Macnessa Media

Here are 10 questions you should be asking your client at your initial planning brief session. It is of vital importance that you have this session before you start designing, unless you want to contemplate having to go through this after you’ve spent hours on a potential designs, and discovering you’re going in an opposite direction to what the client wants.

So Here You Go:

1.  What Are You Wanting To Achieve?

While it may seem like a very obvious question to some, very few business owners have thought beyond the basic “Well, I want more business” answer, to consider if it is more of a particular product that they want to service, or if they’re launching a new business service etc. The more specific they can be, the easier it becomes for you to design accordingly.

2.  What is the Message You are Trying to Convey?

This ties in closely with the first question. What are you trying to sell? Are you promoting a new line of products? Are you promoting a new special deal? The opening of a new branch? Asking these further questions, again, will help you in your design process, by having a clearer picture of what the client is trying to achieve.

3.  Who is Your Target Market?

If your clients are trying to target a particular market, this will impact your graphic design ideas accordingly, make sure that you ask this question! If they are promoting a new product, within their existing business, to their current clients, then find out what the demographics are of their current clientele.

4.  Do you Have Any Existing Marketing Material/Logo’s/Images That you Want Me to Consider/Refer To?

This is a vitally important question! If your clients do not have any existing elements that they want to emulate or develop, then it is important to find out if they want a complete change from any existing design elements, or if there are any colours they desperately want to avoid.

Furthermore, it will be a most useful exercise to take them through graphic design books to try and ascertain their personal taste by selecting those designs that they find favourable, and then to sit with them and try to establish what it is about each design that they find interesting. Is it the colour? The design itself. The overall look and feel?

5.  What Items Do You Require?

Again, this might seem like a no brainer, but it’s a good idea at this point, to offer your clients several options, or even package deals. You may just be able to offer them something that they had not thought of initially. I.e. If they had been coming to your for glossy brochures, then why not some promotional postcards as well? Business cards etc.

6.  How Many Do You Need?

The quantity can be a tricky area. It may be that it is down to the clients budget. The quantity may be determined by the quality of printing that they require. If they want 5000 cheap and cheerful flyers - these may be MORE or LESS effective than 1000 high quality glossy promotional calendars, depending on what it is that they are trying to market. So you will need to work this out accordingly.

7.   By When Is the Printing Required?

VITALLY IMPORTANT!  You need to know how much design time to allocate to the project. If your clients have left this to the last minute, you need to move fast to obtain quotes from printers, or quote accordingly if you are forced to use a more expensive, but more reliable and speedy printer as an alternative.

8.  With Whom Shall I Liaise?

This is an interesting one. Sometimes one person is the decision maker. Sometimes it’s a panel discussion. You should always try and have one point of contact, and preferably with the final decision maker, there is nothing worse than making changes, only to have them vetoed later because they were not discussed internally by your clients.

9.  When Are You Available to View Proofs?

It’s a good idea to set up the appointment at the initial brief discussion, so that everyone has a clear time-frame of how things will develop.  Besides, sometimes you meet with clients that have not made up their minds whether to use your services or not, and this question, forces them into action, and chances are you will get the job.

10.  Would You Like On-Going Feedback?

Sometimes clients like to know what phase of the design process you’re on. A simple email will often suffice. Stating something like, “Friday 1 January 2009 - Hand drawn images complete, scanning and digitizing have commenced.”

While some designers prefer to be left alone and don’t think that this is necessary, it will very often allow the designer to be left alone - because the client is satisfied that work is being done. It will also make the billing process simpler, if you have these emails (timestamped) to include on the final billing sheet as proof of time spent on their project.

Bonus Question!

If the client is coming to you for business cards, and a new corporate identity, make sure you offer to sell them digital versions of their corporate identity in low resolution format optimized for web use and things like targeted Google advertising in standard banner and button sizes. It shows that you are not only up to date with current technology trends, but that you have the clients best business interests at heart.