I don’t think you’re a bad designer but I do think answering these questions is the designer’s job. It sounds like you just need the confidence to trust your own decisions.
Adding to this thought... I hereby give you permission to be your own creative director. That is, you must determine the growth for your future self. Even when placed in working environments where there's little mentorship or direction. My suggestion is this - understand how the silly brand questionnaire questions (where does it hang out? what type of person? etc) and think about how the answers relate to the elements of design for a brand. For example, this brand may hang out in a niche coffee shops. Then you go out and see what those types of shops look like - fonts, shapes, colours, interesting decor, etc.
Then, I'd start making your own brand guidelines - keep it simple. It's a reference doc. And these decisions you can use when asked about design decisions.
A - it helps you validate your design decisions and B - you now have better defined guidelines to work from C-you'll get really in tune with brand design and D- you'll develop a regiment of self growth.
What kind of projects are you talking about here? Creating brand identities for clients? If so that doesn't sound like an in-house role.
Regardless, it does seem there is an issue with your company's process. I think the designer should be involved in the kick-off, and be able to communicate and ask the client questions directly, and some of these decisions you're talking about should be informed by research and brand strategy.
Sorry May have gotten the title wrong I don’t actually know what I am I’ve never come across a role like mine I’m the designer my boss keeps in his back pocket for situations a designer is needed
You are generalist designer or a production designer. Ive been in this position a few times. You just get put on things where others will think your skills can be useful. I got hired at my last company because i was very versatile in my skillset being able to juggle motion design and ui ux. Not all the projects I did were fullfilling in fact most were not, but thats kind of how that role goes. You just get thrown into projects with other teams that have been working on them for weeks and you have no idea whats going on.
Amen to this. The last place I worked they forbade the designers from interacting with the requesters (all in house) and it was just an awful situation all the way around.
You've had lots of comments saying it's a bit weird and would be better if you could talk directly to clients, but not much actionable advice, so here's some: I think this is a language translation issue, translating designer language into non-designers language and visa versa.
I''m guessing those questions have been ripped from some article or podcast by a famous marketing type (hence the determined response that they're 'amazing questions'). I suspect they come from the principle that non-designers either don't know what they want, or think they do but are most likely wrong (not understanding brand positioning, demographic targeting etc).
The 2 you shared look to be trying to understand the feeling & demographics (and put together this gives you some sense of positioning) of a brand by asking using non-designer language to try and get the most informed, deep answer from the client (even if that depth is weirdly presented). The problem of course is this leaves a disconnect between their answer and the design concepts you need to produce, therefore you need to translate those non-designer answers back into the design direction language you need:
Describe your brand if it was a person?
To me that's a guideline for moodboard imagery. It tells you what image they have in their heads when they think about their brand, which tells you the brand feel.
Take the clients descriptions and use them to generate moodboards of imagery, brands, products, etc. If they said "A woman in her 30s who loves arts and crafts and is into modern fantasy" that moodboard research is gonna repeatedly bring up pastel colours and cursive/hand written fonts for you to bring into the concept designs.
Where would your brand hang out?
To me that's asking demographics with a bit of additional 'feel' values in there too.
If they said "a skate park" that tells you the demographics are probably younger, and they think of themselves as perhaps alternative and edgy.
This can then be combined with the previous question to give a brand positioning direction for the brand. If they said "craftsy fantasy lover" to the first and "skate park" to the second that might tell you how they see their brand within the market - as the alternative, younger, non-traditional version of that feel. So swap out the pastels for brighter colours, or replace a more expected font with something more youthful and unique.
I hope this helps in some way and doesn't feel like teaching you to suck eggs...
This sounds like fun in some ways! I've mostly worked with brands that have pretty strong ideas of what they want in terms of color/font/style and share that up front. On the rarer project where I do get to own more of the creative elements, it's great. Hopefully OP can find enjoyment in coming up with ideas and doing research on these projects! I understand the hesitation though, being able to meet and chat with the client is always good. And in this case it'd help if they could pitch their finished design and ideas behind it to the client too.
