Dear Client: This Book Will Teach You How to Get What You Want from Creative People

Vision is not a group activity, and the group inevitably interferes with the possibility of greatness.

Another client was equally effective at communicating her taste with a short list: “Everything Apple does, the branding for President Obama’s campaigns, and the New York City subway signage.”

Because decisions around design, copy, video, and the like are subjective, people with little expertise tend to feel more confident sharing an opinion.

Be nice.

One client of ours captured her favorite things with her phone’s camera, showing them to us early in the process. She took assorted pictures of anything that caught her eye:

What the brief should not do is suggest solutions. That’s our job. This is important to remember, because a proposed direction or solution from a client is often difficult to forget and may serve to limit a creative team’s thinking.

A contract is also a signifier, telling all sides that this is a serious endeavor between two mutually respected parties. For creative types, few things foster as much confidence at the start of a project and few things do the opposite as quickly as a client’s reticence to sign a contract.

Nothing great happens when decisions are driven by fear (fear of failure, fear of losing one’s job, fear of looking foolish, fear of getting it wrong . . .). Just keep in mind, even people who do take risks harbor those fears.

Design is always subjective. Knowing the difference between your taste and your audience’s taste, as it relates to the solution, will be important information for you and for us.

By all means, think of as many contingencies as you can, but build in extra room for the unknown in both the schedule and budget anyway. (For the latter, an extra 10 percent in the lockbox is a comfortable cushion.)