Direction has been given. The seeds have been sown. The project is in motion. You’re looking at the first round of proofs, and a lot of thoughts and feelings are rising within you. You know that you and your team are at a pivotal point in the process, so you want to make sure the project’s growth is proceeding correctly. Here are a few tips that I have learned through the years that will help you to eliminate weeds while cultivating great designs.

Be open minded

This might seem obvious, but it can mean more than you might think. Design preferences are often very subjective, but an experienced designer has reasons for each design decision they make. Find out what they are. It is important to not let personal preferences — either yours or the designer’s — negatively impact the effectiveness of a design. The fact that something looks weird to you might or might not mean that it should be changed. If you make decisions based on your own subjective opinions, you become a focus group of one, and such a small focus group does not represent your market. Design is not as subjective as it seems. Designers are trained with visual and psychological rules that can and should help to mitigate personal subjectivity.

Be specific

Talk in terms of how the design makes you feel. Talk about what you are getting from it or not getting from it. Mention what you see first and last. What stands out and what doesn’t. Designers respond better to too much feedback than they do to not enough. Be specific about what you do and don’t like about it. Blanket statements like, “This doesn’t meet our goals,” or “This is really good,” are fine, but they need to be qualified. Otherwise, designers are shooting in the dark when taking the design to the next stage of the process.

Have a discussion to avoid micromanagement

Chances are, you’re a busy professional and you may only have 10 minutes between the previous meeting and the next. It seems efficient to mark up a printout with a red pen and return it to the designer, but this can lose you time in the long run. Especially during the first few rounds of proofs, cultivating a design requires fluid communication. You have to eliminate the aspects you don’t want without harming the good stuff. Simply dictating changes — move this up a bit, put this over here, make that darker, use Helvetica, etc. — misses the discussion that will accomplish your goals more effectively. To use another metaphor, micromanaging a design is a lot like playing Jenga; you pull out the wrong piece and the whole thing collapses into a mess. Talking with the designer about how you feel about the design and what you both think should or should not be changed can help to make the final piece stronger.

Now and then, approve designs you don’t like

Crazy, right? It is a bit crazy, and it takes a lot of guts, but you don’t have to like a design for it to be effective. Knowing the difference between your tastes and what speaks to your audience can have a huge impact on the effectiveness of any effort, whether it is a website, an ad, a direct mailpiece, a package, or what have you. Once you cross this hurdle, you may find your tastes aligning more with effectiveness, so each time you do it, you will get better at it. This is something that I experienced as I learned to be a designer, but I still have to relegate my tastes to the back seat when I design.

Avoid design by committee at all costs

Your peers provide another challenge that you have to navigate in order to cultivate effective design. It’s natural to want to test designs by getting their feedback. But trying to cultivate designs by getting everyone’s approval and input can lead to disastrous results. Here is why.

First, everyone has an opinion, and they can be as various as the colors of the rainbow. Imagine one person’s opinion as yellow. Another’s is green. A third’s is blue, and so on. When you mix all these colors together, you’re not going to get a bright, strong color. You’re going to get something very muddy and indistinct. Similarly, if you try to incorporate the feedback from a group of peers, the resulting design has increased chances of being very blah. If a design is strong, it is going to evoke strong responses. Some will like it; some will hate it. That’s a good thing. If you want to get responses from your peers, make sure you read them in the broadest terms, like how they feel about the design; not in specifics, such as exact positioning of elements.

Second, if you make revisions based on a committee, you can end up with an incohesive design. One person likes this font; another likes a different one. One likes purple; another likes gray. One likes bullets; another likes bursts. Unless you’re trying to make Frankenstein’s monster, this is not the way develop a project. Keep the design strong by limiting the number of people who have influence. This puts more burden on you, but that will force you to grow too.

Stand behind your decisions

Just about everyone has a boss — unless you’re the CEO, someone above you has the responsibility of steering the company and its brands in the correct direction. So you may not have final say with respect to design. But you can give a strong presentation of the work that you and your team creates. If you present it passively, your superior is going to assume that they need to take a more active role. And if you immediately back down every time your superior tells you they don’t like something, you are not going to earn the respect of that person, and they will value your opinion less. So be more than just a messenger who carries a design to the big boss and then carries their response back. Provide project context. If presenting multiple ideas, say something strategic about what you think about each idea. When you can, and when appropriate, stand up for what you believe in, and know why you believe in it.

Keep on learning

In order to become a more effective leader of a creative team, you need to be able to change. The more you learn, the more you can challenge your team, the more you can understand where they are coming from, and the more you can achieve positive results with your superiors and with your customers. Designers might get annoyed if you just start using design lingo, but if you truly know what you are talking about, they will respect you more, and you’ll be able to get more from them.

“I like it.” Angels sing. Success!

