3 Tips for Providing Your Designer with Feedback

Working with a designer should be a fun and engaging experience. All design is a process of research, sketching, designing, refining and redesigning sometimes, until you reach a suitable product. Graphic design like logos and websites are a product of a relationship - you can definitely tell when its good. 

1. Do your research.

Not only do you want to properly research the designer you are working with, you should look into your competition locally and nationally to see what you are in for. The designers website, social media accounts and other online presences should look high end they should have recent projects reflecting their skills. 

Its a benefit to research your competition to see what they are doing in their business and identity. You don't want to unknowingly copy existing logos or fonts, and its also good to see what they are doing that you do better. 

Doing a little research ahead of your design meeting can also help you have a better first conversation. It can help you see what is out there and start to visualize where your business fits into the world.

2. Take the time to communicate.

Designers are not mind readers. Yes, they too should be doing a fair amount of research to learn about you and your business. But its not solely on them for pulling a logo out of thin air. Have a real conversation with your designer and provide them with the emotional connection you feel with your business. Let them know who your clients are, how your sales are and where you are going in the next 5 years. It takes a lot of information to build a logo and identity, so, don't be shy.

When the designer comes back with designs, take the time to have a conversation about them. Think about them, read them and put them up on a wall to look at. Put them under your pillow at night. Design is usually a pretty big investment and your thoughtful feedback is really, really important. 

Designers don't expect you to come in speaking their language, but you do need to give feedback that is useful to move forward with. An example:

“I hate option three and I love option 1 and 2. Great work!”

This feedback is almost useless, and I'll explain why. I don't need a pat on the back for work you are paying me to do. I need to know WHAT you hate and love. And WHY. Its helpful to give feedback on the most obvious things, so start there. Leaving your personal preferences out of the conversation is key - because your customers may not have the same taste as you. If you are past the logo stage in business and working on something like a brochure, and have an established brand identity, your personal preference has no stake in the game. 

Color, fonts chosen, icons used, style of the illustration are all great things to comment on. Those are things people have an opinion on right away and it can open the conversation into more meaningful discussions. Like if your business started on the back of a buffalo in the the wild, and it should have a buffalo represented... Tell your designer those things up front, it will be so good I promise. 

3. Send feedback like a professional.

Feedback is really important. Did I say that already? Okay well, it is. Also being professional and courteous about giving your feedback is important. 9 times out of 10 feedback includes important changes to the design or content like photo swaps or new copy if you are dealing with a brochure or publication, for instance. 

The worst thing you can do is assume your designer has time to go through 15 emails to extract single photos. They do not. And you are paying for that time, so its more efficient all around to get your ducks in a row. 

1. When you get feedback, do not reply with off-the-cuff feedback. Wait a couple of days to reply with comments so your feedback isn't in sporadic emails throughout the following days and nights of "OH I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS."

2. DO REPLY with an immediate, "Got it! Thank you, I will be reviewing this for a couple of days. I'll get back to you."

3. Compile any written comments and ideas you have right on the PDF using Comments or create a single email to write your comments in as you review the design.

4. Compile photos you want to send on your computer into a folder. You can do the same when working from a phone.

5. Also add to this email any website examples, Pinterest boards, or random photo examples.

Basically, put it all together for them. They have created you a thoughtful design, its only respectful to do the same when providing corrections and feedback. It really only takes a bit of organization. 

To sum it all up... Be specific. And say what you mean. Your experience will be so great if you can start with conversations and think of hiring a designer as hiring an ally that wants to help you do even better! When your relationship with your designer is open and good, you can accomplish anything in marketing basically. Thanks for reading! 

Video Post: Take a Walk Through My Sketchbook

I recently went on vacation to the Southwest and Mexico, and it was much needed inspiration! I live in Northern Michigan currently, and its cold and snowy here. I grew up here, so its no surprise or anything when its cold, it just isn't super inspirational to me anymore. So when I can get away and visit friends in warmer climates, I jump at the chance. 

My friends, boyfriend Josh and I stowed away to Puerto Peñasco in Sonora, Mexico for a long weekend. We drove there which was super cool - we crossed the Sonoran Desert to end up at the Sea of Cortez. Quite a stark contrast! Love experiencing travel by car. 

I had decided that I would try to sketch and fill a whole Field Notes pocket book on the trip, and it turned out to be the best idea! I sketched our experiences every day as they happened and got a lot of good practice and fun designs to use. 

I recorded this video tour of the sketchbook to explain some of the funny things and oddities of our vacation. I already miss Arizona and Mexico, and especially my homies Chris and Lindsey. 

Platinum Noir Custom Grand Opening Shirts

Let's print!

Back in June my friend Shirley had a grand opening party for her new clothing store Platinum Rags. She ordered some shirts, I ordered a new screen and we got down to biz. 

Graphic Design Glossary for Clients

Graphic Design Glossary for Clients

You’ve seen her around town: running between grabbing lattes and press checking at the local printer. She’s hip, always laughing and tweeting the day away. Using hashtags and embedding images. You envy her savvy. You dread the day that you have to call her up for some social media consulting, her and all her tech savvyness, because you’re afraid she’ll be speaking the lingo — and you won’t understand a thing. 

