Pie in the Sky Design

If you’ve never heard the phrase, “pie in the sky” it was supposedly coined by an American man named Joe Hill in 1911 and was made popular during the second world war where it began to be used figuratively to refer to any prospect of future happiness which was unlikely to ever be realized.

About.com defines graphic design as: “the process and art of combining text and graphics and communicating an effective message in the design of logos, graphics, brochures, newsletters, posters, signs, and any other type of visual communication.”  I’m quite sure the basic definition is the same for web design, except for the usability and interface aspects.

Following along so far or are you asking the question, “What do pies in the sky have to do with design at all?”

Floating Islands

Say you’re fresh out of design school or have a natural talent and have decided to go into the profession of graphic design. You feel ready to take on the challenge of any project and work creative wonders for your upcoming clients. You have amassed a small portfolio that showcases just how creative you can be and flaunts your skills. You manage to land that first project and during that process the client has rejected every one of your fantastic and creative ideas because it, “doesn’t speak” to them, “doesn’t resonate” with their brand, “doesn’t communicate” their message successfully, or they simply can’t understand why you have created a marketing piece for a financial advisor’s website that has a floating island in the middle of the page with paint splatters, a vector office building and birds flying out of it.

This is pie in the sky design – a design that lets you happily explore your creativity and come up with an out-of-the-box concept for a client – that they’ll never use in a million years. And they’ll never use it because instead of actually paying attention, you have just made a pretty picture that doesn’t fit your client at all. Your design, like the pie in the sky, will never be realized. The worst part is if you don’t realize the reasons why it was an absolute failure in a real-word, business and user-interface situation.

If you don’t learn from a scenario like this, you will not evolve into a great designer. At worst, you’ll be upset at the client or discouraged that the client is holding you back from your full potential. Well guess what? Although I do not subscribe to, “the client is ALWAYS right” theory, I realized a long time ago that it is the client who is engaging and paying for the services of the designer. They are paying a designer for their expertise and skills to help visually market their company, product, service or themselves.

So what’s a poor, downtrodden design rock star to do?

If you feel like you’re just not getting the “right” clients or the “right” projects, you might need to change your approach. Until you get some of that real-world experience behind you, it’s hard to know where to start with clients and it’s hard to morph your pie in the sky ideals of design into concepts that are effective.

I recently had someone “critique” (and I use that word loosely) a web design we had done for a client. This particular client’s market consists mainly of teens and young adults who were already aware of the company (or rather the people behind it). We worked very closely with the client to create a finished piece that worked for them and that “spoke to” as well as entertained and engaged their market (for example, their message board is so successful that they had to be moved to a virtual dedicated server). The colors are bright, the graphics are fun and the layout is creative, but not to the point of losing visitors with obtuse or ambiguous navigation. The “critique” was that it was a horrible design that this person couldn’t imagine anyone ever wanting to look at – that it wasn’t “good design” at all. Unfortunately for them, they seem to have never been acquainted with working with real-world clients who need design solutions to meet their needs (not to mention the fact they gave their opinion, not a constructive critique, but I digress). A great, or even just a good designer will use their skills, expertise and talent to find a creative solution to whatever problem the client poses.

There is a way to make a floating island work, but you have to know when and you can’t circumvent one of the most important steps in the real-world design process …

Getting to Know Your Client

A lot of young or inexperienced designers have a tendency to want to jump right in and start creating. While this type of passion and enthusiasm is a great quality to have and will benefit you in the long term, you do need to stop and listen to your client. Get to know them and their business. Ask questions. Find out who their customers, viewers, etc. are and then find out all you can about that particular target market. Your floating island might work for a theme park or even a landscaping company, but it’s not going to get off the ground with a target market of folks who are 45-65 and looking for retirement solutions.

Have Pie … and Eat it Too

It is possible to use your full creative potential and realize project happiness. Take the pie out of the sky and share a slice of it with your client. Here’s how:

• Get to know your client, their business, product, or service as well as the target market they are trying to reach. Find out their goals and expectations. Explore their past – what’s worked and what hasn’t. Go on a fact-finding mission and do research on your own. This is actually part of the process folks, it’s not just making pretty pictures all day long.

