Disciplining Your Design Process - Deliver Great Work, Make More Profits And Still Have Time To Create
You probably hear or see me talk about designing and building entire brands in just a few days, and maybe you think to yourself, ‘Pia, I couldn't do that - my creative process just goes all over the place,’ or ‘I could never box in how much time it takes for me to create a brand. I just need a lot of time.’
Let me give you a different perspective to inspire you so you won’t feel restricted, and, in fact, give you more focus and insight into how you can shrink your design process, and still keep all that creative genius that you have to offer.
And by doing this in your branding agency, you’ll make a lot more money.
Let go of ‘value = struggle’, and start thinking like a designer
I saw this question in my Facebook group the other day -
‘How can I get more disciplined to get to a point where I can call it done and stop exploring ideas?’
This designer never feels like it's done.
It's never good enough.
They want to keep exploring, because maybe they'll come up with a better idea.
I get it. They (and you) want to give their best work possible.
And sometimes you just don't believe that whatever you've come up with is actually good enough.
So you keep working and working, meaning that the creative work behind the scenes can take you days, or even longer.
And sometimes you do all that exploring and you never really find something better. - you just end up going back to something you made early on.
And then you wonder if you should even have done all of that work, or was it a giant waste of time?
Here’s the thing. My husband and business partner, Steve, is an artist - he paints, he illustrates, and he's a designer. And, of course, he’s the Creative Director of Worstofall Design, our branding agency.
Since he designs and builds all of our brands and websites for our clients, he is as much of an artist as you can get.
So I am very familiar with the process of an artist not feeling like something is good enough, or wanting to explore and not wanting to feel boxed in.
Early on in our agency, it used to drive me bonkers. Steve would need dozens and dozens of hours to play with ideas to try to come up with some brilliant logo or some brilliant brand.
And here I was wondering why it was taking so long, telling him ‘We don't really have the time for you to spend 60 hours to design a logo’, especially because at the time, we were only getting paid a few $100 for it.
And his response was always the same, ‘This is how I have to do it.’
He simply didn’t want to do work he didn’t feel great about.
If you’re a creative, you can relate to what I'm saying.
These days, Steve builds the entire brand and executes it with the website in a few days. It usually takes him about three full days, sometimes a little more, depending on how creative it is.
Nevertheless, he'll do an entire brand - the identity, the design and build of the website and of course, the logo. And it just takes him a few intense full days to do it.
So how did he go from 60 hours on a logo to entire brands in a few days?
And how come the branding work he delivers now is even better?
Sure - he's 10 years more experienced.
But even when we started, his work was really great.
So what changed?
He understood the purpose of this work, finally let go of the idea that the work and its value was going to be tied to how much effort and sweat he put into it.
And that's your first lesson.
We are raised to think that effort equals value, when in fact, that’s not true.
If you made something valuable, but it didn't take you any effort or any time, how would you feel about it?
You’d probably feel, as most people do, that it couldn’t possibly be that valuable.
Well, there’s a great story that flips that notion - and you may be familiar with it.
Pablo Picasso was having a coffee with his friend, when somebody came up to him and said, ‘Oh my gosh, you're Pablo Picasso!’
And he said, ‘Yes, I am.’
He’d been doodling on a napkin, and the guy saw it and said, ‘Oh, you just made that doodle on a napkin - can I have that napkin?’
Pablo replied, ‘Sure. $3,000.’
And the guy said, ‘$3,000? You just doodled that on a napkin. It took you 20 seconds.’
To which Picasso replied, ‘This didn't take me 20 seconds, it took me a lifetime.’
What Pablo Picasso understood was that whatever he created at that moment was the combination of a lifetime’s worth of expertise and experience.
He was a prolific artist, so it took no effort and no time, right? But it did. It took a lifetime's worth of effort and time. And that's what is valuable about it.
You need to start thinking like that, too.
If you are set on the idea that when somebody pays you more money, you must struggle and work hard, that you must explore 100 ideas, in order to know that you found the right one, then you will always spend way more time than you're getting paid for.
Which is what eats up your profits.
On top of that, as you get better, and you're able to do more in less time, you'll just find ways to spend more time because you don't feel comfortable enough saying something is done.
So recognise that you are still tying the value of your work to the time, effort and difficulty of actually executing it.
You need to untie those two, and start to look at your work as independently valuable from the actual effort that it took to make it.
Your second lesson - it’s not about you and your art.
Yes, your clients are hiring you as the creative and they want your creative genius.
But it's still not about your artwork.
This can be particularly hard for artists and designers who are also artists.
Getting the difference between your art and your design work is critical here.
Your artwork is for you to express yourself, to come up with the best thing imaginable, and you have every right to do that.
That's not the purpose of your work for clients.
Your work for clients is to create the best thing for them to achieve their goals.
It’s not necessarily the best thing that you can make, but it's the best thing you can make in relation to what they're trying to make.
I’ll explain.
We have done projects where Steve makes a bunch of logos, and we always curate them at the end.
We never show the client all the logos - we only pick the best three at most.
And there have been times where there was a logo that was really freaking cool.
We both really loved it, but when we looked at it, we knew it wasn’t right for the client’s brand, so we didn’t show it.
Oh man. Is that hard or what?
To look at something that is really cool, looks really good and yet you know it isn't on brand and isn't going to help the client get to their goal, so you don’t show it and have to toss it.
There's a great saying among writers that sums it up perfectly - “Kill your darlings.”
It means that in order to make great written works, you have to edit them down.
