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Tuesday, June 10, 2008

How to work with creative-types


Everyone has a talent for something. Everyone has the ability to create. Talent and creativity are things that everyone is born with, to varying degrees. In terms of visual creativity, some people are attuned to seeing the possibilities. Some can’t draw their way out of a paper bag. Most people fall somewhere in the middle.

I cannot count the number of times that clients have approached me with a project and said, appologetically, “I’m sorry, I’m not a designer. Can you help me with this?” 

OK, that would be like me going to my doctor and saying, “I'm sorry, I tried to fix this ruptured spleen at home, but I’m not a surgeon.” Hey, I don’t know my spleen from my appendix, so who knows what I would have been taking a stab at. (Sorry for the gratutious pun!)

The thing about designers (and all creatives), is that they have a feel for what solution best supports a message, and hopefully have had some advanced education and experience so that they can make good decisions. 

Just like when you go to the doctor, you may have a feel for what the problem is, but you can be better treated if you outline the symptoms. The creative process works the same way. If you tell your designer where to “operate” you may not be treating the real problem. If you tell your designer where it hurts, then they can come up with a solution that tackles the problem directly.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your blog is very creative, when people read this it widens our imaginations.

Laura said...

Why, thank you so much for the very kind words, Phillippine Lotto Result! AND, thank you for the WONDERFUL, live example of an upcoming "Marketing Tip of the Day:"

Your comment, while flattering, is ubiquitous. I could delete it, but there's a learning opportunity here. I posted it as an illustration of how creative spammers are getting with planting their links across the internet, thus artificially increasing their page ranking.

It is my hope that this blog will be of relevance to real people who enjoy real marketing tips. My imagination has been widened to offer some suggestions on how to prevent spam. ~ Thank you!