Clients - we can't live with them and we can't live without them.
As all graphic designers will know, clients come in many shapes and
sizes, making every project a unique experience. Some clients can make
you wish you took up another profession while others are a pleasure to
work with.
For
a graphic designer, the ideal client is the one that doesn't haggle
with you on price, the one that pays on time and perhaps most
importantly, the one that, while providing you with all the relevant
information you need, doesn't get too involved in the design process.
They trust your expertise as a designer and leave it to you to create
something that will get the right message across to their audience. One
of the toughest jobs for a graphic designer, especially when designing a
web site, is to balance the conflict that often arises between what
their client wants and what the end client wants. Many a times, clients
make subjective design decisions based on personal likes and dislikes
that can jeopardize the message intended for their audience. Often, they
may also demand more than what is required to get their message across,
diluting what is important.
Typically, a designer will meet with a
client at the kick off meeting to discuss their requirements for, say, a
new web site. If there are five of them in the meeting, each one will
have their list of five "musts" for the home page. You're left with a
list of twenty-five items for the home page, when in fact the user is
only after one thing. The conflict now begins between prioritizing what
is important for the client and what is important for the end client. A
designer's job is to prioritise and pare down the less important items
in a place where users can access them if they wish and ignore them if
they just want to find out the price of something, read the company
story or watch the featured video.
Resolving these conflicts isn't
always easy. It all depends on the client. Some clients are reasonable
and take the designer's advice once he/she has explained the reasoning
behind their design decisions. Others, unfortunately, are not so
reasonable. That being said, it is the designer's responsibility to
always argue their case, politely of course, and not to ignore the end
clients just for the sake of getting paid.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Hussein_Roda
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