Agonize no more, small business owner. This glossary is for you. 

In these info-snacks lies the key to decoding all those mysterious technology related words you quickly pretend you know in conversation. No more Google-ing the latest slang, you can “bye Felicia” those urban dictionary definitions forever. 

Graphic Design Glossary

1. Adobe Creative Suite This is the umbrella term for the suite of programs designers use to create all their magic. The suite includes Adobe Acrobat, Abobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, Lightroom, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Bridge, and more. 

2. Branding is the system used to market a company, person or thing. The system is based on the logo, mission, values, colors, fonts, imagery all used to describe and represent said company, person or thing.

3. CMS stands for Content Management System. It is the interface you use to manage the contents of your website, blog, shop and galleries. 

4. CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) This is the four color process print items are based on. 

5. Comp/Mock-up is a rough draft of a design, it shows you fundamental design and functionality. But DO NOT freak out if it doesn’t look completely finished. Because it’s not.

6. Copywriting/Copy refers to the text provided for a website or print publication. Also applies to posters, social media, blogging. 

7. DPI (Dots Per Inch) This explains the image sharpness. 

8. Facebook Cover This is the larger image on your business Facebook page used to show off your store or merch. The smaller image is called a Profile Image. 

9. Font A complete set of letters, numbers, marks in a specific style and family, like Helvetica or Times New Roman. (But never, ever Comic Sans.) 

10. GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) These little buddies pack a whopping 256 colors in their format, and support animations. Currently used commonly on Facebook in memes. 

11. Graphic Design An umbrella term that includes: logos, web design, publication design, photography, typography, layout, production, wayfinding & signage, advertising, motion graphics & animation, illustration, creative writing, copywriting, brainstorming, research, prepress & more. Magic and jiggerypokery are sometimes also involved. 

12. Hashtag These buddies are best incorporated in Instagram and Twitter posts. A hashtag is a pound sign on your keyboard. It is used in front of words and phrases to categorize and organize posts so they are easily searchable and clickable. Appropriate hashtags depend on your posts, but include things like location, style, color and other one word details. If you are a craft brewery, your hashtags might be something like #craftbeer, #drinklocal, #craftbrewery, #ilovecraftbeer. 

13. Hierarchy A ranking of information. In graphic design, this refers to Headlines, sub-titles and body copy as visually organized on the page.

14.  Icons are simplified graphic imagery that explains text or replaces it totally. 

15.  Illustration is an image that is drawn by hand or on a computer. It helps to explain text and concepts. 

16. JPEG (Joint Photographic Electronic Group) A common way of compressing pixels. One of the most common file types. Photos are saved this way from our digital cameras.  

17. Lettering is the process of forming letters in an illustrated way. Duh.

18. Logo A logo is a mark or icon often paired with text that identifies a person, place, thing, or company. 

19. PDF (Portable Document Format) Another very common file format, PDF embed images, fonts and more compressed into a printable or instantly readable file. Printers typically request PDF because they can be made press quality and don’t require additional assets to print from. 

20. PNG (Portable Network Graphics) Provides a lossless compression, which is great for Facebook and online applications. 

21. Raster files are bitmapped images that do lose quality and definition as scaled. 

22. Resolution determines output quality. High Resolution means there are more pixels per inch, Low Resolution means there are far fewer pixels per inch. You need high resolution for print, and lower resolution for web.

23. RGB (Red, Green, Blue) This is the three colors screen color is based on.

24. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is a website-related term that refers to the searchability of your site. If you have all photos and no words on your site, your site will not really be optimized for search engines to find you. Do your site a favor: write up some relevant content that Google will love crawling, and watch your site rise in the ranks. 

25. Social Share Image This is an image for a brand or company that is useful, funny, branded, philanthropic or anything shareable on social media. 

26. Square Space Site Square Space is a platform that anyone can purchase and use to set up a website. It is managed through a CMS system so that all aspects can be updated easily by the owner or designer. Square Space uses templates and customization to set up a site with no coding needed. 

27. Typography is the art of moving letters, numbers, quotes and more around on a page until it looks pleasing. 

28. Vector files are scaleable without any loss. They retain their crispness until rasterized. 

29. Web Development The process of developing a site once design has been decided on. Usually involved data transfer, coding and testing.

30. Widget Widgets are add-ons to websites primarily designed in Wordpress. They include things like Booking Calendars, Instant Quote Calculators, Contact forms and more. 

31. Wire frame is a website first step that gives basic layout and functionality of a website. (No actual wire required, or indeed used.)

32. Wordpress Site Wordpress is a platform that anyone can sign up for and use to set up a website. It is managed through a CMS system so that all aspects can be updated easily by the owner or designer. Wordpress uses templates and customization to set up a site with no coding needed. Wordpress began as a blogging platform but has capabilities for very sophisticated custom websites. It is the older of the two I mention here.