so you got yourself a new design client awesome you have a solid design brief put together great
everything's good to go you have some solid ideas but they are not nicely polished finished
pieces of designs just yet of course all you got is some loose sketches some research and
keywords written down in a page now how do you present logos designs any creative work that
hasn't been completed yet how do you sell what doesn't exist well let me show you how i do it
Hi you guys welcome back to our channel the number one place for people who love design art and all
things creative you are watching Dantier + Balogh's channel my name is Laszlo and in
this video i want to talk about how to present creative ideas to design clients before we jump
into it though i want to state we're not talking about presenting finished logo concepts to clients
presenting finished work is quite easy in my opinion i mean you can take the ugliest logo
in the world and put it onto a sleek stylish sexy presentation make good use of photoshop mock-ups
and that's that what i'm talking about here is the art of selling logo ideas and how to interact with
clients in the earlier stages of your design project i've been doing commissioned creative
work on and off for about five years now and now i feel like i have reached a comfortable position to
talk about my experiences working with clients as a designer i had some great projects in the past i
had some horrible ones as well and in hindsight i've realized that there are only three key
points that if i keep on mind they help me with my client workflow process they help me to articulate
and sell my ideas every time three simple tips to present your work that's it coming right up
tip number one communication and presenting in person the most important thing that needs to be
established in a client-creative relationship is a clear direct way of communicating with each other
face to face is the best email to email is the worst way of doing this i was gonna say
i literally wrote it down in my notes that most of the tricky briefs and difficult clients that
came to my way was nothing more than the result of communication problems but now that i think
about it that's a lie all of them were all of the problems that can occur during a creative project
can be avoided by using direct straight to the point ways of communicating with each other
here's the deal it's really difficult to verbally explain creative ideas i mean that's the whole
reason our jobs exist in the first place right people hire artists and designers because they
want to communicate a message to the word so complex that words fail to describe it
so they need a graphic an image sound or video or the combination of these things but that's
the thing if words fail them written words will fail them even harder i truly believe that no one
no one can explain what kind of design work they are expecting from you with a short and snappy
email so as a designer it's part of your job to take initiative if you can't meet them face to
face arrange a phone call or in true 2021 style do what i do and arrange Zoom meetings with them
i know what you're thinking you hate phone calls and you feel very comfortable hiding behind your
laptop screen aren't you well listen i hate phone calls just as much as the next millennial
but i'm talking to you from experience a half an hour long zoom call can save you
days if not weeks worth of emailing back and forth about the smallest tiniest silliest little details
you need to spend time getting to know your client and their personal vision for the project if you
want to do a good job and the best way to do that is by listening to them face to face and hear how
they describe what they want using their own words study their body language what phrases and words
they are using and what gets them excited and passionate about their project in the first place
naturally sometimes it's just not possible to have direct contact with a client sometimes
you're working with someone overseas sometimes you're simply working through a middleman and you
don't have direct access to the actual client who's taking the work but still face to face
should be your ideal way of presenting work for one it suggests a level of professionalism i mean
a 20-something year old who uses their phone as a phone that's professional also this method gets
rid of the people who aren't actually serious about working with you if you put your creative
stuff online people will find you and message you all the time saying silly things like hey
how much for a logo yo could you design this for me that's when you should tell them sure
of course i can can i give you a call and the unserious people are going to be like oh
tip number two for working with clients as a designer document everything
this sounds like contradictory advice after the previous point so let me explain this is how i
usually handle my clients we start with a zoom call during which i am making notes and whenever
it is time to present my ideas following object i put a nice clean pdf together which i always start
with a summary of where we left off the last time we spoke in person and it just goes like
that in a circle call pdf call pdf call pdf this is effectively a way of reasoning and backing up
every idea every direction every sketch you make during the project as everything has to be
referred back to the brief and what your client have asked for in person for the average logo
project i have 4 pdfs set up for this first we have the brief it goes without saying i
