Taking risks in design.
Reflections February 8, 2008
Currently I am in a job which produces web sites by the meter. It can happen that I need to design 3 completely different sites in a single 4-day week, next to general several small update jobs for other, current clients.
Recently I found myself a bit on the exhausted side when I should focus on designing a new site - it had so happened that a routine had established itself when creating a new site and this exact routine was keeping me inside the box and thus the designs began to be boring and somewhat repetitive… even though they were quite different.
Feeling drained, I KNEW that I had to change something.
So I decided to take some risks.
And the next few designs I by-passed the normal routines and went ahead and dove in and mainly, I did not worry at all about client feedback.
Usually, a stage gets created with only little time invested and then after the approval the details get worked out. I changed the usual mix one by one.
With the first new client I jumped passed that by investing more time than usual in the design but while designing creating the finished artwork in Photoshop and directly went over to HTML. As this site was full of tables and I had the overall look and feel the client wanted, I felt it justified. My boss did swallow a little hard when she realized how far I had already advanced in the design. But the client totally loved it with minor changes.
The next client was a complete redesign and production in barely 2 days. With a lot of images to be prepared. As the clients current website was one of those horrible non-designed sites, I had no qualms to go ahead and make what I thought would be perfect for his needs. The client was totally satisfied with no change requests. What a relief, as I had run-up all the time.
Then, there was this new client. Large project. Unhappy with the former web designer which, after a year and a lot of money investment had not yet finished the site. My boss thought that I could tentatively suggest a new design. But I went all out and thought the project through (as far as I had the information) and created something quite unconventional, in dark purple and a colorful texture background, strongly waking memories of the 70′ties, including a small logo Flash animation which I planned to have replace the current, slow and not useful one. This time my boss really thought that I wasted my time, as the deal with the client was not yet fully hashed out. But she went ahead to show my mockup when the CEO of the company joined their meeting and his comment was, “I LOVE it, I LOVE it”.
After 3 good results, I feel that taking risks had been the right approach and created a win win for everyone.