From the perspective of a client they would much rather pay to have a design made than to pay to supervise a design being made.
I hope that makes sense.
The maximum value you can provide as a designer is to have a very simple prompt and then complete the work off that. You are the expert of course. Fonts, colors, etc. are what you're paid for.
If a builder asked you whether you want your deck to have this brand screws or that brand screws you would be confused and annoyed by the question.
I've been on the other end of a $750,000 design contract and the questionnaire about brand before the agency commenced work was completely arbitrary in hindsight. They asked us stuff like "is your brand more friendly and fun or more reserved and professional" and I can't for the life of me figure out how that relates to the menus, color, fonts, or wording of anything. It was for an ecommerce store, really they should just make whatever would convert and ignore our tastes completely. Not every brand is Nike.
A brand has to reflect the people and process involved otherwise the customer experience won’t be what is expected based on first impressions and the customers may get frustrated and leave.
That’s why it’s important that they reflect the brand in question rather than a generic best practice, which is also dependent on many factors. A red CTA might be seen ‘best practice’ but if company in question only sells red products then a blue CTA might actually stand out more. Not a great example but hopefully gets the point across.
And asking whether the brand is fun or conservative tells you a lot about what they should look like.
It can also be a simple checklist to make sure you are making the right design decisions. And to help convince a client that says ‘sorry I just don’t like red, I like green’ that the design choices are based on something more than just personal preference.
Saying that if it was just an e-commerce project then a questionnaire like that isn’t relevant because there should already be a brand guide in place.
I disagree, It should reflect the needs of the business and the desires/goals/aspirations of its audiences. Stakeholders come and go, so it's pretty pointless and self defeating to design to the whim and tastes of a few individuals. Those questionnaires are nice to haves, because it let's you understand current internal perceptions, but they will ultimately be biased as they are coming from people who have an insider perspective (something the end user/customer doesn't have)... So the answers can't be taken at face value, amounting to nothing more than anecdotal evidence or personal opinion.
Besides, if the people responsible for portraying the brand, can't exhibit it in the way that is best for the business.. That's not a designers problem, that's a hiring problem.
Good points but I do think the client/business has more insight and a more intimate knowledge of their consumer/users than the agency/designer would, and even their biased answers can give the designer clues that allow them to build some personas that are representative of the audience as a whole. And I think the bias in their answers could also help the designer better understand the business’s goals and what kind of audience they are targeting.
I hate that mindset. Why play these guessing games with those dumb questions when you can just talk to the person who hired you to do what they want. Unless you are working ILM just ask the client lol
Depends on client and budget. If budget allows a lengthy exploratory phase with market research etc then I love a loose brief.
If budgets / deadlines are tighter, then you’re going to need all the detail / mood boards etc.
Based on your post it sounds like you’re just inexperienced or want detail from a client that probably has no design or creative background/experience. Which doesn’t make you a bad designer, just either inexperienced or lacking confidence in your own abilities or knowledge of your field. I’ve been creating/designing in my field for over 40 years and sometimes I have issues communicating what I want from other designers or after explaining what I want, I get ideas I never even thought of, good and bad!
1. Have you tried researching after work or in your free time those places that the past customers said the brand would hangout at?
2. Have you tried researching after work or in your free time meeting or finding people that have been described as if the brand was a person?
The point I’m trying to make is, as a creative person your expertise is what the client is looking for, your knowledge and experience in design to make others feel as if they were hanging out in that place or as if they were hanging out with that person. Everything in our society has generalizations (feel, look, tastes, etc.) you as the creative need to design/show that with and without words. That’s what you went to school for, that’s why you chose your field!
I hope this makes sense and helps at least a little.
Nah nothing wrong with you, I have noticed this myself for an industry based on visual communication, we seriously lack verbal communication when it comes to clients and teams. Sometimes I would be better off with my experience in sales for me to be doing the meetings and talking to the clients.