“I don’t like it.” The design is a failure. Back to the drawing board.

What’s wrong with liking or disliking a design? Pretend we’re not talking about a design. Pretend we’re talking about Bach. Some folks like his music. Some don’t. This has no bearing on whether or not Bach’s music is good. That Bach’s music is good is definsible objectively. Objective evaluations have nothing to do with likes or dislikes. They depend on a set of standards against which the object of evaluation is measured.

Why is design not evaluated by such standards? Why do clients* rely on subjective evaluations to make decisions about design? They wouldn’t use likes and dislikes to make decisions about a business plan or product development. Let’s home in on the reasons for this difference in behavior.

1. Ignorance

Nobody wants to admit that they are ignorant. It sounds so shameful, but it should not be. I drive on bridges every day. I see them every day. I have a lot of interaction with bridges. But I am ignorant of bridge building. I would not offer an opinion on whether or not a bridge design is structurally sound. The consequences would be obvious and most likely catastrophic.

The consequences of bad graphic design decisions are usually not as obvious or catastrophic (with some exceptions), so it is not so natural to learn what design decisions are bad and which are good through casual observation. Clients are put in the position of having to make these decisions, however. Without education in objective standards, it is understandable for decision-makers to follow their gut — what they like or dislike. Graphic designers should, whenever possible, educate decision-makers on the principles of design. This can lead to better decisions.

Yet even in the face of education, clients and executives often go by their likes and dislikes. Why?

2. Stubbornness

This is another negative-sounding word that is ultimately not so negative. Stubbornness often comes in the form of “Nothing that I don’t like is going out;” or, “I don’t like it, and it doesn’t matter what the designer says.” People in decision-making roles are often in that position because their guts have served them well. Their confidence and persistence have gotten them where they are today. They know their business and they are not going to be swayed against their preferences. There is no panacea for this situation. Trust has to be learned by one party and earned by the other, and that is an enormous, separate topic.

3. Fear

Inevitably, clients are more hands-on when their business is not going as well as they’d like. The reason for this is simple — fear. Fear that the tiniest misstep could be costly. Fear that designers are not invested enough and are not creating the best designs. The client fears that they haven’t been involved or concerned enough about small details. Sometimes they’re right. I think every designer understands this. And it’s not just designers who feel the scrutiny during such times.

When fear behavior persists through good times, however, it speaks to a more fundamental problem. If a client does not trust the designer they have hired, then something is very wrong. Maybe it’s communication issues on one or both sides. Maybe the designer isn’t educating the client properly. Maybe the designer is actually not trustworthy. But the knot of persistent fear will resultant in micromanagement and should be unwound and examined so that the client-designer relationship can become healthy again. Fear is contagious, and if a client is fearful that a designer is not going to do a good job, then the designer is going to be fearful as well.

In summary, design decision-making that involves likes and dislikes is indicative of problems and is ultimately harmful. But it is so common to talk about design using such terms of preference that many will not even know how to talk about design without them. That is what I would like to address in my next blog entry.

*”Clients” refers to both clients and business executives, who are the clients of in-house designers.

1. It’s dishonest. If you clipped out a coupon for a free sundae and brought it to the restaurant listed on the coupon, only to be given another coupon for the same thing at another restaurant, wouldn’t you feel a little cheated? Why do this with links? If you want people to visit your website, put original content on it. If there’s another website you want them to visit, give them a direct link to that website.
2. It makes more work. You click a link and, instead of being taken where you expect to be taken, you are taken to a page with a link. And when you click the new link, it opens the page in a new tab/window, so you have to close the first one. This is not endearing in the least.
3. Bookmarking becomes problematic. If you click on a link and are taken to a page with an ow.ly bar at the top, for example, and you try to bookmark it, you’re not bookmarking the page you think you are. You’re bookmarking the ow.ly URL.
4. Navigating becomes a pain. You click on a link that takes you to a page with the ow.ly bar at the top. You click around the site a bit, and arrive at a page you find interesting. You know you want to bookmark the page, but you can’t with that bar there. So you close the bar. Suddenly, you’re no longer at the page you navigated to. You’re back at the original page, with the urge to kill growing inside your heart.
5. There are better ways to do it. URL shorteners like bit.ly can track link clicks without ruining the experience. If you want people to visit your site, and you’re not going to post original content, then at least put up a discussion or some information about the content you’re going to link them to. People will respect you more.