• Once the process starts, don’t lock yourself away to create your masterpiece. Keep an open line of communication with your client. After really getting to know everything about them from point one you should be in a really good place to get close to the mark with your concepts. If you don’t, reevaluate and make sure to get good feedback from the client on why the design failed to meet their needs.

• Don’t be afraid to say no or to make suggestions – but back them up with solid explanations. If a client asked for blinking red text or a black background with bright white text on their website, you should know exactly why these things are rather unsavory in web design and explain why in language they can understand. This is also part of your job.

Over time, you will find ways to incorporate all of your best creativity. You will breathe life into the most “unexciting” projects through creative problem solving and your passion to design something that brings happiness to all parties involved. Good luck, and enjoy the process.

Crowdsourcing and the Bargain Basement

When I first stumbled on sites like crowdspring.com and 99designs.com I was appalled to say the least. Now I notice that even istockphoto is offering logos for sale. Most design or business oriented blogs I visit I get bombed with ads from wix.com (aka “build a free Flash website). And last but not least, the existence of template sites like themeforest.net that boast, “2,851 Site Templates and Themes from $1″ add to my dismay of what is happening in the design industry lately.

While I’m fully aware that it’s now open season for “services” and websites such as these and also the fact that they’re not going away any time soon, I would still like to point out some of the inherent problems, both from a client perspective and from a designer perspective.

Competition – for designers

Competition is the key to an open market and design studios as well as freelancers have been participating in competition since the old days. However, turning design itself into the competition is what I have a problem with. I think it was a couple years back that I became aware of a very large and well-known company running a contest to produce a brand identity. This really got me thinking and initially, I was thinking, how could people fall for that? Perhaps it was aimed towards students or art/design colleges? It wasn’t like I’d never heard of the concept before, but it just seemed so odd that a corporation as large as this would run a contest of this nature. I took to the web to search out more information about it. It didn’t take long to find the professional design community up in arms about that particular contest. The “prize” they were offering was essentially a moderate sum for what an actual project of that nature for that level of company would cost. I didn’t follow what the end results were but there you had a multi-million dollar company who crowdsourced their next big brand instead of hiring a professional designer. Hopefully, that is making you all think as well, because if a company of that magnitude could basically stoop to that level, then we can no longer say with 100% confidence, “oh the clients that would go for crowdsourcing, buy a template, or pay $50 (or less!) for a logo aren’t the client’s we would want.”

Some of the sites I go to seem like a desperate free-for-all where “designers” are trying to low-ball bid each other out of the competition for a, “full ecommerce website for under $200″.

One thing I haven’t seen made mention of in any other article addressing the crowdsourcing issue is the fact that designers basically have no rights (except for the simple fact they get to keep what they made – for free – if someone doesn’t pick them). Customers who choose your design can back out on a whim with no repercussions. They can usually also leave you negative feedback, hindering your chances of remaining competitive.

Competition – for clients

For clients, the availability of cheap, pre-made templates or to be able to post a job and have people submit, for free, concepts until they like one might seem like a dream come true. Let me just point out quickly why it’s not:

1. You have very little to no interaction with the designer. This is a large part of the design process and it’s worth paying for a professional to guide you and listen to your input during the process (by the way, design is a process that requires skill and talent, it’s not a commodity). With these services you may never actually see what you truly want, and end up just settling. Would you, “just settle” in other areas of your business?
2. Buying a cheap, ready-made template does not differentiate your business in the marketplace. Unique IS valuable. If 500 other businesses are using the same template (especially if they’re in your industry – and note that most template sites are categorized by industry) imagine what a potential web-surfing customer might do after seeing 10 very similar, if not exact, websites? Remember the old saying about first impressions? You have about 3 seconds to make one on the web.
3. Contracts. What type of contracts, or lack thereof, is happening out in this free-for-all marketplace? I recently ran across a site called Fiverr where people will do just about anything for $5. And yes, design was on there. You could be “purchasing” a rights-managed piece of vector art and be totally unaware of it – or simply getting clip art, or a stolen or knock off design. When you hire a professional, they will have you sign an agreement before starting work and this agreement should actually protect both parties. I noted 99designs has a “100% money back guarantee” – which basically means that if a customer doesn’t like what they see after posting a project, they don’t pay for anything and therefore any “designer” doesn’t get paid either. Sounds like a great deal for the customer, right?! This would be like driving your car into several auto repair shops, where you state, “I need a new engine parts – install those for me, show me what you got!” Each mechanic then works on the car and installs various parts under the pretense that you MIGHT choose to pay them. Do you see how ridiculous a notion that is? Just like a mechanic is trained to work on an engine, a programmer is trained to write code or a designer is trained to take a vague concept and turn it into a visual representation of your company, service, or product in order to give YOU the competitive edge.