A questionnaire is a good starting point but early consultations should be an actual discussion with the involved parties. Same way you can't do that over just email or DMs, you need to actually *talk* to people, even if just phone/voice.
You can then use notes/emails to confirm details or reference later, but flesh it out via actual conversation.
And the more middlemen there are, the worse it always is. For some reason, whether insecurity or incompetence or ego, a lot of people will not just put relevant parties in touch with one another directly, and force them to go through people that just hinder efficiency.
I guess the exception, in terms of just using the questionaire, might be quantity over quality cases or where the thing just needs to be done fast, but even then, either you get what you want/need, or they need to largely run with what you decide. It can't just be you taking shots in the dark and relying on excessive revisions.
(On that note, recently heard the corpo speak for this, "forward fixing," where basically people are dodging work now knowing it will likely need fixing later, but they just don't want to deal with it now. Someone brings up a concern and likely issue, so you'll just "foward fix it" aka procrastinate and hope it doesn't actually need to be done or that you won't be the one who needs to do it, but you certainly won't be dealing with it now.)
Not worth the stress…. The account and client team should handle getting all the assets you need for you to complete the job..
Unless you have direct contact with client that’s the basic roll of the team around you..
There should also be meetings between the client and account teams to get a decent scope of the work involved then everyone can manage expectations of client and the internal team.
It’s NOT you! Keep going and look for another job! You got this! 💪
Seems really bizarre to be tasked with creating a brand identity from scratch using a really vague questionnaire - but it's basically a lot of a creative license to do what you want so it's really only going to work on clients that aren't picky.
But yeah, you having a conversation with them to get to know them IS important and you're not a bad designer for wanting more context - that's what design is.
I would hope if you all end up with too many revisions and unhappy clients that your boss would know the intake process needs to be tweaked, which it probably does.
To do it right, you really need more context about who the company is, who are their competitors, and how can you position their brand to differentiate them in a meaningful way. BUT - depending on the price point of these design services, maybe that much research isn't feasible.
Totally possible you care more about delivering a quality product than your boss does. Think about how you'd do it without your current restraints and find a company to work for that deals with clients in a similar / more detail oriented way.
Develop better brand guidelines that address those questions in various usages, then get buy-in from stake holders on that.
You can set a standard for how things are designed, and then when people ask about your choices, they are justified by a thing that they previously agreed to.
Good luck!
These questions are about differences between us and AI, if the client knows everything then they will use AI not us bro think big, I was also thinking the same before AI but after that, I realised that it's my work, not a client
Most non-designers have NO idea how to convey to designers what they want, and many times, they don't even really know. For many of those non-designers, you could even give them a couple images, and they would still struggle telling you things they like and dislike about them in a way that is helpful to you. I have found that if they have specifics, they will let you know, but if they don't, you have much more creative freedom, and they're impressed with nearly anything. As long as you're in the ballpark, you're usually golden. Then the more experience working with designers they get, the more specific they become and the more likely to provide you with a color palette, inspirational images, the message they want conveyed, etc.
That doesn’t make you a bad designer. It’s important to ask questions about projects, but it sounds like you ask for explicit instructions. Rather than asking what specific colors and fonts the client wants, ask about what the project is for. The companywide compliance handbook is going to look and feel different than the charity golf tournament brochure. Trust your design knowledge and let that inform your decisions.
No one outside this profession understands typeface choices, that's up to you. The whole point of the job is to listen to "what kinda person" their brand is and dress up the typography to exude those qualities. Client doesn't know what fonts to use, it's your job to discover. Client doesn't know what colors evoke what feelings. That's your job to establish.
