Over the years I have had many client experiences and I have lots of advice about lots of things. Which I’m happy to share with you (just ask!). However, there is one situation that I’ve run into more than once and have yet to find the solution. Can you help me?

What do you do when you have a client who doesn’t know what he wants? He’s perfectly pleasant and professional, but when presented with some design options after filling out a design brief and meeting about his project says something to the effect of:

I want you to know that I appreciate all the work you are doing, but the first two logos are not working for me. The third is closer, but I’m not in love with it. I wish I could guide you more about what I am looking for, but I’m not sure what I want. I think that it’s important for me to really love a logo and connect with it, but I am not sure what I can do to help you make it happen.  Please let me know what can I do to help the process. Should I do more research?

I have no problem with the client asking this. As a professional designer, one of the things people hire me to do is help guide them toward a solution that they may not have known they wanted. I don’t depend on a client to come to me with a fully realized vision (although some do) and I see it as a big part of my job to draw out the information I need to make the client happy. But in this case, the client is stuck, and I’m not sure what to do to free him.

Suggestions? Thoughts? Opinions? I’d love to hear them.

I’ve been very lucky to work with some amazingly talented people over the years. One of my favorite surprises is to have my path cross with someone’s that I used to know and find them going well.

Through Facebook, I recently got back in touch with Teafly, and I was thrilled to see the beautiful work she’s selling at Etsy. If you’re looking for some colorful, whimsical art, check her out: http://teafly.etsy.com

It is standard practice in design to offer three initial design ideas to a client. It doesn’t happen every time or on every project, but it happens enough that if you are a designer, you should know this rule:

If you do three designs, and there’s one you love, one you like, and one you think is crap, nine times out of ten your client will go with the one you think is crap.

Does this mean your client is stupid? Absolutely not. Does this mean that you need to love your third design as much as your other two? Absolutely.

I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I won’t even try. Check out decor8 and the great post Spool Design {& 5 tips for a better shop}. Highly recommended.

I’m late to the party on this, but I just found 20/20: 20 designers in 20 minutes from AIGA. From the site:

About this video

Debbie Millman introduces 20 designers who were invited to show in their own unique way—and in just 60 seconds—how design and business intersect in their practice.

The designers, in order of appearance: Rodrigo Corral, Moira Cullen, Kristina DiMatteo, Julia Hoffman, Kenna Kay, Michael Ian Kaye, Chip Kidd, Josh Liberson and Ethan Trask, Vernon Lockhart, Christine Mau, Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit, Bennett Peji, Brian Rea (represented by a papier-mâché doppelganger), Petter Ringbom, Craig Swanson, Lucille Tenazas, Khoi Vinh, Petrula Vrontikis.

The different approaches the designers take, from serious to sincere, amusing to avant garde, are so interesting. Watch now!

Here’s something a little off the beaten path for this blog, but it was so useful that I couldn’t resist linking to it. For Facebook users, this is a must read.

Check out 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know. Included in this article are:

1. Use Your Friend Lists
2. Remove Yourself From Facebook Search Results
3. Remove Yourself From Google
4. Avoid the Infamous Photo/Video Tag Mistake
5. Protect Your Albums
6. Prevent Stories From Showing Up in Your Friends’ News Feeds
7. Protect Against Published Application Stories
8. Make Your Contact Information Private
9. Avoid Embarrassing Wall Posts
10. Keep Your Friendships Private

If you’re not a Facebook user and have been thinking about it, this may help settle your nerves about opening your life up to strangers. Be careful, though: there’s a reason it’s also known as Crackbook. It’s addictive — enroll at your own risk.

I’ve been working very hard, which hasn’t left much time for blog posts. I’ve decided to start posting quick tips here — the solutions to problems I’ve run across in my work. Some of you are working designers, and these tricks may be helpful to you. Some of you are design aficionados, in which case these kinds of posts may not be interesting , but I’m working up a new feature for you, too, in the near feature.

Problem: You create a JPG image in Photoshop that has the same background color as you’ve specified for your web page. The goal is to make the image background blend into the page, so that the image is not boxed.

The page looks great in Firefox (and other browsers), but when you open Safari, the background colors don’t match. You double check — the hexadecimal codes are the same. What gives?

Solution: Check to see if your Photoshop JPG has saved a color profile with the file. Safari, unlike other browsers, will respect this setting and actually change the colors in your image to match your specifications. It’s pretty sophistiated of Safari, but it’s usually not what you want when you’re designing a web page. Save all of your Photoshop JPGs without an attached profile, and you should fix this problem.

