Finding the right style
There are two very significant meetings during the website design process at Base Creative. The first is the design strategy meeting, and the second is the first design meeting.
These meetings are always the most exciting (and most nervous!) for both client and designer. Will the client like the designers work? Will the designer have understood the clients brief? Communication and trust are so important at this stage and initial disappointment can be damaging to a project. So how do we combat this and make sure a project runs smoothly – and more importantly – how do we make sure we get the design right the first time?
Communication and mutual understanding of the process are critical. Designing a website is not just the job of the creatives. If a client had the skills they would probably choose to design their own website. So when someone outside the organisation is given the task they should be working together in a mutual partnership. Neither should need to feel “in charge”, the business knowledge and creative knowledge should be shared equal for best return. As a designer at Base Creative, how do we go about starting this communication?
One way which we achieve this is before the strategy meeting we’ll spend time finding websites with a range of styles and themes. These could reflect a particular design aesthetic or include a specific element that may work well on our client’s website. Everyone finds it difficult to discuss design without any visual cues, even designers. This website slideshow has proven to work very well as a web design discussion point. We’re able to engage our client’s reaction to a particular design in a way that’s very difficult with conversation alone (verbally describing a website design can be very ambiguous). Someone’s definition of “minimal” may be very different from someone else’s. A visual cue will identify this.
We purposely choose some websites that from initial opinion would not work well if the client had something similar. We do this to achieve two things:
- The client’s reaction helps us place their brand between various scales such as “down-to-earth” and “corporate”, or “traditional” and “contemporary”.
- Our initial opinion on our clients company is sometimes wrong. It’s very easy to project your own ideas onto an organisation.
The second point is a massive reason why graphic design projects can go wrong and many designers are often oblivious to it. Looking at a new project with a completely open mind is the key to a successful design. Just because we’ve design several dental websites at Base Creative for example, doesn’t mean we can design another one without spending a lot of time with the client.
Ignoring personal taste is another hurdle for a designer after they correct assumptions of a business. If you’ve been in a Base Creative strategy meeting you’ll know “target audience” is a continuous talking point. They are the websites visitors and potential customers. In the end the target audience are the ones who decide if a website is successfully designed. Not the designer, not even the client. When we show the various websites to our clients we are really asking how the target audience will react. At the end of the strategy meeting we’ve engaged with our clients and have received a strong, accurate design brief that everyone is comfortable with. Now we start designing concepts ready for the first design meeting – more on that later!
Photo for this new article by Andy Melton
