Quote:
Originally posted by jayeff
I don't see how anyone could find fault with your basic message, but putting that idea into practise is something else again. We - meaning those who haven't already worked with a range of designers - don't really have a clue who produces designs that sell. Price isn't a good indicator. Reputation, in an industry plagued with cult-of-personality judgements, doesn't mean much either.
Come to that, we don't even agree about the importance of design or about which design style(s) is/are most effective. And although it is often argued that a strong sales pitch is more important than a pretty design, we are armpit deep in designers and rarely mention copy writers. How much sense does it make that many designers expect customers to provide their own text, but unless the sales pitch theory is wrong, that is likely to have a negative impact on the end product and (however unfairly) reflect badly on them.
If you have good ideas, just not the time or the skills to execute them yourself, you are well served with plenty of Photoshop people around. But if - as most of us should probably admit - we need to be led by the hand from concept to completion, that's a whole other story. You could argue that it is only a designer's job to work to spec, but in that case, most of us shouldn't be going direct to designers in the first place.
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This is a great post about the 'grey zone' of the design industry. The most successful projects come from customers who have already done the 'salespitch' work and prepared the copy themselves or had another marketing professional do it. Often times though it's expected that the designer also acts like the copywriter and the marketing brain behind. Interestingly enough this is usually included in the overall price for most designers and experience in the industry or a knack for marketing makes the difference. However I'm sure it's tough for the average customer to know whether or not the designer also came up with sales text for sites in their portfolio, as I'm sure this varies.