ETA: Here are some example screenshots:

JPG image on color background in Firefox

JPG image on color background in Safari, saved with profile

JPG image on color background in Safari, saved WITHOUT profile

You can see these pages at http://www.leslietanedesign.com/example/ (with profile) and http://www.leslietanedesign.com/example/test2.html (without profile).

Thanks to an excellent client (Massachusetts 4H) who kept an open mind, a fantastic writer (Julie Roads - Writing Roads) who brought me in right at the beginning of the project, and (ahem) my design, I won an American Design Award for this poster:

From GDUSA:

2008 AMERICAN GRAPHIC DESIGN AWARD WINNERS
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OUR WINNERS

This year, roughly 1,000 pieces were presented in our annual from among more than 10,000 entries, the fifth straight stunning year in which this milestone level of entries has been exceeded. Slowly but surely, over four decades, our Annual has become a meeting place for the best and the brightest.

Media diversity abounds: print and collateral, package design and in-store graphics, advertising and sales promotion, invitations and announcements, direct mail and catalogs, magazines and books, broadcast and film and — surprise, surprise — more internet and interactive pieces than ever. Diverse, too, are the organizations and clients: Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups, consumer and business-to-business ventures, political and religious organizations, governments and trade associations, universities and cultural institutions.

Moreover, the winning pieces come from many of the established creative minds and organizations of our time, and even more who are striving to excel, to gain recognition and to find a deserved place in the sun. This is a particularly satisfying mix, since GDUSA is tempermentally welcoming and accessible to a broad range of work and voices in an often insular industry.

View all of the winners here.

Thanks to Julie, for brainstorming this idea with me, and especially to the client, for letting us run with the idea.

I just started reading Design Mom recently, and I’m hooked. Go check it out for posts on “where design and motherhood intersect by a designer/art director and mother of five”, deals and discounts in the Marketplace, and a great contest, Twelve Days of Christmas Giveaways.

Enjoy!

Quick — what is this?

If you said a yellow fetus floating next to three red blobs, you’re in agreement with my mother and me.

If you said a drink called “The Normandy,” you’re correct.

The usually redoubtable New York Times Magazine used this picture in its weekly food article, this one about Calvados. It’s hard for me to believe that someone found this image appetizing.

What do you think? Are we seeing things?

These selected covers are from the table of contents from Newsweek’s post presidential issue. Here are some of the things that are fascinating to me about this selection:

1. Hillary Clinton’s portrait cover is fairly close to the camera, followed by Michelle Obama’s slightly farther away portrait, and Cindy McCain’s most remote portrait. Sarah Palin’s portrait photo is so large/close up that it’s actually larger than life.
2. Once Sarah Palin entered the race, she appeared on no less than three covers.
3. John McCain is rarely smiling in his cover photos. Barack Obama is smiling widely in three of his covers.
4. John McCain is significantly taller than Sarah Palin on their joint cover. However, most photos show the two candidates as much closer in height. For example:
   
5. The cover of Barack Obama is the only one completely in black and white (emphasis mine)
6. The symbols shown with the candidates are: McCain: Naval uniform; Palin: Rifle; Obama: Flag.

Is there a discernible bias here? I find this especially interesting because I designed covers for Newsweek in 1995 during the Clinton/Dole race. We were tasked with remaining absolutely objective, including not retouching Bill Clinton’s cover photos (he had noticably bad skin and bloodshot eyes with dark circles underneath), and making sure that the matching covers of the presidential/vice-presidential teams were the same size. I am sure that those directives remain today.

I think this collection shows how hard it is to design in a completely neutral way, especially when the subject is so loaded for the designers. I think the Newsweek designers are excellent. I also think that there’s a lot beyond what meets the eye.

See more 2008 election covers: http://www.newsweek.com/id/166340

David Airey asked me to participate in his thought-provoking series “How Designers Charge Their Clients.” He’s asked designers from all over the world, with different specialites and amounts of experience, for their working practices. I’m very flattered to be included in Part 2 of the three part series. Check it out for some very interesting insights. And thank you, David, for including me!

I love failblog.org. If you could use a laugh, check it out. I’ve posted some of my favorite design related fails below. Bad design always reminds me that good design really is important. Some of the best design is the kind that you hardly even see, or at least notice. You wouldn’t give that Vermont Maple Syrup Sign a second glance if it was designed correctly.

see more pwn and owned pictures

see more pwn and owned pictures

see more pwn and owned pictures

see more pwn and owned pictures

I can’t seem to resist designing these desktops. My “Thanks Gratitude Wonder” is up there with 49 more free desktop designs from designers all over the world.