It’s really hard for writers who may write something that they fall in love with, to kill their ‘darlings’ to edit things out that they really love.
But ultimately, it’s what needs to happen to make the piece stronger, and this is exactly what Steve and I had to do. If this doesn't work for the client, then it's not a good fit.
Never start with a blank canvas
Let’s take that idea one step farther.
If you cut out any logos and design work, can you see how you would shrink the amount of time that we spent on creative work?
You’re not approaching your creative work as a blank canvas, where you have to birth something amazing, unique and original, which can take a lot of time.
If that's your vision, and you feel like you need to create some masterpiece from scratch, that's a huge undertaking and it's putting you in the centre of the focus.
What about the client?
Your job is not to create something amazing.
Your job is to create something amazing within the context of the goal and the creative brief of the client.
When you approach it like that, you'll actually find that the projects have much more boundaries - you’re never starting with a blank piece of paper.
Instead, you're starting with an entire vision and business, and your job is to take all of those parameters and then make the best thing for that client within those parameters.
And that's a much simpler and more straightforward project.
Don't just imagine all the things that the project could be.
Look at all the things that it absolutely can't be, narrow it down as quickly as possible, and then make the best version of that.
The reason I say that Steve's work has gotten better, in my opinion, is not because it looks better. I think it looked great 10 years ago - he's a really great artist and his work was always very good.
But that it's way more aligned with what the clients are looking for and what they need.
It’s what is going to get them to their goals, which is what they're paying for.
Not only is it more effective for the clients, and closer to the outcome they're looking for, but it's also way more efficient for you to create.
Remember, you’re not creating a masterpiece.
The point is for you to create the best thing using your expertise and talents.
And you might be thinking ‘Yeah, but I like to spend all this time creating this stuff. That's my favourite thing to do.’
Steve said that to me as well, until I told him that I also wanted him to do that, and if he was more efficient with this process and got the client a better outcome in a fraction of the time, he would then have all that time for his own art.
I think that's what finally got through to him. I said, ‘I want you to do as much art as you want, and I just want you to do it for yourself, and keep your eye on the prize when it comes to clients.’
You see, if you’re an artist too, and you’re treating your client work like an artist, like it’s your masterpiece, you’re still thinking about the client.
You still aren't able to do whatever you want.
So instead of trying to mix the two, go full force and make something amazing for the client in the context of what they need.
Use that extra time that you free up to do your own art, or work on your own projects, or create your own brands for your own businesses.
Better, or different?
Let’s think back to the original question from my Facebook Group member -
‘How can I get more disciplined to get to a point where I can call it done and stop exploring ideas?’
My answer is to come at it from a completely different vantage point.
Stay really focused on the brief.
What does this brand need to do?
What does this design need to communicate?
It's done when the design is effectively communicating the message and embodying the voice and the vibe of the brand. That's when it's done.
And if you think, ‘But it could be better’, ask yourself - could it be better?
Or could there just be a different version of this?
It's more likely that there could just be a different version of it, not a better version of it.
Once we get to a point where we're creating work that's really good and on brand - ‘better’ is subjective.
I've asked clients for examples of websites they like, and they often send ones that I think are hideous. Design is subjective, right?
So while you're killing yourself to try to make something better and better and better, I might look at one of those and say, ‘I don't think that one's better, I think this one's better.’
There's a certain level of excellence that you can hit, and then above that, it's just really subjective.
So hopefully, this is inspiring you to stop thinking that you are somehow not delivering your best work, because you think there could be something better, and you want to explore and keep exploring because you're not satisfied.
Remember, what's ‘better’ is going to be subjective.
As long as you're creating great work, and it's on brand, and on brief, have some confidence that if you created something new or something different, it might also be really great.
That doesn't mean it's going to be better.
And you don't have to spend three times as long to try to figure that out.
You need to learn confidence in your own self and your work and stop questioning yourself, and that might just come from experience.
So the more you do, the better you'll get at being confident that this is done.
That’s why one of the things I really love about the Intensive model that we use in our branding agency, and that I teach my students, is that it allows you to become an expert much, much faster, because you just have so much repetition.
In the year before we did the BrandUps (our intensive, high-ticket design service), we probably built 5 or 6 brands.
Then, the first year we started doing BrandUps, we were doing them like crazy.
Steve and I did around 100 brands - crazy!
Most people don't design 100 brands over their entire career, and we did that in a year.
If you use the 10,000 hours theory, and you're able to do Intensives, doing brand, after brand, after brand - you're going to get a lot better a lot faster, and that's how you're going to build that confidence to say - ‘this is done.’
And if you just keep your eye on the prize and realise that the project is not about you, and you need to do your best work within that client framework, you're going to drastically cut down the time that you spend on the creative work.
It’s not going to take away from the value of the project. In fact, it's probably going to make the outcome way, way better.
Here’s what you need to get…
When you’re doing branding work for clients, you can either be an artist or a designer.
If you insist on exploring every possible way to make your design ‘better’, you’ll never be satisfied, spend way longer than you need to, and end up with no profits.
Instead, think like a designer. Do your best work within the client’s parameters, which will cut down your project time by at least 50%, and spend that free time on expressing yourself through your art. That way, your art will be just for you, and your client will get great work and accomplish their business goals.
Win-win, right?
P.S. You can always jump on a call with my team if you want to fast-track your way to shrinking your project timelines without shrinking your profits, and all my other tools and strategies to scale up your agency - just go here to get started!