audience, core message and any procedural requirements. The result is broad enough direction that leaves room for creativity, but unique and specific enough to paint a clear picture of who the client is (and isn’t). Together, these foster relevant solutions for that specific client.
As designers, our frustration working without client direction might be tempered if we consider that clients don’t knowingly want to sabotage the process. The client contact has bosses to satisfy, budgets to mind, deadlines to meet—and sometimes egos to satisfy, not to mention hiring and managing a designer.
Here are some possible reasons why it might be difficult to get a solid creative brief before starting work. By understanding what might be happening, you can direct questions and the conversation better.
It is easier to comment on what already exists than shape what does not. This is just basic human nature. Explain to the client that the information collected in a brief is what drives the design solutions. Without it, you wouldn’t be designing a solution that was unique to their needs.
Not understanding how the designer goes from point A to point B. Clients might wonder how exactly the designer will go from, We want to be the leader in widgets, being recognized for our exceptionally unusual customer service, to developing a cool-looking symbol. Sometimes we designers can’t say how we lept from one idea to the next, arriving at our final solution. Imagine how hard it might be for a client. If a client can’t fathom the leaps, they may not understand the value of taking time to create a meaningful brief. How we designers get there is why we’re in this business. But how is murky. And people don’t feel comfortable with murky.
This land between the logical business/marketing objectives and the tangible final design solution is the murky place. The designer had a good map, but wandered down side paths, looked up, looked down, looked around, sniffed the air, scribbled, turned over some rocks, took a good nap, and bingo, ideas emerged. Clients have to get comfortable with murky, which is possible if the client starts out making the right choices: designer, planning and budget (topics for future posts).
Eagerness to see ideas. The project might be a long time in coming. The client may love your work and trust you (This is great but dicey). The key people who should provide direction might be too busy to contribute. As humans, we are hopeful that things will turn out okay. Deep thinking requires thoughtful time set aside and that’s pretty hard to come by these days. Explain that you, too are eager and enthusiastic and want to produce the best possible work and to do that, you need the proper tools.
Self examination is hard. Settling on what you are also means settling on what you are not. Eliminating possible attributes and strengths from one’s business offerings might seem like shutting doors. This especially holds true for identity work, where the entire organization’s reason for being, and their values and attributes must be solidified and articulated. This is not an easy process. The result can be a conflicting or contradictory design brief, resulting in the wrong solutions. Explain to the client that trying to keep all doors open can lead to a confusing identity. And that it’s better to communicate clearly to the few important people rather than sort of communicate to the many.
Internal politics. Too often, personalities foil the potential of a good design process. There might be either no key decision maker or too many. The project “owner” doesn’t have the full authority they want or need, departments have conflicting goals, personal likes rather than business goals drive approvals, the unheard voices wait to be heard when it’s too late to change course…or to costly to.
Belief that good planning and staying within budget aren’t related. Good planning is too important to skip, especially where budgets are tight. Most designers’ estimates are tied specifically to a projected amount of time spent. When that time changes, so does the cost. As the designer, going over the risks and implications in person or on the phone can be especially useful, even if it’s in writing.
Not understanding the value of good design. It’s up to designers to articulate the difference between what they can deliver if a good plan is in place, versus what they cannot deliver without a plan. We all have a different way to describe what good design is. Now is your chance to put forth your philosophy.
David Airey has a great blog post about working with a design brief. Another excellent post on the subject in How magazine covers the importance of a creative brief and how it leads to success.
If you’re a client, how have you responded to a request for this information? Or have you found that designer’s didn’t ask? If you’re a designer, have you been asked to work without a clear plan? If so, how did you address it? Share your thoughts.
