Design’s First Kiss
The Difference Between Awesome & Awkward
A few years ago I sat across the table from one of my first clients. It was a moment every designer knows well. The rundown often looks something like this:
In a matter of seconds the grand unveil will take place. You always fall short in describing just how many ideas you deleted. The amount of pages you’ve torn out of your notebook. Pushing 10 pixels to the left and right and back again. You did this infinitely…on a detail the client typically ignores. It was the artboards zit that wouldn’t pop. There is no safeguard in an in-progress canvas anymore. This moment is the culmination of triumph and struggle. I will be judged. My work critiqued. There’s no way to design around it.
For the designer, every piece of work delivered is a piece of themselves.
I remember watching the client look over the concept. Not confident my heart raced as their eyes bounced to different sections of the proposed direction.
I’ll never forget their joy.
“I love it!” he proclaimed.
“It’s like an awesome first kiss.”
The direction was approved and there was much rejoicing.
Upon leaving that meeting the phrase, “It’s like an awesome first kiss” resonated with me.
As a designer, the “first kiss” foreshadows either bliss or obstacles.
I get anxiety thinking about how many scenarios resulted in opposite reactions. Designs unveiled that were the “awkward” first kiss.
Moments when perspective didn’t translate.
Every piece of work we deliver is a piece of ourselves.
As designers, we must always be preparing to ship our work.
Over the years, I’ve done my best to take notes on what resonates with our clients. What appealed to them most? Why didn’t certain elements translate? What made that presentation awkward? Why did that work?
The truth is our best work has almost nothing to do with the “art” side of design. The difference between awesome and awkward comes down to one simple, but extraordinarily complex word: content.
Today, you will be invaded with an immense amount of content you will take for granted. What will stay with you? What will be forgotten?
“Design is the method of putting form and content together.” — Paul Rand
Here are three statements you’ll hear all the time in our office:
Content Informs All Design
Great authors know how to pull readers in. They know when to make a point and how to push readers to move chapter to chapter. Similarly, great brands reconcile complexity with simplicity. They understand how to keep your attention and present you with an opportunity. Content literally informs all design. The photography, colors, headlines, paragraphs, call to actions, etc. all depend on content.
First, Make It Beautiful with Words and then — Make It Beautiful
Every potential client hears the above phrase from someone on our team. Words are just as important as the design itself. This part of the process is often overlooked or taken for granted. Time and time again the most difficult part in the design process is getting the content right. Getting it right takes time, but the results can’t be denied.
If Content is King, Audience is Queen
Finally, every successful presentation given comes from a deep understanding and appreciation for who the audience is. The audience cannot be everybody, but it is somebody. Somebody with an affinity towards a certain kind of product, cause, or opportunity. Content must be assessed and shaped to appeal to that person. If content is king, audience is queen.
When we deliver meaningful content, it means we show up, invited, with words and images that matter. It means that we are trusted enough to be permitted to speak the first few words, and talented enough to keep the attention we’ve worked so hard to earn. Most of all, meaningful can’t possibly work for everyone with a smart phone, for everyone in every potential audience, because there are so many ways to be seen as meaningful, so many different tribes of people thirsting for different kinds of connection. — Seth Godin [1]
- Seth Godin’s Blog | http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/06/in-search-of-meaningful.html
