Focus on the Customer: A Message to Graphic Designers
Forget creating cutting-edge design. Don’t worry about implementing innovative solutions. And don’t even think about producing attractive, engaging design pieces. Designers should focus first and foremost about making their customers happy. If their customers are happy, then they’ve done their job.
Wait a minute…that can’t be right. What if a customer is happy with cluttered, uncreative, horrible-looking pieces of design? What if a customer has absolutely no experience in advertising, marketing, or design? What if a customer simply doesn’t have any taste at all? What will happen to the integrity and effectiveness of the design?
Should designers still strive first and foremost to make their customers happy? The answer is very simple: Yes.
But how can this be true? The reason lies in the definition of “happiness.” Customers can be happy for a variety of reasons. They’ll be happy if an advertisement boosts their sales by 10%. They’ll be happy if they double the amount of visitors to their website because of a well-designed email campaign. They’ll be happy if they see noticeable improvement in brand recognition over a six-month direct-mail campaign. Happiness comes in all shapes and sizes. Let’s explore some of the most popular ways all designers’ customers should feel happy about design.
Every design piece should achieve its goal.
At the beginning of the design process, a client and designer sit down and outline a few goals for their project. The goals may be simple: “I want to announce the opening of my new store;” or “I want to build a new website that features information about my company.” The goals may be complex: “By advertising once a week in a trade journal, I want to boost the sales of my three lowest-selling products.” Whatever the goal is, it is important for a designer to listen to his customer and design a solution that achieves its goal. When this happens, customers become very happy.
Every design piece should be appealing.
This is harder to quantify than the first point, yet it is also very important. It’s a fact that most people form opinions about pieces of design (advertisements, brochures, web sites, etc.) within seconds of viewing them. These opinions are largely based upon the attractiveness of the piece, not the content of the piece. Design materials that are poorly made, unattractive, or illegible are cast aside and can do damage to an organization’s brand. On the contrary, when design pieces are clean and appealing to their audience, the audience feels positively about the represented organization. When an organization’s brand is improved because of an appealing piece of design, design customers are happy. And again, when customers are happy with their designer’s work, both parties are completely satisfied.
Every design piece should be worth the investment.
Clean, clear, easy-to-read messages get the best results. “Cutting through the clutter” is most easily achieved with simple, straight-forward messages. Add in a touch of creativity and uniqueness, and clients receive design pieces that more than pay for themselves. When a client works with a designer to formulate great design pieces, the return on investment that a client will realize improves the designer-client relationship and creates a strategic advantage for the client. These types of relationships allow for repeated positive returns on investment, and ultimately make clients extremely happy. Good design leads to great relationships; great relationships lead to tremendous returns on investment; and tremendous returns on investment lead to happy customers.
Good design can be measured by a client’s happiness with the design. Clients are happy when their goals are achieved, when their design work is attractive, and when it was well worth the investment. When designers strive first and foremost to please their customers, both parties enjoy a long, successful, rewarding relationship.
- NAS
Article © 2009 by Nicholas Scarpino. All rights reserved.