Going Rates – Here vs. There

Someone recently pointed out that a, “3rd world designer” can make more money doing one logo for $50 than everyone else in their community does for a whole month. While that’s a fabulous notion that someone can make a living to support themselves in their country for $50 a month that does not fly in North America. $50 barely buys us a couple bags of groceries. Freelancers and small design firms are stuck paying for their own health insurance (anywhere from $150 a month on up), rent or mortgage, fees for the latest software (I’m sorry, but odds are, the people cranking out templates in some of the countries overseas are probably not using an authorized copy of Adobe Creative Suite) … the list of expenses just goes on and on. With that and the actual talent, knowledge and many other qualities it takes to be a designer, the rates in our industry have steadily risen over the years to become somewhat standardized hourly wages.

I understand all about global economy and as I said, I think that’s great that someone could make an exceptional wage in their country for doing this type of work but it doesn’t seem to be a two-way street. With more clients choosing to pay the lowest fee possible for their projects those of us in countries that have higher cost of living and therefore a higher rate for services are getting the short end of the stick.

Here is a true example of the effects of this. About 5 years ago we encountered a potential client who, after contacting us, explained to us that they paid to have a site developed by a company located in India. They had trouble contacting them (vast time difference, response delays), trouble understanding them (language barrier), and at the end of it all had a half built site they were not happy with. They explained that they paid a large sum of money and have no legal recourse (overseas – good luck enforcing any agreement) and they need to get their site functional as soon as possible. While I sympathized with their story and current situation I was shocked by what they did next – they asked us for a drastically discounted rate because they had, “paid all this money out already and didn’t get anything!” Since when did the responsibility to fix a project for next to nothing, simply because the potential client got ripped off, fall to the next design company they called?

After hearing this same story for about the 10th time it got pretty old and I knew things were changing. All but a couple of these actually types of contacts ended up becoming good paying clients. The rest disappeared after being presented with a realistic quote to fix their issues. I actually considered that a GOOD THING! If people want something at a vast discount or free then they are not worth the time of a professional because they do not value that professional’s knowledge, skills, talent, education, real life work experience or problem solving (I could go on and on).

A Designer’s Job

Besides all of what I’ve mentioned already, what is happening in the industry kind of exemplifies to me how so many people have forgotten (or simply don’t care anymore) that design shouldn’t be a commodity and that part of the job of a designer is to use design to help a client differentiate their business and therefore have a competitive edge in the market place. Most importantly, part of a designer’s job is to educate the client as to why GOOD, QUALITY, UNIQUE design IS important to them and why it’s WORTH PAYING FOR. Sites such as those mentioned here go against all of that and although plenty of people are now justifying their very existence, it is still not the designer’s making the money – it’s the site owners. The designers are being used as cheap, expendable labor.

So what’s a pro to do?

The best we can do, as professionals, is to keep doing our jobs and producing the best work we can for a reasonable wage (and by reasonable I mean industry standard). We must continue to elevate the design industry once again while educating both clients and potential clients on the value of our services. We must learn to be savvy in our industry and learn to avoid those who would want us to do free or speculative work if we have chosen not to take the route that leads to the “bargain basement”.

A final couple of notes …

I felt it was important to add that “free” IS a choice open to designers, not a requirement. Over the course of a year, my company typically does two pro-bono projects of our choosing (usually for worthy non-profit organizations, a local farm or a green start-up business). Limiting such projects, making them “special”, and choosing the organization/company puts a different spin on the term, free. These types of projects can create good press, good referrals, give you a sense of giving back to your community and a sense of doing something positive. To me, they have nothing to do with anything I’ve mentioned above and perfectly illustrate an acceptable way to do free.