Perhaps logo design is going the way of cobblers. Only the wealthiest buy custom-made shoes — they have become a luxury. What’s mass-manufactured is good enough for the, um, masses. Maybe only the wealthiest will contract custom logos. As for everybody else, consider this list of prefab-logo mongers that I put together in 1 minute with a google search:

• Iconshock.com
• Shutterstock.com
• Pixellogo.com
• Logosinabox.com
• And now, the potential coup de grâce: Istockphoto.com

Maybe logo design is going that direction, but I don’t think so. I think that there will always be savvy businesspeople who know that their brand identity needs a logo that is part of the uniqueness and differentiation of their product or service. How can an off-the-shelf logo do that? Does a savvy businessperson buy a stock business plan and a stock marketing plan, or do they craft them to suit their vision? Do they use stock product designs or do they engage in the process of creating a unique product? Similarly, a savvy businessperson will participate with a design professional in the crafting of a custom logo suited to their vision and the brand that will arise.

And yet stock logos abound, soon more so than ever with the popular istockphoto.com weighing into the fray. It’s no surprise that I hear a lot of negativity about this new development. I think most of the concerns can be boiled down to these three points:

• A generic logo speaks to a generic identity. Pretty obvious.
• Stock logos undercut the value of professional design. This the biggest concern for smart designers. If potential clients can just go to an online warehouse and buy a logo off the shelf for a fixed rate, why would they consult a professional and pay (generally) more for a custom logo?
• The proliferation of stock logos perpetuates the perception that logos are a commodity, and you can get one anywhere.

These are all valid concerns. Some businesspeople will always look for ways to cut corners. The growth of stock logos makes this easier than ever. But there will also always be savvy businesspeople who will make the better choice and work with identity design professionals to create unique logos for their unique visions. So it’s not the end of the world. I actually think there are some benefits to istockphoto.com jumping on the already existing stock logo bandwagon.

• The istockphoto.com logos will, arguably, be better than MS Word clipart, or Art Bombardment 8 Billion Clip Art Files collecions. They will be created by graphic designers and will be editable and scalable at the very least.
• They will also be better than “logos” created in MS Paint. You’ve never seen such a thing? Really? If you haven’t seen a homemade MS Paint (MS Word) logo, then you haven’t really lived. It’s quite an enriching and affirming experience for a graphic designer.
• Since the istockphoto logos will be made by designers, designers will be paid for them. And since it will be designers all over the place contributing (not just from one company), there will be some diversity.
• Istockphoto.com’s pricing structure seems better than some of the others. $35 for a logo? Really? Would you contract a lawyer to draw up your corporate charter for $35? If you would pay $35 for either of these things, you’ll surely get what you pay for. Istockphoto’s logos will range from over $100 to almost $1000. That’s a little bit better. Stop yelling at your monitor. I said it’s better, not good.
• Istockphoto.com will offer exclusivity on the logo designs. That means that, unlike istockphoto’s stock photos, if you buy a logo, you won’t have to worry about your competitor down the street, or someone completely unrelated, using the same graphic. That’s absolutely brilliant — it’s sound common sense.
• As always, the existence of off-the-shelf logos will highlight the value of custom logo design. A lot of inexperienced businesspeople are looking for a little widget to put next to their company name on their business cards. That’s what they’ll get with a stock logo design. But good logo design isn’t a space-filler. It’s magic. The logo mark goes with the company name and vision like it was born there.

So don’t worry. Because there is intrinsic value in custom, professional logo design, there will always be a need for custom, professional logo design. But as designers, we must be more certain than ever that we provide that value. Don’t give clients logos they could have bought off a virtual shelf somewhere. Give them the power of custom identity.

Last weekend, while watching The Half-Blood Prince, I felt that old tug from my childhood toward magic. It occurred to me that it is a sad existence without magic. Everything has been discovered and can be explained by some unmagical, rational process. Everything is commonplace. Nothing is really special or truly different. But life is still exciting to me, as if magic still exists somewhere in the world. When I asked myself why — what is magic for the adult me — the answer came readily.

My mind went back to a fun and challenging discussion I had with my brothers-in-law last week in the wee hours of the morning. The ideas were flying. And I realized that ideas are magic. They don’t exist in the tangible world, yet they change the world: people are changed; societies are changed; the face of the planet is changed; problems are solved; healing occurs; fortunes are built; obsessions are manufactured and consumed… Ideas are born in the mind and grow through interaction. They are transferred from person to person to the world at large. And, because they are not physically embodied, they are like nothing else.

I can intentionally, sanely pursue magic as an adult by creating and exchanging ideas. This requires interaction, so I am going to seek out more and more interaction. 15 years ago when I took the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, the result came back as INFP. I was a strong introvert. Throughout my young life I felt I was drastically different from everyone else — I struggled to find connections and mistrusted all but a few that I found. Pardoxically enough, 12 years ago I got into the field of marketing, which entails making connections, understanding people and creating ideas that resonate with them. Now I test as an ENFP in Myers-Briggs. I love people. I’m energized by interactions. I seek and find connections.

Marketing is made of ideas, so marketing is a form of magic. So I’m a professional wizard. You’re a wizard too — to be human is to have ideas. What magic will you make today?

