40 is the magic number

If you went to a an ad company to promote your product they would charge you to gather that information.

I worked in commercial production for a number of years.

There are story boards, demographics, tests that are ran...they know the ins and outs on how to sell the product.

Same thing goes from what I understand with mainstream design.

yeah in my case we're only talking galleries...but this applies to paysites as well.

I have an idea of what sells and what doesn't..but this game is surely not perfect.

I don't often have problems with clients...but when if and when I do I can guarantee you 9 times out of 10 it has to do with lack of communication.

That was one of the key things I addressed over the last couple of months and so far it's a lot smoother.

I only used fonts etc as an example....but we're talking about a general concept here...to just say..."work your magic" in response to client/designer discussions then you're leaving room for mistakes.

Amen Brotha...can I get a witness!!

Rules of Engagement:

If they are newbies. Don't take there money.
Anyone can make a web page. If a "Business" man has to lean on you to create his business run far away.

The killer website dreamer.
Might have money and will micromange you to lost income.
These are the guys that envision one website that will bring back Jesus to smite all competition.
There understanding of "Version control" is Zero.

The Cheap skate.
These guys are hard to identify, but often are the guys that come at you like they got huge money and big things going on and you should take a personal involvement with there project and build for them because "They are good for the money".

The I'm your friend type.
These are the guys that expect you to do design for them because "Your friends". These are the guys that are hard to say no to but trust in the fact that when you bust for em they want a discount.

Listen designers...
Seriously listen. You run a business, treat it like a business and you wont fall into the traps above.
Evaluate a client before even taking a first check.
Keep a firm rule on getting 1/2 to get a project started.
Get a reasonable amount of information on a project till your comfortable starting (With check in hand).

I feel there was a reason I chose you the designer. I am not going to nitpick over every detail. On average I may have 2 minor changes when I see a design. Ussually it is just something I feel when I look at it.

I keep in mind I chose you. If I do not like the final product it is my fault since I hired you to get it done. I will go back to places that worked for me or not hire those that I was unsatisfied with before.

There's a lot of truth in that.

Yeah but believe it or not there are a lot of people that aren't careful in looking at a designer's portfolio.

That is their fault, not the designers though isnt it?

I want to throw in my two cents here cuz I have designers design over 20 to 30 sites/year for me. Not everyone works the same way but in my case if I want something specific, i'll let tell you exactly what I want but that's rarely the case.

But if I say "work your magic", it's cuz i have no idea or don't care what this perticular site should look like, that i like work you've done on other sites before and that I trust you to come up with something that will be creative and effective.

It's certainly important to say which sites of yours I liked and what the overall goal of the site is (IE. Gather emails, sell plugins, promote xxx, optimize conversions, give away free porn, etc) It's also important to take the time to say what key phrases I want used, what menu options i want created, exact 2257 statements, if I want SSI or php or SQL used, etc. I also find it useful to show the designer other sites that I feel achieve the objective well and voila: Work Yer Magik!

You have to understand that that's why I pay you to design. I've almost always been happy with what the designer has come up with and often have zero changes, except for the too common spelling mistakes. In 6 years, only once was it so bad that I said thanks, paid him and had someone else work their magic.

I don't have time to hold hands, I'm always in a hurry and I'm easy to please so in my case, "Work your Magic" works well for me and my designers. I can't pick fonts and colors and I'm terrible with layout, that's why I"m hiring a designer. Learn to work effectively with the buyer, ask the right questions off the bat and you'll save both a lot of time, money and aggravation.

that's exactly what I was trying to say farther up the page. Experienced clients do not want to babysit the designer.

wow... that is great advice for all the sales rep, (outsourcing com) a freelancer designer, thanks Eros

This has nothing to do with holding hands...you stated above exactly what I was talking about...relating important issues to the designer...I just used fonts for an example but I can see that's what people are going to focus on...LOL.

The point here is communication...that's all..whether it is fonts or more important issues like forms etc.

We certainly have different ideas about a designer's role and although yours seems to be a common point of view among adult site designers, I can assure you that it isn't in the wider world.

I have had many book covers, company identities, and print ads designed over the years. In every single case, the designer asked me questions about my product/service/audience/etc. But except for asking if I had any special requirements, they did not expect me to provide any creative input. I usually chose a designer who specialized in the relevant market and I would expect him to understand that market at least as well as I did.

This business has a lot of Photoshop kiddies who are not real designers. They know how to put together a striking collage of images and effects, but they do not understand sales and marketing or even, in many cases, appear to realize that the point of site design is not simply to produce something about which the webmaster will say "hey that's cool".

If a designer doesn't understand better than the webmaster, how to create something that will make money, generate traffic, etc., then he is in the wrong business.

I know what you mean. I used to HATE when I would get an order for say.. 20 galleries or so and the customer would just say " make the galleries for www.mypaysite.com " and that's it! Tell me what colors, what fonts, what font sizes, how many thumbs, what size thumbs, how many click through links, html pages for pics or not, animated gifs or no animated gifs, what text, descriptions ect... The more the better!

I know I always found it that I got the order done alot faster when I had plenty of information to work with. End the end the customer and designer will be much much happier if things are done this way :2 cents:

You have some valid points...once again I spent a number of years in mainstream commercial production and have worked with the top advertising firms in the world...our company won the bronze lion in cannes for some of our commercials.
The kind of money that is spent there is not the kind of money we'll see here.

I don't have a team that focuses on market research, I don't have a team to storyboard each project, or a team to research each and every market niche I come across in this business.

In most cases the webmaster already has done that work. He/she has a good idea what works with his/her site and/or fetish.

This is not about "creativity" or lack of. This is about communication...pure plain and simple.

I've been involved in many mainstream meetings and things are discussed to the nth degree almost to the point of redundancy.

You can't really compare that to what we do here.

I disagree. Of course there is a difference between - for example - spending $20,000 on a logo and $1,000 on a complete site design, but a webmaster is expecting a design that will be functional: ie drive sales and/or traffic. If a design fails to do that, it doesn't matter how pretty or cool it looks, or how cheap it is, it is a waste of money.

Although there are exceptions such as if a site belongs to an unusual niche or if a webmaster has very specific requirements, in this business it should make it possible to do a comparable job without the resources you mentioned, The reason being that many (successful) adult designers work in the same market most, if not all of the time. Therefore they don't have to do research separately for each client.

I'm not saying that input from the client is a bad thing: only that a designer shouldn't depend on it for good results.

If right from the off a designer asks me to point him at a design I like, or enquires what color I want, I look for a polite way to end the conversation. And with your experience, you must admit that the majority of site designs show very little understanding of the role of design in marketing.