Dealing with the designers!

According to the Shutterstock's WebDAM, social media posts that include images produce 650 percent higher engagement than text-only posts. And when it comes to including images in a post, the need for a graphics designer comes to fore.

But dealing with designers is often boring and disturbing to some extent when it involves an endless chain of feedback and of course, the deadlines!

Here I have tried to give some takeaways from a designer's perspective on dealing with the designers.

Plan the process

At the outset, a designer needs to visualize the entire thing in his/her eyes on the basis of the content guideline, available resources, and the copy. So, before asking for a content to be designed, try to visualize how do you want it to be shown.

For example, if you want a pictorial post, give him/her suggestions of that. Or, if the post is all about texts, decide the "copy" of the post first.

In simple words, decide the copy first, if possible try to draw what comes in your mind on a plain white paper, then give the designer any sample or photographs you want to use in the content with a proper briefing of the product or service or the information. Now, let the designer do his/her job!

Provide creative freedom

A few months ago a meme on the double standards of society went viral and it read:

Society: Be yourself

Also the society: Not this way!

This is something all the designers keep facing in real life. The client, supervisor and anyone who falls under the definition of boss keeps asking the designer to think "out of the box", but of course within the "brand guideline".

Yes, it's true that the brand guideline is really important for brand visibility but it often hinders the natural creativity of a designer and the contents often becomes "old wine in new bottles".

It is better to let the designer do his job in his own way.

Feedback!

This is most probably the most haunting word a designer has ever heard of.

It's a fact that all the designs are not always up to the mark and often requires changes. But a change that may deem simple and small often leads to a series of changes that may spoil the whole content.

So before giving feedback immediately, better take some time, think about the possible options and try to imagine whether the options you are thinking of would come good or not, and of course is it really necessary to bring those changes?

For example, if a design actually looks good, increasing the font size from 12 to 14 or adding some elements because it's given in the "brand guideline" are often trivial things and can be ignored.

Notwithstanding, it is wise to give all the feedback at once.

Consider your designer's opinion

The designer does have an opinion, and it matters!

It is highly unlikely that the design you have in front of you is the very first thing the designer had created. Rather, it's the result of a series of experiments and efforts.

In most of the cases, a designer tries almost all the available options while designing a content and finalize the one that deems best to him/her. The design of the content largely depends on the copy and the elements. So it appears that the changes referred by the high-ups are often something previously tried by the designer while designing.

And of course, when designing the designer uses his own rationales and ideas from his/her previous experience. So listening to your designer may bring benefit!

Why so serious?

We often fail to realize that, it's not the job of a mere social media content to carry everything we want to say, it's job is to attract the audience to visit your site or read the caption of the post linked to the content.

So unless the design of the content severely attacks the view of your target audience let it go!