The redesign and relaunch of this site has taken longer than expected, required more thought, energy, soul-searcing and caffeine than any other project I’ve approached. It made me appreciate what start-up clients must go through when embarking on a design project with Majabra, if they’re new to us, and if they don’t know what they want.
Apparently, I had no idea what I wanted. And no clue how to really present my own company. And, still, the site is evolving like any work of art. But as it turns out, I think that’s what I wanted. And I didn’t know then, but now I do.
I wonder what I’ve learned here that can help smooth out the design and decision-making processes with clients?
Recently I’ve dealt with a few people (like myself) who were not trusting of the design process. Instead they were looking for that magical spark. They seemed to want to fall in love with the art or the mark. Perhaps be transported. Maybe realize something. Or maybe, like me, there was an unformed thought in their head, and they were looking for the perfect symbol that would say ‘this is real”.
Instead of following the design path to a logical conclusion, the process leapt all over the place; comps flying and research everywhere, later a fatigued designer and muddled, less-than-awesome designs.
Still, I don’t know how to stop this process. Do you walk away? Or, attempt to find the origin of the confusion? I think my job (as a self-proclaimed Design Therapist) is to find the origin of the confusion.
Trust is a big factor
You need to trust your designer, or at least be willing to take a leap of faith that their art and ingenuity is going to come up with something that suits you, but surpasses your expectations. That’s a tall order for oneself, maybe it’s easier to put your faith in someone else. Maybe, one should trust the business itself, before entrusting it to a designer.
Baby Steps
Another way to develop trust in any process, design or otherwise, is to ease into it. Through sketches and wireframes and research and planning and sitemaps ad comps, you start to trust the design process, or so I believe. But this is always the long road, if we don’t know what our business is, what image it should project. Time and time again, we get stuck at the sketches and wireframe phase when we don’t know what the heck our goals are.
My New Years Resolution
I guess I am glad The Logo took so long to figure out, so that I could learn this lesson. My New Years Resolution will now be to make sure my clients know who they are, and have defined their goals before we begin a costly and exhausting design process that could be shortened with proper planning and a whole lot of soul-searching at the outset.