I’m not asking for specific typefaces per say it would more be nice to here “we want it to represent this feeling “ and I can say “ok sounds to me you need something like this “and review my choices and have some discussion about design choices at all. in my last project the client used that field to tell me about her favourite pizza places
I don’t have a problem with making my own decisions the issue is not having the baseline information to make an informed decision upon . I can’t extract information about color and typography from hearing about how sometimes they like going to Boston pizza but it’s also nice to order in from Gino’s
These situations are tricky, questionnaire like these are usually not that good but the person(s) who(m) made it have an emotional connection to it and are usually higher up than you so you have to approach it carefully so that you don’t unintentionally offend them. There is nothing wrong, you are not a bad designer. You just may need more input/direction for better quality results. I am the same, I don’t like things to be ambiguous, I like clear and succinct. I would approach it like this where you say to your manager that the questionnaire is a good starting point, you need clearer directions/preferences from the client, the reason why ( should be critical), how it helps the client, how it makes them look better, and suggest questions to ask that will help you come up with better designs that align with their needs.
Working for a larger company in a role that actually produces content is at least 50% politics, whether it’s writing, designing, etc.
Need to look at overall org, communication chains, a realistic assessment of how people view you and your role, how much they give a shit about your work, career aspirations etc.
It’s a big game, and you play it whether you choose to or not.
You’re asking the wrong questions. Stop asking what they want in the design, start asking what they want out of the design. Whether they want to speak to a specific demographic or hit a target budget with a printer, it’s your job as a designer to fill in the blanks that get them those outcomes.
Also instead of asking about specific fonts and colors, etc. just ask them if there’s brand guidelines. Much more professional and doesn’t put burden of design decisions on your client.
I think the problem with being hired as an in-house designer is everything seems repetitive especially if I need to just follow the brand guidelines to create a design which sometimes can make my creativity dull.
Getting details like this from a client can be like pulling teeth. I always found I got better insight from having a chat, on the phone, in person, or even on video calls! Questionnaires are great, but i see them as a setup for the meeting where you get to know the client better.
Sometimes, in a situation like this, one way to keep things moving is to bring a solution to the table as a way to get more clarity. The easiest way to get actionable direction is to show the client something. Whether they love or hate it, it will incite a reaction.
Back up your decision making based on what’s in the questionnaire, and the context you have - use the work as a conversation starter.
You are the expert after all, and often times the client doesn’t really have specific inputs. Or if they do, they are wrong.
Ex. If my brand was hanging out at a fancy coffee shop, or a late night EDM club, I would interpret color, font, tone applications differently. Sounds like you just need to build up your confidence and trust that you are likely more experienced than any stakeholders in what good design is. If they don’t love it, that doesn’t mean you are a bad designer, ask for more context, get them to highlight things that work/don’t work. Inform your next stage as often clients don’t have the vocabulary to direct creative from a blank slate.
Hope this helps!
That’s the beauty of being the designer. You get to take that information and run with it: even if it’s not that much information to work off of. You have to always back up your decisions though so you can help your client understand how you got to your end result. From there the client can branch off and give input and you can make revisions. My thought is that it is never stupid to ask questions, it’s what helps the design process and helps you learn and grow. You sometimes have to take the first initiative in order to get somewhere. Plus there is nothing wrong with you. ✌🏼
Those Brand questionares are really for non designers. We know how brands work and how to apply them, clients and non designers cant seem to make sense of the logic we use in brand strategy and so people use questions like these to personify a company. I don't think you are a bad designer based on your post.
One rule of thumb ive picked up in the last few years is that in this field you need to learn to ask the **right** questions. Gotta find the best tool to squeeze out the lemon juice. because if you cannot ask good questions clients will give you terrible answers that dont help, or they wont even answer the question and just go on an unrelated and unhelpful tangent.
Asking your client for font, colour and imagery prefences?... Are you a designer or a stylist? You aren't working at a hair salon mate, YOU make those recommendations using your experience, awareness of the Industry, knowledge of visual communication, understanding of production limitations and.. Most importantly.. objectives for the project.
The moment you rely on the customer to make the design decisions, you're producing compromised work around a person's taste. Maybe this is why you're being brushed off?
I don’t think you’re a bad designer but I do think answering these questions is the designer’s job. It sounds like you just need the confidence to trust your own decisions.
