I'm as happy as the next guy to voice my opinion on design – there's hardly a thing in the world that lay-people think they "get" as well as the next guy. In particular when it is the next guy's work.
Being an ad agency executive, I probably know slightly more about design than most, but I still try to respect the fact that most professional graphic designers (should) know it even better.
That's why I rarely tell my creative team how to design, but limit myself instructions to what to design. I try to present tasks as a challenge that requires a design solution.
For example, the other day I asked my team to develop some comps on a left hand vertical navigation menu for a website. It needed to be three levels deep, but the available real-estate was fairly small which was likely to pose a challenge. They asked me "how do you want it to look?" I said that there were no restrictions beyond the allocated space – so they could build something dynamic in Flash or DHTML if they wanted to.
"But what do you want it to look like?" It should look like it belongs on this site, I said. (As graphic designers they should already assume that it needed to fit into the current branding/look and feel). "We can't work like this, you are giving us no direction" I was told. "Well, I have a solution in mind, but I trust that you will be able to come up with something far superior. This is a design challenge – that's your job to solve. If what you come back with doesn't seem to work, I'll tell you what I was thinking."
"Why don't you tell us what you were thinking, so that we don't waste time spinning our wheels?" Hmmm… "Would you rather that a lay-person like me tells you how your design should look, or do you want to be the kind of designers who find ways to solve design challenges? I'll give you the time you need."
5 second pause.
"Why don't you tell us what you were thinking?"
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April 30, 2006 at 8:57 am
Interesting post.
What I am thinking is why the creative team is so intent in knowing what your expectation is. In your agency, whose opinion has the highest weight when it comes to approving or rejecting creative work?
It shouldn’t matter what the strategist is thinking if the brief is clearly conveyed.
But then again, perhaps what the creative team wants to know is the style preference of the client – loud. subtle, flashy, hi-tech – just guessing.
I think it’s better if you share with them your ideas and ask them how they would want to treat thhis before the executions begin.