A lot of designers don’t like being given direction at the start of a project. The party line is that you want to start every project with an objective or goal but a totally blank slate to work from. The idea is that you should be given free reign to come up with every aspect of the visual/conceptual direction. This is the way that design is typically taught and its the ideal state of practice for most designers.

We’ve started working on a new project with a friend whose got pretty clear direction and is quite opinionated. He knows what it is he’s looking for and what the end results should be. That’s totally fine by us. He and I were talking today about web stuff and looking at some sites while he shared his thoughts on basic navigation and architecture issues when he interrupted to say “Well, you guys are the designers and I trust you to do what you think is right.” I appreciated the acknowledgment of our talents but I ended up telling him that he has specific opinions and that unless we disagree with him about the direction we don’t see a need to get in the way. We’ve come to the conclusion that graphic design or making beautiful things isn’t really the point or the main thing we want to do. What we’re after is to work on and contribute to great projects in any way that we can. In this instance, the projects is an illustrator whose been out of the game for a minute and is re-starting his career
and needs our assistance to execute his vision. As long as we’re on the same page and share a similar opinion as to what good design is then who cares about creative vision? If he can take the work we do for him and get some new clients then we’re happy.

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