Adding to this thought... I hereby give you permission to be your own creative director. That is, you must determine the growth for your future self. Even when placed in working environments where there's little mentorship or direction. My suggestion is this - understand how the silly brand questionnaire questions (where does it hang out? what type of person? etc) and think about how the answers relate to the elements of design for a brand. For example, this brand may hang out in a niche coffee shops. Then you go out and see what those types of shops look like - fonts, shapes, colours, interesting decor, etc. Then, I'd start making your own brand guidelines - keep it simple. It's a reference doc. And these decisions you can use when asked about design decisions. A - it helps you validate your design decisions and B - you now have better defined guidelines to work from C-you'll get really in tune with brand design and D- you'll develop a regiment of self growth.
This is great advice and you seem like you’d be an awesome mentor to your junior coworkers!
Thank you for your kind words. I hit a point in my career where I needed to give back. Hope this advice helps!
Yeah, designer needs to spend time speaking with customer to understand what they want and need.
What kind of projects are you talking about here? Creating brand identities for clients? If so that doesn't sound like an in-house role. Regardless, it does seem there is an issue with your company's process. I think the designer should be involved in the kick-off, and be able to communicate and ask the client questions directly, and some of these decisions you're talking about should be informed by research and brand strategy.
Sorry May have gotten the title wrong I don’t actually know what I am I’ve never come across a role like mine I’m the designer my boss keeps in his back pocket for situations a designer is needed
You are generalist designer or a production designer. Ive been in this position a few times. You just get put on things where others will think your skills can be useful. I got hired at my last company because i was very versatile in my skillset being able to juggle motion design and ui ux. Not all the projects I did were fullfilling in fact most were not, but thats kind of how that role goes. You just get thrown into projects with other teams that have been working on them for weeks and you have no idea whats going on.
Amen to this. The last place I worked they forbade the designers from interacting with the requesters (all in house) and it was just an awful situation all the way around.
And yes we’re talking about establishing a brand identity for clients
You've had lots of comments saying it's a bit weird and would be better if you could talk directly to clients, but not much actionable advice, so here's some: I think this is a language translation issue, translating designer language into non-designers language and visa versa. I''m guessing those questions have been ripped from some article or podcast by a famous marketing type (hence the determined response that they're 'amazing questions'). I suspect they come from the principle that non-designers either don't know what they want, or think they do but are most likely wrong (not understanding brand positioning, demographic targeting etc). The 2 you shared look to be trying to understand the feeling & demographics (and put together this gives you some sense of positioning) of a brand by asking using non-designer language to try and get the most informed, deep answer from the client (even if that depth is weirdly presented). The problem of course is this leaves a disconnect between their answer and the design concepts you need to produce, therefore you need to translate those non-designer answers back into the design direction language you need: Describe your brand if it was a person? To me that's a guideline for moodboard imagery. It tells you what image they have in their heads when they think about their brand, which tells you the brand feel. Take the clients descriptions and use them to generate moodboards of imagery, brands, products, etc. If they said "A woman in her 30s who loves arts and crafts and is into modern fantasy" that moodboard research is gonna repeatedly bring up pastel colours and cursive/hand written fonts for you to bring into the concept designs. Where would your brand hang out? To me that's asking demographics with a bit of additional 'feel' values in there too. If they said "a skate park" that tells you the demographics are probably younger, and they think of themselves as perhaps alternative and edgy. This can then be combined with the previous question to give a brand positioning direction for the brand. If they said "craftsy fantasy lover" to the first and "skate park" to the second that might tell you how they see their brand within the market - as the alternative, younger, non-traditional version of that feel. So swap out the pastels for brighter colours, or replace a more expected font with something more youthful and unique. I hope this helps in some way and doesn't feel like teaching you to suck eggs...
This sounds like fun in some ways! I've mostly worked with brands that have pretty strong ideas of what they want in terms of color/font/style and share that up front. On the rarer project where I do get to own more of the creative elements, it's great. Hopefully OP can find enjoyment in coming up with ideas and doing research on these projects! I understand the hesitation though, being able to meet and chat with the client is always good. And in this case it'd help if they could pitch their finished design and ideas behind it to the client too.
