As I wrote in my last (which was also my first) blog post, “Working
with an illustrator, layout
artist, designer, graphics specialist, or whatever can be a lot of
fun.” Actually, I should have written “… should be a lot of fun” rather
than “… can be a lot of fun.” After all, this is art, and art is fun,
right? Remember art class in grade school? Pure
joy! Endless fun!
But
now we’re all presumably grown up and sometimes – too often – the fun
never begins when it comes to working with an artist. Looking at my 25
years as a graphic designer/illustrator/artist,
I can see plenty of reasons why the relationship between an artist and a
client can have problems. Generally speaking, there are two symptoms of
a problem. One, the client is not happy with the work. Two, the artist
feels as if she or he is always at odds
with the client, and just can’t seem to deliver the results the client
wants. In the end, the product is off target, there is a lot of
grumbling and every step on every project is pure pain. For both sides.
Sometimes
the cause is rooted in differing personalities. Other times the
unhappiness comes from work styles that aren’t working together. Of
course, these would not be
insurmountable obstacles if the end product was outstanding. In that
regard, it’s like a hockey team. All the players may dislike one
another, but somehow if they win the Stanley Cup, no one cares much
about having been at odds with one another all season.
But
what if the end product isn’t outstanding? What if the artist thinks
it’s awful and the client thinks it missed the mark? What’s the problem?
I
have to be honest here: with the vast majority of my clients and on
nearly all projects, I don’t have a ton of experience with dysfunctional
work/creative relationships.
But I have had some that didn’t work, and believe me, just a few of
these leaves a dent. So, what’s the problem? How do we fix this?
I’ve
found over the years that this usually comes down to a lack of
communication. And that’s understandable, because everyone communicates
differently. One person’s “clear
explanation” can be another person’s “clear as mud” suggestion. Just
about every time I found myself out of sync with a client the basic
problem was we weren’t communicating effectively. He or she thought the
goals were very obvious, and I thought I understood
what we were trying to achieve, but in reality, we were aiming for
different targets. That just leads to a client unhappy with the first
couple of stabs at the project, and that unhappiness (yes, we artists
are usually VERY sensitive when it comes to clients
being unhappy with our work!) leads to more pressure on the artist,
which leads to a reduction in creativity, which leads to lower quality
in the next round of work, which leads to more unhappiness on the part
of the client … and on, and on, and on, and on,
and on, and on.
How
do we both avoid this vicious circle of off target work, unhappiness
and stress? We talk. We talk it through, maybe talk it to death. We do
that so I understand, for
example, what you really mean by “bright and colorful,” because to me
that may have a much more “bright and colorful” connotation than it does
to you. It really is about communication in the context of a
relationship, and that’s the key. The better the communication,
the better the relationship and the better the finished products.
So
I do my best to really “talk it through” with my clients, and in some
cases, they may think it’s a pain, but trust me, it’s just a way of
making sure we understand what
YOUR goals are, so I can hit them. And remember, once we’ve worked
together on a few projects and we’ve made a conscious effort to
communicate well, it won’t take as long on future projects, just because
we’ve built that good working relationship.
OK, before I close out this post, I have to cite one of my favorite, funny quotes:
“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
- George Bernard Shaw
Debi
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