Thanks again for including me, Smashing! www.smashingmagazine.com

via cnn.com

Now that’s what I call an information graphic. Clear, concise, easy to read and understand, and it includes all of the information you need. CNN really nailed it with this Flash-based design.

And it’s a total sign of how geeky I am that I was so blown away by graphics on one of the most historic nights of my life. I try not to be political on this blog, but today is a good day.

Do Robert Altman’s films inspire unusually good design? It seems so. The promo fliers for the local Altman film festival caught my eye recently:

That’s what I call excellent one color design! If you know about design production, you can tell that there must have been some severe constraints put on this project: one color printing, no bleeds, an unusual size and apparently no budget for artwork. However, nothing about this piece feels forced to me at all. It’s arresting, easy to read (a real feat considering how much information is on there), and memorable. I wish I knew who the designer is, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to find out.

While researching this poster I came across a couple of other back and white Altman posters which were beautifully designed. It’s always nice to be reminded that great design doesn’t require large printing budgets or fancy computer tricks.

Polish poster design for Altman’s Three Women by Mieczyslaw Wasilewski, 1978. Via theartofposter.com

A poster concept for the Robert Altman Film Festival by julyanne. Via contentshot.com

When I go to the car dealership I’m often intimidated talking to the mechanics. Not because of anything they do, but because I don’t know anything about cars. I know what it feels and sounds like when my car is running well, and I know when something is off, but I’m always hard pressed to describe it, and I feel pretty foolish trying to duplicate the grinding sound I’m hearing when I turn left.

This often happens to my new clients when they’re talking to me about their design ideas. They don’t speak the lingo, and they feel awkward talking to someone who specializes in it. Of course, I don’t expect my clients to have a firm grasp of design principles or design terminology. Why would they need me if they do? I don’t even expect them to be able to verbalize what they’re looking for in their design. It’s my job to figure out what they like and dislike and to coax the design of their dreams out of their heads and onto the page or screen.

To this end, I will sometimes ask a series of questions seemingly unrelated to the design job at hand. Once you move someone out of “talking design” they often get more comfortable and are able to reveal what they really like. Here are some of my standards:

“What are your favorite magazines?”
This isn’t as straightforward as it seems, as people will often read magazines that they don’t particularly like the look of because they’re interested in the content. It gives you a general trend, though, and it can show what’s more important to the client — design or content.

“What color is the favorite room of your house?”
If distance permits, I always prefer to meet the client at her workplace so that I can get a feel for her style.

“If I looked in your closet, which three colors would I find the most of?”

“What kind of car do you drive? Do you think it suits you?”

“What are your three favorite websites?”

The answers to these questions provide a jumping off point to talk design, and often give me enough information to start on the first pass of a design. What do you think? If you answered these questions, would it give me a good idea of your design aesthic? Can you think of something else I should be asking?

We’ve been having a 1970’s revival in graphic design for the past few years. Orange, brown and yellow? 70’s color revival. Graphic patterns, featuring colored circles and swirls? 70’s revival.

1970's era design, via http://www.berting.nl/seventies/

2008 image, via istockphoto (http://www.istockphoto.com)

As in all things design, things change. And, as much as I hoped this wouldn’t happen, the 70s are making way for the 80s (again). I was in high school in the 1980s and the fashions and styles of the times are burned into my memory in a horrific mishmash of leg warmers, thick shoe laces, Bon Jovi, big hair, belted oversize shirts, pegged pants, neon, and acid wash jeans. See below — and please note, this is NOT me. (If you’re a real glutton for punishment, check out the Flickr group 80s.)

http://flickr.com/photos/hepe/483361489/

Why do I think 80s are on their way back? Here’s just a taste of what you can find in stores today:

Target and Urban Outfitters

Urban Outfitters

So what does this mean for design? I’m forecasting jewel colors (sapphire blues, ruby reds, emerald greens), a return of thicker typefaces from the ultrathin ones we’ve seen recently, neon (I hope I’m wrong about this!), drop shadows and outlines. Here’s what graphic design looked like, circa the 1980s:

I’ll be very interested to see how this plays out in the next three or four years. Done right, the best of the 80s could translate into new, interesting design. After all, ten years ago few people were looking at 70s design (avocado green appliances! bell bottoms! orange!!) and longing for its return.

What do you think? Are there styles (design, fashion, home or otherwise) that you’re hoping will come back? Are there pinstriped jeans in your future? Are you too young to have fully experienced 1980s fashion and are looking forward to a nice pair of Ray Ban aviators? Or are the 80s a bad dream?