Choose Your Partners Wisely
Author of this post: Sheri L Koetting | About Blog Authors »
These days, your role as a designer is much more than just styling text and graphics. Designers have become the project ringleaders, hiring everyone else on the team including market researchers, copywriters, photographers, illustrators, printers, and programmers. Recommending good vendors to your clients is part of being an accountable designer.
The first step to recommending good partners is to cultivate your resources. This includes maintaining a good address book and building long-term relationships. Don’t be afraid to refer your resources to colleagues and other partners. Not only does this strengthen your relationship with your favorite vendors, but you might need to call on those colleagues to recommend someone to you down the road.
When you recommend a vendor to a client, their work will either make your design sing or sag. Ultimately, since they were your recommendation, this is a reflection upon you. Don’t be afraid to hold these vendors accountable for their work, whether you are paying or not. Part of your responsibility to the client is to ask the vendor things that the client may not know to ask themselves. In some industries, this also means keeping up on the latest technologies and advancements.
You don’t need to know how to actually do your partners jobs, or even what to ask for using their lingo—layman’s terms will do just fine. However, you need to know what is out there, what they should be capable of and what is considered good quality work. I actually recommend using layman’s terms, because you’d hate for a vendor to take your request too literally and have it be the wrong move. For example, when on press or looking at a match print I am always careful to say, “this area looks too red” rather than ask to have the other colors brought up or down.
Remember, your design credit will be on this project. Assigning your name to a piece is the ultimate testament of your accountability for the results produced. Make sure that you (and your client) are proud to call it your own!