hope it goes without saying that this is the most important pdf of them all if the brief is not set
in stone your project could run into all sorts of problems or don't even start the work without this
to put the brief together we use a simple questionnaire which i always ask people to fill
out following our initial chat about the project i know some designers don't like to give homework
to their clients but honestly i think this is the only way the brief will feel personal to them once
we are ready to roll i start the idea generation and once i have stuff that i can talk about i put
together the first presentation pdf which i call the ideabook i usually email this to the client
i give them a couple of days to sort of you know look through it then we arrange a zoom call where
i present my ideas and we go through the whole thing together i present they tell me what they
think and ideally they choose one of the ideas which i came of it shown in this book after that
once again i go away and i work on the choose and root putting together two or three different ways
to visualize this winning idea and once that's done i send this over as well for approval
in a pdf that i call the fine-tuning book again i give them some time to think about it we have
a zoom call and we agree on a route which at this point should be very very close to the final logo
more often than not these three pdfs are actually enough to wrap up the whole project but at this
point i still give my clients a chance to do some minor modifications additional changes
to one design from the fine tuning book and once that is done i present the actual final
work in a pdf which i just called a final book this should contain the logo in its full
final finished form i know it's a lot but backing everything up this way and dividing the project
into these well-documented very strict stages i find is an absolutely amazing way of working
as if or when problems occurred during the project you can always pinpoint the time it happened you
can always refer back to a stage or two and fix it like if the client is unhappy with some of the
fine tuning you can go back and take another idea from the idea book and so on and so on that kind
of thing and finally tip number three storytelling touching on the past the present and the future
of your design idea to explain what i mean by this point i need to give you a bit of context
this is a logo i have designed quite recently for someone who asked me to brand their business the
brand is called prismatic postiche and the idea behind it is basically to create handmade high
quality but crazy colorful fake beards and hair pieces which celebrate color queerness fantasy and
the performing arts now that you have seen the final product i want to show you the page from
my idea book which helped me to sell this idea to the client first i talked about the past the
inspiration behind this idea which are basically these amazing playing card designs made by Iranian
illustrator Mahdieh Farhadkiaei whose work left such an impression on me i felt like i just had
to act on it you see playing card designs online all the time but i felt like this illustrator has
managed to push the concept further than anyone i've ever seen before which is exactly what i
wanted to do with my work within this design project as well by this point the client and me
we already had deep and long conversations about the theatrical connotations of this project drag
queens drag kings performers cosplayers generally speaking turning gender stereotypes upside down
and inside out so i knew she will love this idea if i managed to articulate it well so
after telling her about the inspiration i moved on to the present stage of the idea for which i
have shown some quick sketches as to how i think this concept could work as a simple graphic now
if you happen to have amazing hand drawing skills you don't need to put a digital version together
just yet i did this quick one in illustrator anyway just because my hand drawings are a little
bit messy and when it came to presenting this idea on my zoom call with her we discussed the
future possibilities within this idea how since it's visually quite open we can mess about with
different characters play with different formats and in the future we could potentially expand this
concept into a much much bigger scale designing a full on icon set or an actual deck of playing
cards maybe who knows and these are the kind of conversations which will help you sell your
idea to your clients talking about future possibilities proves that your idea got legs
you know a logo or any piece of design work in my opinion should always kind of feel like it's the
start of something it's the foundation of what's to come so as long as it feels like it's full
of possibilities it will get your client excited which is what this job is all about at the end of
the day as i was saying three things presenting face to face to make the project feel personal
documenting everything as you go and showing the whole timeline of the idea from the inception and
inspiration to its future possibilities i truly believe that that's all there is to it that's
all that you need to do for a successful design presentation well it seems to be working for me
so i don't see why it wouldn't work for you yeah guys i really hope this video offered you some
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between leave a like if you enjoyed this one and i hope to see you this time next week bye guys