Additionally, we also offer free stock imagery on Deviant Art. Why? Because I take a lot of photos and I enjoy taking them (and it doesn’t take me that long to upload them). Some I actually do post to istockphoto or bigstockphoto, but some I put on DA for anyone to use with only one stipulation – a credit back to JVMediaDesign.com. Again, it’s a personal choice I’m making and what I get out of it is seeing all the cool things people are doing with the stock (and in a way, I feel like it’s encouraging creativity in the community) and (an added bonus I’ve discovered) some additional search engine exposure.

Finally, I didn’t write this article to particularly bash the websites and practices mentioned, but more to just point out observations and illustrate some examples. I hope that at the very least it shows the other side of these issues enough to spur additional thought for anyone who reads it.

About the Author

Sherry Holub is the Creative Director and a certified design rock star at JV Media Design.

Designing For Usability

With screwdriver in hand, an electrician anchors a light plate. Though his utility belt contains many tools, he applies the screwdriver by purpose, employing it according to its usability in relation to the task at hand. When illustrating a certain element in the theory of relativity, a physics instructor utilities a sponge mat, a hardwood counter top, and a golf ball. Each object is chosen for its specific value and usability to the illustration.

Any tool, object, or idea that can help forward a goal is usable. Yet usable does not declare the level of usability. A carpenter can home a nail with a rock, but as an efficient hammer the usability of the rock is very limited. We see then a principle: usability must be measured by effectiveness, efficiency, and elegance.

In its practical sense, usability denotes how well a product meets the physical or mental application requirements of the user. In a theoretical sense, usability is the science and art of design that is applied to the development of tools, objects, text, language, and ideas. Everything has a purpose. How well it suits that purpose is determined by the measure of applicable usability. The study of usability is an effort to evaluate the practical success of a given idea, tool, or application.

Applying the study of usability to the process of internet based human to computer interaction – web access:

It starts with accessibility. Whether addressing the point-n-click front end, or the behind the scenes database an inaccessible website lacks any measurable interactive usability. For this reason, accessibility is the primary prerequisite of website usability. When content fails to open, when the links crash, and when the flash player freezes a website must be considered inaccessible and unusable.

If accessibility is not a stopping point, it is a starting point. Dr. and author Jakob Nielsen of useit.com suggests five major areas for gauging website usability:

• Learnability: encompasses the ease of operation. How intuitive is the website? How quickly can a user grasp the functions and procedures of the available applications and features? We live in an impatient world. Frustrated users are quick to exit a difficult website.

• Efficiency: is the ordered method of applications, the system response speeds, and the accuracy of the information. This also includes adaptability to the skill level of the user. A slow, feature limited website lacks any valuable usability.

• Memorability: effective website design seeks to gain return visitors. A complex user interface will be more difficult to learn and remember. Casual users have neither time nor patience for long-term web navigation memory requirements. Memory intensive environments hamper website usability.

• Error tolerance: this is the control, anticipation, and ease of recovery from both user and system errors. A usable website must help users find their way out of missteps and errors.

• Subjective satisfaction: is the desired and expected yield for having visited a website. Disappointed users will not return. They came searching; never let them leave empty handed.

Designing for usability.

Learn to evaluate what works. Some websites are cluttered but usable. Others are visually stunting yet worthless in usability terms. Some focus on corny jokes, dismal cartoons, and snappy one-liners; many visit and use them. Others concentrate on detailed information exchanges, precision databases, and unlimited answers; no one visits.

Unless you are the sole provider of a given value, website usability is the primary source of internet survival.

Usable websites attract visitors, increase user confidence, deliver efficient information, lessen site maintenance costs, eliminate frustration, promote products and ideas, enhance the reputation of the site owners, and grow.

Unusable websites frustrate customers, waste time, increase support and training expenses, delay services, ruin the reputation of the site owners, and eventually fail and fade.

About the Author

Different solutions are limited; design with usability at the forefront of your mind or risk creating something that doesn’t achieve it’s objectives.