132 - Saying Yes

What this episode covers

What does saying yes too often really lead to? Subscribe: ITUNES | ANDROID | STITCHER | RSS FEED Music and links from this episode Too Far Gone by Ryan Little Interstellar Export by The Insider Calm The Fuck Down by Broke For Free Line-by-line notes Over the next two episodes I want to present two sides of the coin as a designer There’s the saying yes side That’s saying yes to amends, or things you think you shouldn’t say yes to Then there’s the other side The saying no side The standing your ground, and not budging side Today is saying yes Let’s explore saying yes This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess MUSIC I’ve said many times before Design is a weird profession There’s no formal education required Every agency works differently And every designer works differently We all work with clients differently as well And say yes or no to different things When you first start out as a designer You say yes a lot When a client asks you to change something You just do it Often you don’t even question it, because you don’t know any better Or you might not have the confidence or the experience yet to say otherwise I think there’s actually two types of designers There’s the Yes Designers These kinds of designers will always do whatever the client wants to please them Clients like these kinds of designers for obvious reasons And some designers would argue that as a designer you should always be like this After all, the customer is always right, right? Well, wrong In the design world, the client is often wrong And it’s our duty as a designer to make the client aware of that We should tell them when they’re wrong, always Not in a nasty way And not in a combative way that ruins relationships And not even in a difficult way I just believe that before we say yes, it’s our duty to explore the reasons behind a change If the changes that a client is asking for are sensible, go nuts. Just change it But if a client is suggesting stupid things Or things that will make your design work worse Challenge the request And don’t automatically say yes Try and find out the underlying reasons for these changes Sometimes they’re silly, and purely because a client wants to put their stamp on a project This is OK to a point But when those pointless changes start to affect the end product It isn’t OK anymore, and you should start raising your concerns Automatically saying yes to a client on everything sets up a weird unbalanced relationship too People come to us as designers because we know about design We’re professional designers That means they want out opinions on stuff, and want to know if it’s best for them If we’re so eager to please all the time and just say yes, we don’t show our value as a designer When we’re really against some change further down the line too, we’ve already shown we’re a pushover I’m not saying it’s wrong to say yes to clients, I do that all the time But you do have to be very careful when you do say yes And consider all the implications that decision has on your relationship You owe it to your client to make sure you don’t say yes just to please them They’ve hired you as a professional, and they want your professional opinion That doesn’t work if you’re a Yes Designer So stop just saying yes And start considering the power of the word Yes a little bit more carefully. MUSIC This was AADA and I'm Craig Burgess Music featured in this episode was Too Far Gone by Ryan Little Interstellar Export by The Insider Calm The Fuck Down by Broke For Free For a line by line rundown of this episode... /ep132 If you want more updates about my podcast, follow me on Twitter at craigburgess I'm back tomorrow Support Ask a Designer Anything Ask a Designer Anything Website Twitter (@craigburgess) Ask a Designer Anything on Facebook Leave me a review on iTunes