I had been meaning to do a post on specific roles and how those folks in the web profession are being slowly invaded by outside influences (e.g. clients, other departments, consumers, etc.). Then lo’ and behold, there’s an online video that was embedded onto Kooji Creative that I found got straight to the point when it comes to dealing with the creative issue – which, in my opinion, has been the main area that non-creative professionals seem to interfere with.
Beautifully done by Agency Fusion, this video hammers down on the fact that roles are created for a reason. I can recall a very helpful time when I was working in an interactive agency and needed to assemble a survey for distribution to my client’s audience. We had a market research division in-house and I made the fateful mistake of putting together a survey myself without consulting the experts. Well, suffice it to say, I got perhaps the most important lesson on roles in a company that has followed me throughout the past few years. The conversation went like this:
Market Research Head (MRH): Are you in market research?
Me: No. I’m a project manager.
MRH: Well then I won’t do your job and manage websites if you don’t do my job and put together surveys.
That’s it. That was the conversation. Basically it’s telling me that there’s a reason why these people in their given profession are being paid for. The same thing can be said about the above video dealing with creative. You’re paying these people to show you their creative expertise. If you go about and excessively interfere (note that I used the word “excessively”. You can add your own feedback, but compromise and work with the creative designer.) then you might as well not hire a creative and just do it yourself.
Honestly, if you find yourself going on about specific changes every single time you get something for approval, then why aren’t you doing the work yourself? These designers are skilled in everything needed to get the aesthetics assembled and message across in a creative way. Just give them the direction and message you’d like to convey. That’s it. They know the best practices when dealing with how to create emails, work on websites/microsites, design banners, and handle your brand identity.Â
So trust your professionals. They’re not incompetent and you know that, but they are well-versed in the best practices and if they say that your logo shouldn’t be that big or the color scheme just won’t work, trust them. They’re not going to do anything to steer you wrong. There is a rationale for everything and solid creative principle for why they do what they do.
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