From the course: Working with Creatives

Introduction

From the course: Working with Creatives

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Introduction

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- Before we get into the specifics, I just wanna give you a little background. Designers are a curious breed, like other artists we are compelled to do what we do. We have to do it, we have no choice. But unlike many other forms of artistic expression we need someone else to ask us to do it, and that person is our client. We mostly love our clients and we need our clients completely, they allow us to do the work we love. We even love obsessing over the tiniest details. Sometimes it even feels like we care more about the final product than our clients do. We have to make it the best we absolutely can. Some clients may even find this annoying, or think we're stubborn, irreverent, emotional, all of those things, and it's all valid. We also understand, because they've told us, that sometimes clients wish they could just do it themselves. So they wouldn't have to deal with us anymore. But they need us as much as we need them. And this should be the making of an equal and ideal relationship, the truth however is that when designers get together, we tend to complain about difficult clients. Relationships that begin with optimism and promise descend into bad feelings, egos and insecurities are powerful negative forces on both sides, and everybody has them. I've owned my own studio for 25 years and have experienced many different kinds of clients throughout my career, I've had clients who are wonderful, clients who fear looking like they don't know everything, but who knows everything? And clients who confuse asking questions with appearing stupid. Some clients think that because they're paying us, we should just follow orders. This kind of thinking undermines the whole process and prevents us from doing what we were born to do. So I wrote my book and this class, to teach people how to work with creative people.

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