How to Create Designs Your Clients Will LOVE
Do you ever get anxious that your clients won’t like the brand or web designs you create for them?
Design is a subjective service that’s often difficult for clients to verbalize their thoughts about- but that’s why we do what we do!
As designers, it’s our job to hear our client’s vision for their business and turn that vision into designs both the client and their audience love.
Notice we said BOTH the client and their audience. If we’re just creating designs that our clients love, but that aren’t attracting their ideal audience, we’re doing it wrong. Which leads us to our first key point...
1. YOU NEED TO BE ON THE SAME PAGE ABOUT WHO THIS DESIGN IS FOR
One of the truly amazing things about having a brand strategy session with your client is that it will help you both agree on who this design is for.
Brand strategy not only carves out a path for all of the brand’s messaging and visuals, it also gives you authority and purpose behind your designs.
Your aren’t just making something pretty or something your client personally is drawn to- you’re crafting strategic designs to attract their ideal audience and make them more money.
Setting intentions with a brand strategy session before you begin designing sets up your client to have a deeper understanding and appreciation for your designs.
It also helps you, the designer, feel more confident in letting your client know that your design is the best solution for their business, should the client have hesitations or revisions you disagree with.
2. SEND CLEAR, FLESHED OUT VISUAL DIRECTION
Something that really caused us some pain and extra revisions in the first year of our business was not sending super thorough visual direction. We used to hold off on sending much so not to ruin the surprise, but learned we actually didn’t want the client to be surprised at all!
We now send a detailed strategy and direction PDF after our Brand Strategy meeting that breaks down our direction for messaging, colors, fonts, and mood.
Once the client approves that, we create a website mockup and send that as well.
The more opportunities you provide your client to give general feedback early on, the smoother and quicker your revisions process tends to be.
3. GIVE A PRESENTATION WITH VISION
There’s a reason designers looove our Adobe brand presentation templates- they help you seriously wow clients and give them a vision for how their branding can be implemented.
Clients need your help to see the vision for the designs you create- helping them see the elements broken down and the designs in elevated mockups and color variations is a key element in getting them excited about what you’ve created.
We’ve already done the hard work of creating a beautiful direction, brand presentation, and brand style guide template- if you want to save yourself some time and impress your clients, shop our templates below!
4. GET REALLY GOOD FEEDBACK
There’s a few different ways that you can get feedback from clients, but we really do like having a live presentation meeting with clients to get their initial feedback.
We’ve found it’s so valuable for us to verbally express the vision behind our designs and hear the tone of the client’s voice when giving feedback.
We still let the client give more detailed feedback in writing after the meeting, but having that review call often gives you the opportunity to counter any initial concerns and thus limit the amount of revisions a client may have.
It’s important to note that every client is different with a different level of attention to detail and vision for their brand. Some clients are extremely easy to please and some will be highly detail-oriented about what they want.
Using these methods above, though, has truly helped our projects go more smoothly and helped us feel more confident when presenting to clients.