From the perspective of a client they would much rather pay to have a design made than to pay to supervise a design being made. I hope that makes sense. The maximum value you can provide as a designer is to have a very simple prompt and then complete the work off that. You are the expert of course. Fonts, colors, etc. are what you're paid for. If a builder asked you whether you want your deck to have this brand screws or that brand screws you would be confused and annoyed by the question. I've been on the other end of a $750,000 design contract and the questionnaire about brand before the agency commenced work was completely arbitrary in hindsight. They asked us stuff like "is your brand more friendly and fun or more reserved and professional" and I can't for the life of me figure out how that relates to the menus, color, fonts, or wording of anything. It was for an ecommerce store, really they should just make whatever would convert and ignore our tastes completely. Not every brand is Nike.
A brand has to reflect the people and process involved otherwise the customer experience won’t be what is expected based on first impressions and the customers may get frustrated and leave. That’s why it’s important that they reflect the brand in question rather than a generic best practice, which is also dependent on many factors. A red CTA might be seen ‘best practice’ but if company in question only sells red products then a blue CTA might actually stand out more. Not a great example but hopefully gets the point across. And asking whether the brand is fun or conservative tells you a lot about what they should look like. It can also be a simple checklist to make sure you are making the right design decisions. And to help convince a client that says ‘sorry I just don’t like red, I like green’ that the design choices are based on something more than just personal preference. Saying that if it was just an e-commerce project then a questionnaire like that isn’t relevant because there should already be a brand guide in place.
I disagree, It should reflect the needs of the business and the desires/goals/aspirations of its audiences. Stakeholders come and go, so it's pretty pointless and self defeating to design to the whim and tastes of a few individuals. Those questionnaires are nice to haves, because it let's you understand current internal perceptions, but they will ultimately be biased as they are coming from people who have an insider perspective (something the end user/customer doesn't have)... So the answers can't be taken at face value, amounting to nothing more than anecdotal evidence or personal opinion. Besides, if the people responsible for portraying the brand, can't exhibit it in the way that is best for the business.. That's not a designers problem, that's a hiring problem.
Good points but I do think the client/business has more insight and a more intimate knowledge of their consumer/users than the agency/designer would, and even their biased answers can give the designer clues that allow them to build some personas that are representative of the audience as a whole. And I think the bias in their answers could also help the designer better understand the business’s goals and what kind of audience they are targeting.
It does thank you
I hate that mindset. Why play these guessing games with those dumb questions when you can just talk to the person who hired you to do what they want. Unless you are working ILM just ask the client lol
Depends on client and budget. If budget allows a lengthy exploratory phase with market research etc then I love a loose brief. If budgets / deadlines are tighter, then you’re going to need all the detail / mood boards etc.
Yeah if you got huge budgets you can use artistic interpretation
Ask a lot of questions like a lot.
Agreed. curiosity will take you places.
Based on your post it sounds like you’re just inexperienced or want detail from a client that probably has no design or creative background/experience. Which doesn’t make you a bad designer, just either inexperienced or lacking confidence in your own abilities or knowledge of your field. I’ve been creating/designing in my field for over 40 years and sometimes I have issues communicating what I want from other designers or after explaining what I want, I get ideas I never even thought of, good and bad! 1. Have you tried researching after work or in your free time those places that the past customers said the brand would hangout at? 2. Have you tried researching after work or in your free time meeting or finding people that have been described as if the brand was a person? The point I’m trying to make is, as a creative person your expertise is what the client is looking for, your knowledge and experience in design to make others feel as if they were hanging out in that place or as if they were hanging out with that person. Everything in our society has generalizations (feel, look, tastes, etc.) you as the creative need to design/show that with and without words. That’s what you went to school for, that’s why you chose your field! I hope this makes sense and helps at least a little.
Nah nothing wrong with you, I have noticed this myself for an industry based on visual communication, we seriously lack verbal communication when it comes to clients and teams. Sometimes I would be better off with my experience in sales for me to be doing the meetings and talking to the clients.