There’s something like that going on with social media. People are using it for every conceivable reason: To get as many friends or followers as possible. To sell plans to get more friends and followers. To raise money for charities. To sell product. For PR, promotions and customer service. (I tweeted about being turned down by SquareTrade.com for a refrigerator warranty, and the manufacturer tweeted in reply to me that I could buy a warranty from them.) I think many users are not entirely sure what they are doing with Twitter. Heck, even Twitter doesn’t seem to know how it’s going to make money. (Apple might have some ideas, though.)

But what is left after all of the novelty wears off? What will users ultimately care about? Will users follow, become fans of, or friend corporations? Maybe a few will. But if you think about the number of products that people come in contact with on a daily basis, is social media a good way to keep the brands associated with those products in front of people?

It is, to a degree, but I think that the days of advertisements, be they interruptive or distracting, are mostly numbered. Social media is aptly named. It’s… social. Interactive. And, yes, businesses and spammers are going to continue to gunk up social media with blaring messages and attempts to get attention. But these are misled and easily tuned out. If they offer nothing in the way of social interaction, customer service, or useful information, then they are failing on the social front.

There are any number of ways to utilize social media to expose your brand or message, but I think that the most powerful social media marketing will simply be an expanded form of word of mouth marketing. Promotions, news, offers, opinions, viral ads, etc. will spread throughout the social mediaverse like ripples in a pond, except these ripples will get stronger as they spread.

As with traditional word of mouth marketing, there will be influencers — Twitterers, for example, with tens or hundreds of thousands of followers — who act, independently or sycophantically, as distribution points for corporate messages. A tangent: Social media marketers will need to find a way to track such propegation. Maybe it will be by using links to sites that record the IP addresses of everyone who clicks on them. (Twitter almost always points to something else.) It would be fascinating to watch visualizations of the progress of a particular meme throughout the social mediaverse.

Whatever happens with business in social media, I’m looking forward to it. Good marketing is good communication. Communication is the heart of social media. Of course, by the time the novelty of the current wave of social media begins to tarnish, there will be something else new for us to go crazy over.

Where do you think social media marketing will be, once the novelty is gone? How do you use it, and are you getting out of it what you’d hoped?

First is Lauren, looking for a 17″ laptop under $1000:

Next is Giampaolo, who is looking for a hard-working, feature-rich laptop under $1500.

What strikes me as interesting is that Microsoft is spreading misconception and misinformation. There are two closely related areas of misinformation in these ads. First, that PC laptops give you the same features as Mac laptops for a lower price. Second, that Mac computers’ value is in style and appearance rather than in power. Anyone who compares the specs of Mac and PC laptops will find that, feature-to-feature, you don’t pay much more for Macs. And they’ll also find that Apple’s designs are not just decorative, they’re classic examples of form following function. In my estimation, misinformation is a rather desperate tactic, but it plays into two advertising motivators: Fear & greed. Fear of spending too much on a Mac. Greed in desiring the best features. Because of this, I have a feeling these Microsoft ads will be effective.

It’s a change in tactics for Microsoft. Consider another competitive situation: Burger King really made gains in market share when it started attacking McDonald’s. Their “Have it your way” campaign was huge in the 80s. McDonald’s was the leader. Burger King found a weakness and went after it mercilessly. Leaders focus on benefits & brand in advertising. I see focusing on competitors as a non-leading tactic. It’s a smart and fairly obvious #2 tactic. More examples: Ford compares itself to Honda in quality. Avis tries harder because, as #2, they have to try harder. Now Microsoft is going after Apple, even though Microsoft is still way ahead of Apple in market share. But Apple is no longer the tiny flea it was 10 years ago. It’s become a pretty big thorn in Microsoft’s side, and Microsoft is concerned.

This is great. Competition will improve the competitors. Maybe we’ll get more inexpensive Macs. Hopefully we’ll get a less clunky Windows OS. I think everyone wins. Heck, if Microsoft gave you $1500 to buy a PC, wouldn’t you?

Gatorade is still the world’s leading sports drink. And the brand has been relying on celebrity athlete endorsements for a long time. I wonder who their target audience is today? It can’t be Generation Y. There is a lot of discussion to the effect of Gen Y does not respond well to celebrity endorsements.

And is it me, or are self-important, grandiose ads like these really tiresome? Ads like these almost always make me feel like the product is not for me. It’s a drink. Get over yourself, Gatorade. I prefer Red Bull’s approach — Red Bull gives you wings. Of course it doesn’t; they know that and I know that. But at least they’re not really trying to convince me that it’s true.

Even so, it seems that there is a place for celebrity endorsements. It just goes to show that liking or disliking advertising has little to do with its effectiveness. I respect advertising that works, even if it’s begrudgingly at times. And I always wonder, is there a better way to do it?