What Do You Mean by “Best”?

A client commented to me the other day, “I think I get some of your best work from you,” right after he’d commented that my “best” work was at the back of my portfolio. I was a bit taken aback; a design professional tends not to think in those terms. It got me thinking. What he actually meant was, “I like these best.” But what someone likes is subjective. Design, done well, is far less subjective than it is practical. So what do we mean by “best”?

To a professional in almost any field, “best” means “executed perfectly and fulfills its purpose.” I alluded to that idea in this post about crafting a design that is right for a particular audience — not too cheap, not too elegant — and the effect on sales of getting it right. There’s a common misconception among non-designers that the graphic designer is an “Artist” (note the capital “A”). As such, he or she is assumed to be  highly sensitive to any form of criticism and defensive of an imagined “artistic integrity.” I’m not saying there aren’t designers like that, just as in any field (even engineers can be prima donnas), but this particular idea comes from the popular characterization of artists as vaguely or highly neurotic zealots for their personal artistic vision. In the first place, that’s unfair to most of the professional artists I know, who are often the sanest, most pragmatic people you’d care to meet. In the second place, it highlights the fact that “designer” as a profession tends to be misunderstood.

A designer doesn’t create a logo, a poster or a brochure as a solo effort. It’s not a personal communication from the designer to some vague potential audience. Graphic design exists for only one purpose: to send the client’s message to the client’s publics in a way that will create the maximum response. There are a thousand points of craftsmanship that go into an effective design, but they are all there to focus attention on the message and avoid (or remove) anything that distracts from it.

The creative part of the designer’s job often involves coming up with ideas the client may never have thought of, or taking the original idea and turning it into something far beyond expectations, but the important point is that a design is not the designer’s personal message; it’s the client’s. Some clients, being nice people, are nervous about saying a design concept isn’t really what they had in mind. They don’t want to offend the “artist.” This can seriously slow the design process, which depends heavily on open and frank communication. So I almost always tell a new client, “Please do not be careful of my artistic sensibilities. I don’t have any. The work is for you, not me.” There is no scarcity of design ideas, and I’d be the last person to be sensitive about one.

The amazing and prolific John McWade (the “designer’s designer”) posted two articles on his Design Talk blog a while back that illustrate the point very well. The first, titled “The non-design design” presents two ads for a Jeep that someone wanted to sell on Craigslist. One is “conservative” and other distinctly playful. He poses the question “Which ad do you think sold the Jeep?” A few days later, a follow-up post titled “Which ad sold the Jeep?” gives the answer and, more important from a designer’s perspective, the reason why that ad, rather than the other, made the sale. (Note, in particular, the comment about ad layouts for car dealerships. As horrible as they might seem from an artistic standpoint, they are best for achieving their only purpose: selling cars.)

The “best” design is the one that is most effective for that client, for that campaign, for that product.

 

3 thoughts on “What Do You Mean by “Best”?

  1. Sensible. But one thing I sometimes find hard: when I have to make a graphic element that comes more or less directly from my art. I.e. an element that has my fingerprint on it, my artistic identification, more than my graphic design abilities to communicate someone else’s message. Something that is distinctly me.

    I find this incredibly hard, I never feel it is good enough, though the rest of the design is fine, and the client might be over the moon. I guess you pinpoint it: that is the part that touches my “artistic sensibilities” and that is a sore point.

    My aunt is an artist, and some of her pieces she cannot sell, only give away. Her rationale is that she cannot “sell her soul”, but have no problem giving the pieces away. It sounds wacky, but to me it makes sense.

    So then my question to you: what work do you do for your own enjoyment? Do you sketch, repair cars, paint, design font faces, plant tomatoes?

    1. For my own enjoyment? — I work! Work is my primary relaxation. Beyond that… there are so many things.

      When I’m not working, I play with design ideas or experiment in Photoshop. I beta test (most of) the Creative Suite, I write, I photograph anything that will stand still long enough and I volunteer as a designer, writer and photographer for my church and non-profit groups. On my to-do list is a photo blog.

      I’ve been a big fan of space program(s) since I read Werner von Braun’s “To Other Worlds” at the age of 8 (summer of 1956), and I geek out on science in general, so I often hang out on NASA and ESA websites, arstechnica.com and similar locales. “Cosmos” is on my must-watch-online-every-week list.

      I’m always, always actively learning, which has probably been my single biggest pure enjoyment across all of the last 66 years, unless it’s teaching: passing on what I’ve learned.

Leave a Reply to Wonderful article. Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.