Questions You Must Ask During a Design Consultation

17-design-consult-questions

I recently created a short PDF guide to help designers understand what questions to ask during a design consultation. Most designers don’t ask these questions.

Asking these questions will position you as an expert, not an order taker, because it takes the focus from the goods (i.e., a logo or brochure) to results and what they’re really looking for (i.e., to look modern and professional, so they stand out from competitors and get more sales). It will also help you understand better who you are designing for and add to the value of what you deliver.

Download it here: https://creative-boost.com/wp-content/uploads/17-design-consult-questions.pdf

I’d love to hear what you think of it and if it helps you.

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Admin approved and download is safe :slight_smile:

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My one request that I always wish is with anything that has a set number of anything in a document is a actual number next to whatever it is… so in this case, you have 17 questions, if you would put “Question #1, Question #2…”

Thanks for making this. That is very awesome of you!

-Line

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Thanks for the feedback, Line. I typically do that. But, in this case, there are additional questions depending on if you have to ask the Client Background questions (like if it’s not a new client), so I didn’t want to say “21” and someone say it was really 17 that have to be asked. :wink:

This is the kind of thing that should be taught as part of every design school program. Instead of learning it there, I along with most other professional designers, ended up learning it the hard way — through experiences.

Great advice Creativeboost.

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Thanks. Yeah, I learned the hard way too. :slight_smile:

I’d love to hear if these questions help others. Many of my clients have described it as “therapy” and said it made them think about things they hadn’t.

Great stuff, thank you for sharing this!

Especially “It’s important to find out if you’re talking to the decision maker. Dealing with the decision maker whenever possible makes it more likely you’ll get the work. Otherwise, you rely on someone else to convey your passion and your expertise.”

Good advice!

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Especially “It’s important to find out if you’re talking to the decision maker. Dealing with the decision maker whenever possible makes it more likely you’ll get the work. Otherwise, you rely on someone else to convey your passion and your expertise.”

Agreed, Doc. Absolutely!

And thank you! :slight_smile:

I have a client with a corporate policy stating that all their contracted vendor communication and marketing work must be funneled through their official communication and marketing department. This would be fine, but the work I get from them always originates in other parts of their corporation that are not allowed to speak to me directly.

As a result, I need to go through a (moderately engaged) middle person on everything. Not only is it a bottleneck that causes delays and misunderstandings, it prevents me from engaging with the client in ways where a back-and-forth exchange of ideas, concerns and mutual exploration can take place.

There have been times when I’ve had to track down the actual clients, call them and carry on off-the-record conversations just to get the job moving forward in the right direction.

So yes, it really helps to talk to the actual client who understands the problem and can make decisions regarding direction, changes, prices, etc. This is not only important in getting the work, but in doing the work.

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Wow. That stinks. :confused: