Meetup.com was chosen as the vehicle for encouraging this activity because it seems to strike the right balance between professional and personal interests, has a large following, is an acceptable price to start your own Meetup.com group and has a reasonably intuitive interface. This is the write up for the Designers’ Forum:

This group is for designers, film makers, graphic artists and animators in the Chester area. The focus is on creating a support network made up of freelancers and company employees who enjoy meeting other people with a similar interest in designerly activity of different sorts.

The next meetup on 12 September at Telfords Warehouse [2pm] is all about how we use the web as professionals and for personal inspiration:

Simcoemedia: I love playing with my new giant rotating tag-cloud. I’m happy when its tag-cloudy http://www.design-design.co.uk/the-cloud/

Simcoemedia: The Drawing Research Network is officially live and we need to keep up the momentum on new members http://drawing-research-network.org.uk

Simcoemedia: Here’s a useful piece of free web-based software for creating a wiki – http://www.tiddlywiki.com/

Simcoemedia: It’s been two years since I got this little gem from Havana in Cuba – http://bit.ly/cCmYyf – definitely a favourite.

Simcoemedia: [ThemeForest] Dany’s Blossomsoft WP theme looks great for a wide range of design and corporates. Thanks for letting me know about that one.

Firstly, it is worth pointing out that, unlike a mathematical problem, the design problem is one that cannot necessarily be resolved to perfection but must be resolved perfectly for the circumstances under which it exists. As I often mention to my clients, if you throw enough money at a solution – you can have any solution you like. The designer’s challenge is to fulfill the needs and desires of the client within parameters that will range from budget to client needs / desires to media type.

Ensuring Client Satisfaction

In addition to a quality piece of design work, a client must be completely satisfied with the job and feel that the financial sacrifice they have made has been rewarded with a product, advert, website or DVD that will work for them as a company, educational establishment, photographer or restaurant to further their cause or increase income.

There are several ways to do this but the one that works for me the most is to clearly analyse the design process with the client prior to the job commencing. From the point at which a fee is being negotiated to the conclusion of a project, the process should be explained at appropriate points to a client in easy-to-understand bite sizes. At what point should this discussion take place? The most common guides to this discussion are the points at which a piece of design work will be assessed by the client – the test phases if you like. The emphasis is upon the designer to advise the client as to when a discussion will be necessary and so as not to annoy or take up too much time – anticpating the required information and evaluation periods is paramount.

Design Brief

In my experience a design brief can arrive in the in-tray or inbox in a variety of formats:

1. The client contacts the designer by telephone for a brief discussion. During this conversation the client is looking for signs that the designer will respond intelligently to a given brief and so the designer must be prepared to react quickly and appropriately to statements made by the client whilst making notes regarding the requirements. These notes form the basis of the brief.

2. A client or client representative requests a meeting and gives a little information about what the project may be. This can be more vague than the telephone conversation as there is little or no time for questions – the designer must respond to questions at a meeting.

3. A client sends a brief out to tender. This means the designer has the opportunity to outline how they would approach the project and some initial designs may be required here. This leads onto the subject of speculative working which will be covered in another article, another time – in the meantime, check out these two links related to spec. design:

Why Speculative Design is Wrong
What is Speculative Design Work? – the video is worth listening to after the first 30 seconds

Types of Brief

The most common types of design brief are OPEN and CLOSED. An open brief is where the designer is allowed to experiment and develop a solution to a design problem with no initial guidance on what the end solution might be. A closed brief is where the solution is given [eg a device that performs task x and fits into box y] but is unclear how the design will look.

There are often grey areas in these design briefs – a typical example being that a designer has freedom to design a solution but must follow the corporate colours or must use a logo or identifying mark on the product, website or advert.

A designer should use his or her experience to make suggestions as to the benefits of changing the design brief where appropriate. This may result in the reduction of financial expenditure [for example, where a designer sees that part of the brief may require more creative freedom to allow other parts of the brief to flow and conclude more effectively]. If a client is completely opposed to making changes to the brief then the designer must carefully consider how the process will work within these constraints and take appropriate action.

Next time

In part 2 we will look at the design process and a live project example.