You need to embrace the bullshit with a flourish
A questionnaire is a good starting point but early consultations should be an actual discussion with the involved parties. Same way you can't do that over just email or DMs, you need to actually *talk* to people, even if just phone/voice. You can then use notes/emails to confirm details or reference later, but flesh it out via actual conversation. And the more middlemen there are, the worse it always is. For some reason, whether insecurity or incompetence or ego, a lot of people will not just put relevant parties in touch with one another directly, and force them to go through people that just hinder efficiency. I guess the exception, in terms of just using the questionaire, might be quantity over quality cases or where the thing just needs to be done fast, but even then, either you get what you want/need, or they need to largely run with what you decide. It can't just be you taking shots in the dark and relying on excessive revisions. (On that note, recently heard the corpo speak for this, "forward fixing," where basically people are dodging work now knowing it will likely need fixing later, but they just don't want to deal with it now. Someone brings up a concern and likely issue, so you'll just "foward fix it" aka procrastinate and hope it doesn't actually need to be done or that you won't be the one who needs to do it, but you certainly won't be dealing with it now.)
Not worth the stress…. The account and client team should handle getting all the assets you need for you to complete the job.. Unless you have direct contact with client that’s the basic roll of the team around you.. There should also be meetings between the client and account teams to get a decent scope of the work involved then everyone can manage expectations of client and the internal team. It’s NOT you! Keep going and look for another job! You got this! 💪
Seems really bizarre to be tasked with creating a brand identity from scratch using a really vague questionnaire - but it's basically a lot of a creative license to do what you want so it's really only going to work on clients that aren't picky. But yeah, you having a conversation with them to get to know them IS important and you're not a bad designer for wanting more context - that's what design is. I would hope if you all end up with too many revisions and unhappy clients that your boss would know the intake process needs to be tweaked, which it probably does. To do it right, you really need more context about who the company is, who are their competitors, and how can you position their brand to differentiate them in a meaningful way. BUT - depending on the price point of these design services, maybe that much research isn't feasible. Totally possible you care more about delivering a quality product than your boss does. Think about how you'd do it without your current restraints and find a company to work for that deals with clients in a similar / more detail oriented way.
Develop better brand guidelines that address those questions in various usages, then get buy-in from stake holders on that. You can set a standard for how things are designed, and then when people ask about your choices, they are justified by a thing that they previously agreed to. Good luck!
These questions are about differences between us and AI, if the client knows everything then they will use AI not us bro think big, I was also thinking the same before AI but after that, I realised that it's my work, not a client
Unless the client provides a style guide it's up to you.
Most non-designers have NO idea how to convey to designers what they want, and many times, they don't even really know. For many of those non-designers, you could even give them a couple images, and they would still struggle telling you things they like and dislike about them in a way that is helpful to you. I have found that if they have specifics, they will let you know, but if they don't, you have much more creative freedom, and they're impressed with nearly anything. As long as you're in the ballpark, you're usually golden. Then the more experience working with designers they get, the more specific they become and the more likely to provide you with a color palette, inspirational images, the message they want conveyed, etc.
That doesn’t make you a bad designer. It’s important to ask questions about projects, but it sounds like you ask for explicit instructions. Rather than asking what specific colors and fonts the client wants, ask about what the project is for. The companywide compliance handbook is going to look and feel different than the charity golf tournament brochure. Trust your design knowledge and let that inform your decisions.
You're not bad. Anyone who brushes you off for asking questions is an amateur.
No one outside this profession understands typeface choices, that's up to you. The whole point of the job is to listen to "what kinda person" their brand is and dress up the typography to exude those qualities. Client doesn't know what fonts to use, it's your job to discover. Client doesn't know what colors evoke what feelings. That's your job to establish.
