What's the best way to communicate with your designer? There are some people who want to communicate directly with the designer at all stages of a project. WRONG.
You'll find that every professional design company (other than a one-man band freelancer) will have at least one person who has the responsibility of talking to you and translating your comments, feedback, requests, rants, raves, and communicating them to the designer who is working on your project. This person specializes in this and that's usually their chief role within the company. Often, this is the production manager.
This person can spend as much time as you like discussing your project with you; that's what he or she is there for. Once you have discussed your project, the production manager will put this in writing, so that the designer can (I hate this phrase) hit the ground running when he or she starts working on your project. Also, the client will receive this in-writing thing (usually by email) to ensure that everything is covered.
Let me say that of course, it's a great idea for the designers to meet the client. This is why we have a production meeting with the client prior to the start of the project.
But sometimes, when the project is under way, a client will ask to 'speak to the designer'. This is all very well and good but 'the designer' isn't necessarily one person. Let's take a brochure or catalog as an example. It's likely that the creative director will create and design the master pages for the project. This is handed over to someone else who then build the piece. Then, another member of staff will be artworking and preparing the images for the brochure. Another person, who specializes in copy, will add and format your text. And so on and so on and so on.... so who is 'the designer?'
This is where the production manager comes in - he or she gets to know about the client's requests, feedback etc. and then allocates the work accordingly and schedules it so that all members of staff are working in conjunction with each other.
Now, what I have described above is for a simple eight page brochure - I don't have the time (and I probably don't have the space, either) to write about all the stages of a website production and the personnel who will work on it. You'd find it incredibly boring anyway.
And then of course, we have to remember that designers are people too and have vacations and days off and deadlines on other projects...
A production manager's job is to listen to the client and translate what they say into concise information for the designers, allocate and schedule the work. A designer's job is to design.
Recently, a client called after seven in the evening and demanded to talk to 'the designer'. He had comments, feedback and requests. But he would only speak to 'the designer'. 'The designer' is not trained, and not prepared for this role.
I wasn't 'the designer' in question, but I know what I would have felt like, had I been.
It was after seven in the evening. At that time my body clock is accustomed to start its craving for a relaxing glass of wine after a hard day's work. At that time, I have been up since 6.15am and in the office since 8am. At that time, the chances are that there have been assorted challenges and problems throughout the day that I have puzzled about, pondered, experimented with and solved. (And it would take me the rest of the day to write about those too!) At that time, my body clock is beginning to tell me that it's about time I had some dinner - that tuna salad at lunchtime has worn off by now. At that time, a nice refreshing shower sounds good, too.
So, imagine a client calls me and starts telling me, not too politely, some changes they need making to their brochure, website, packaging advertising or whatever their project is.
Now, if I'm in a good mood, despite the hectic day, and the time, I might just listen politely. But would I really be paying attention? No. Would I be writing everything down in the job file? No, because the job files live at the production manager's desk, not mine. OK, I might, if I can find a pencil (which is not always the case), jot down a few bits and pieces on a scrap piece of paper. Chances are that the piece of paper would then get lost amongst the chaos of the desk.
But then, if I'm not in a good mood ...
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