How to Talk to a Graphic Designer in Six Easy Steps: Part One

All design projects have different needs, and individual clients and designers are very different people and have different ways of working, thinking and talking about their work. But having a general framework for interaction can help prevent people coming across as, say, a “nightmare client” or a stubborn artist unwilling to stray from their “vision.” With permission, I’m going to use a small design project I did recently for a workshop performance of Kevin Clark‘s opera Summer’s Twilight as an example. This is a long piece, and it may sound like a complicated process, but it is far less scary and involved that it seems — the example project only took a few hours over a couple of days.

STEP ONE: INITIAL CONCEPT

One thing I’ve learned from working in documentary is how important it is to have all the facts BEFORE you begin, and getting everyone on the same page early on will save time, tears, and money. First, and most important rule for both sides: be honest. I used to think that the hardest clients to work for are people with absolutely no idea what they want. In fact, the most difficult clients are the ones who either claim to have no idea what they want, but secretly have something very specific in mind, or the ones who demand something with great specificity, but actually have no clue what they’re asking for and afraid to show it. If you really don’t know what you want from a designer, SAY SO. We won’t judge you! If you don’t know anything about graphic design and have never hired a pro before, SAY SO. We’re happy to walk you through the process. And if you don’t understand technical jargon we use, don’t be scared to ask what we mean. And that goes both ways — if you’re a designer and you don’t understand a brief, SAY SO. If something is far easier or harder than a client realizes, SAY SO. (And don’t be scared to mention things you think they may have left out, for that matter, or a creative alternative they might not have considered.) Ask for a fair rate and explain your charges — do you charge by the day or hour, build in rounds of changes with additional ones extra or just have a flat final figure? Get a contract.

TRUE STORY: The single most horrifying phrase I have ever heard came four months into a freelance animation project, less than a week before final broadcast delivery date: “…can we do this in 3D?” I nearly fell over. And no one was happy with the final results on either side.

That said, where do you start? Get the technical details out of the way. A designer needs to know the scale of the project immediately — are we talking posters, a website, animation, just a logo? All of the above? Does the client need various design elements to use later on their own, or will they come back to you anytime they need anything else? Is it for print? If so, are you printing in full color, black and white, spot color? It’s okay to ask what your options are — and there may be alternatives that will give you everything you need faster and/or for less money. How big is the biggest thing you’re making? It’s fine if you grab your program’s inch-high headshots off of facebook, but if you want posters with photos on them, you’d better be able to get your source materials in high resolution. If it’s an animated project, what are your delivery specs? Are you working in 1080p HD but want to ensure your lower thirds are still readable on YouTube? Will your broadcast graphics need to be able to be converted into DVD covers and labels? And one last very important and often-overlooked question: do you have the rights to all the materials you want to use?

Next, what’s the turnaround time? How does that fit into the designer’s schedule? Is there a hard or flexible deadline? Is it possible to finish by then? For Kevin’s opera, there’s no chance of making posters becoming The Neverending Project — they have to be done and printed before the performance date. But talking out the design requirements led to us both realizing that it wasn’t just posters — there are programs and feedback forms to design, and the logo has to work everywhere from facebook to the cover of the score, so I need to give him a few extra variations on it (for instance, a solid black version that will photocopy well). And those logo designs have to happen sooner, so he can begin his publicity campaign as quickly as possible.

Once you have that settled, you can talk style. Piles of adjectives are good, as are references to existing designs you think have a similar look and feel to what you’re going for. Think color, tone, texture. How much text is there? Once I’ve talked through this stuff, I actually like to condense the conversation into a little summary to make sure we’re on the same page. Here’s what I said to Kevin:

You need to create a visual “look” to go with this performance. On a broad level, you want it to convey that this is a creative new approach to looking at a classical piece, and that it’s serious work but accessible and fun. And you want to look like *you’re* for serious as well, and that the music is central to the production. Finding the balance between all those elements is the biggest challenge.

Visually, you’re thinking things that suggest “nighttime” and “forest” would be a good place to start. Flexibility is also key — you need something that works in both B&W and color, so strong simple shapes are probably smart — you want to be able to make readable photocopies, if need be, and going the vector route will give you scalability. You also definitely need a logo delivered separately so you can use it in other places. If you want to create a consistent look for everything, you probably also want a few related elements that you can repurpose on their own (if, for instance, the poster was trees on a night sky, you’d also want the trees separately so you could make a B&W version that doesn’t use your entire ink cartridge), as well as a couple color swatches and a typeface or two to use for all non-logo text.

After we concluded we were on the same page, we decided I should start by sketching out a range of possible logo designs. His homework was to figure out the rough copy for the poster.

Stay tuned for part 2!