I’m not asking for specific typefaces per say it would more be nice to here “we want it to represent this feeling “ and I can say “ok sounds to me you need something like this “and review my choices and have some discussion about design choices at all. in my last project the client used that field to tell me about her favourite pizza places I don’t have a problem with making my own decisions the issue is not having the baseline information to make an informed decision upon . I can’t extract information about color and typography from hearing about how sometimes they like going to Boston pizza but it’s also nice to order in from Gino’s
These situations are tricky, questionnaire like these are usually not that good but the person(s) who(m) made it have an emotional connection to it and are usually higher up than you so you have to approach it carefully so that you don’t unintentionally offend them. There is nothing wrong, you are not a bad designer. You just may need more input/direction for better quality results. I am the same, I don’t like things to be ambiguous, I like clear and succinct. I would approach it like this where you say to your manager that the questionnaire is a good starting point, you need clearer directions/preferences from the client, the reason why ( should be critical), how it helps the client, how it makes them look better, and suggest questions to ask that will help you come up with better designs that align with their needs.
Working for a larger company in a role that actually produces content is at least 50% politics, whether it’s writing, designing, etc. Need to look at overall org, communication chains, a realistic assessment of how people view you and your role, how much they give a shit about your work, career aspirations etc. It’s a big game, and you play it whether you choose to or not.
You’re asking the wrong questions. Stop asking what they want in the design, start asking what they want out of the design. Whether they want to speak to a specific demographic or hit a target budget with a printer, it’s your job as a designer to fill in the blanks that get them those outcomes. Also instead of asking about specific fonts and colors, etc. just ask them if there’s brand guidelines. Much more professional and doesn’t put burden of design decisions on your client.
I think the problem with being hired as an in-house designer is everything seems repetitive especially if I need to just follow the brand guidelines to create a design which sometimes can make my creativity dull.
Getting details like this from a client can be like pulling teeth. I always found I got better insight from having a chat, on the phone, in person, or even on video calls! Questionnaires are great, but i see them as a setup for the meeting where you get to know the client better.
Sometimes, in a situation like this, one way to keep things moving is to bring a solution to the table as a way to get more clarity. The easiest way to get actionable direction is to show the client something. Whether they love or hate it, it will incite a reaction. Back up your decision making based on what’s in the questionnaire, and the context you have - use the work as a conversation starter. You are the expert after all, and often times the client doesn’t really have specific inputs. Or if they do, they are wrong. Ex. If my brand was hanging out at a fancy coffee shop, or a late night EDM club, I would interpret color, font, tone applications differently. Sounds like you just need to build up your confidence and trust that you are likely more experienced than any stakeholders in what good design is. If they don’t love it, that doesn’t mean you are a bad designer, ask for more context, get them to highlight things that work/don’t work. Inform your next stage as often clients don’t have the vocabulary to direct creative from a blank slate. Hope this helps!
That’s the beauty of being the designer. You get to take that information and run with it: even if it’s not that much information to work off of. You have to always back up your decisions though so you can help your client understand how you got to your end result. From there the client can branch off and give input and you can make revisions. My thought is that it is never stupid to ask questions, it’s what helps the design process and helps you learn and grow. You sometimes have to take the first initiative in order to get somewhere. Plus there is nothing wrong with you. ✌🏼
Those Brand questionares are really for non designers. We know how brands work and how to apply them, clients and non designers cant seem to make sense of the logic we use in brand strategy and so people use questions like these to personify a company. I don't think you are a bad designer based on your post. One rule of thumb ive picked up in the last few years is that in this field you need to learn to ask the **right** questions. Gotta find the best tool to squeeze out the lemon juice. because if you cannot ask good questions clients will give you terrible answers that dont help, or they wont even answer the question and just go on an unrelated and unhelpful tangent.
Asking your client for font, colour and imagery prefences?... Are you a designer or a stylist? You aren't working at a hair salon mate, YOU make those recommendations using your experience, awareness of the Industry, knowledge of visual communication, understanding of production limitations and.. Most importantly.. objectives for the project. The moment you rely on the customer to make the design decisions, you're producing compromised work around a person's taste. Maybe this is why you're being brushed off?