Description

How do you handle conflict in a design project?

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Music and links from this episode

1. Zapomnieç by Nonima
2. Viscous by FRAIL
3. Perfect Match by Kilyo

Line-by-line notes

1. Every designer has worked on frustrating projects
2. Most design projects have little bumps in the road
3. But sometimes, they turn into full on car crashes
4. At some point in every designer’s career
5. They’re going to have to handle conflict
6. This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
7. MUSIC
8. Design projects can go wrong in a thousand ways
9. If you’re really unlucky, they’ll go wrong in a thousand ways all at once
10. The client can be wrong, the designer can be wrong, the research can be wrong
11. Deadlines might get missed, emails might get missed, meetings might get missed
12. People easily misunderstand things
13. Seriously, there’s so much that can go wrong
14. It’s no wonder then that experienced designers have to become conflict resolution experts
15. Let’s talk about one of the most common ways conflict arises in a project
16. A client making lots of changes to a design
17. You’ve been working with a client
18. You’ve been designing them a new logo
19. But you just can’t seem to get it completed
20. Every time you think you’re nearly there
21. The client makes another change
22. And most of the changes the client is making seem pointless
23. What do you do?
24. When a client is making lots of changes to any kind of design work
25. There’s something deeper going wrong
26. It could be the designer isn’t good enough
27. and the client feels like they need to improve it
28. It could be that the client is being polite
29. and that they don’t really like the design but they’re trying to improve it stealthily
30. Finally, it could be the client thinks they’re the designer
31. And they merely see you as a facilitator of their ideas
32. Whenever a design goes through more than a couple of changes
33. And you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere with the project
34. You can’t keep going and not saying anything
35. At some point, for everybody’s sanity, a conversation needs to be had
36. The air needs to be cleared
37. In a situation like this
38. You need to ideally get to the problem before everybody gets pissed off
39. Which is sometimes easier said than done, because people can be excellent at hiding when they’re annoyed
40. Then that conversation needs to be had
41. These kind of conversations aren’t easy for anybody
42. Nobody likes talking about negative stuff
43. Unless you’re some kind of monster, or you’re used to that kind of...