Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.Powered by WP Greet BoxWhy would a designer or an artist take on a project where they have no idea of what they’re doing? It would be common sense not to, but below are a [...]
Why would a designer or an artist take on a project where they have no idea of what they’re doing? It would be common sense not to, but below are a list of reasons that seem to trump common sense:
- The job’s payout is too good to resist
- You’re fresh out of college / freelancing and are willing to take any project, large or small.
- You’ve done something like it before on a personal/smaller scale.
- You think taking on a big project will make you a better designer.
While these may be valid reasons, they all seem to fall short when a design is truly faced with a project they knew little to nothing about. The steps to avoid getting into this sort of situation are just as simple as the alluring reasons above:
- Write down a list of your skills and rate them on a scale of your choosing.
- Know your design process, how long it takes you to complete a project, etc.
- Understand your limitations.
- Know that you can fail at any given moment.
Try as we might, the above reasons aren’t enough to stop designers from taking on projects they shouldn’t, so there are ways to get around this if you’re ever in the situation:
- ASK FOR HELP. A good designer always has a pool of EDUCATED peers to ask for advice. Worst case scenario is you have to bring them in on the project and pay them part of your cut. But this prevents you from looking bad in your client’s eyes and you might establish a relationship with an other designer to form a team.
- HONESTY – Tell your client that you can’t complete the project and offer them a list of other designers that can. If you’re going to bow out of a project at least leave them with options as to what to do without you.
- READ – As tempting as it is to just Google “How to design this and that” and get a bunch of search results to blog tutorials on designing various things, go out and get a real book published by actual designers who have been in the field and are accredited for their methodology and skills.
What do you guys think is the proper way to handle a situation like this: What do you do as a designer when you can’t handle the project you’re already contracted to?
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