Communication with your clients

[dimitri]

Hi to you all,

I am new to this forum, and work as a graphic designer for a publisher in belgium. We are making several lifestyle magazines.

In addition to my design studies, i started a course "corporate communication" a few years ago that is about to be completed.

For this course, i am making a paper about the most common communication problems between designers of any kind (creative jobs) and non-designers (everybody you work with). I want to see where the problems are situated to try to find some solutions.
If anyone has an opinion about the subject, and i know you do;) , then i'll be happy to hear them.

The reason for chosing this subject are the many occasions where i see creativity getting lost in communication.

thanks,

Dimitri

[Buda]

I guess a lot of problem lies in the client not realising the creative scope of a designer. This is also the designer's flaw that they don't show the client exactly what they can do.

Example: as a designer I can come up with colour combinations, illustrations, font selections and layout. But I get clients that come to me with all this work already done - the "know" exactly what they want. They only want you to execute their vision for them. Since many of these people have never studied colour, type or layout, their selections or art direction needs some work, but to lead them away from their vision can be offensive to them.

[captain spanky]

a lot of creatives come across as being very self important to the non creatives

[PrintDriver]

It's part of a designer's job to be able to communicate effectively. That's part of the job description.