I’ve been thinking a lot over the past couple of months about content. All sorts of content, from brochure text, trade show display lists, and website pages. The old adage goes “content is King”, but from the point of view of many projects, actual content is more often the elephant in the room.
I say this from the perspective of a graphic designer who’s often charged with the task of creating something groovy to catch a customer’s eye, or do some fancy information architecture on a website so it is logical to read and navigate. The reality is – we hardly ever write anyone’s content. Oh, we might cut a tagline, or a bullet list here and there, but we rarely speak for our clients. Most often the disclaimer on the quote goes something like this: Client responsible to supply all copy and images.
I get the process here. We are not the experts in our clients industries. They are. The information is in their brains, not ours. So it is most logical to have the client write the copy, is it not? More and more, I disagree.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor.
Yes, clients are the experts in their fields – they build stuff, fix stuff…DO stuff, but we are the experts in our field, the field of visual communication – we COMMUNICATE. I actually think clients would love to hear this: Copy to be written and inserted after content interviews are complete.
Design projects (website projects in particular) are often compared to building a home. It’s a long process requiring patience, investment and creativity. How many homeowners are required to prepare their own home plans for the contractor? Not many. Our clients are looking to us for guidance – how to say things, where to put them, how to sound – so why don’t we help them?
Design Informer wrote a brilliant article explaining why we should ban Lorum Ipsum.
The cold truth, I think, is cost and efficiency. It costs money. Most of the time adding 20 hours of extra time to a project to research and write creative copy is not in the budget. Add to that strategy services often required when planning content, and you can balloon the cost of a project significantly. But we will, as a some what late New Year’s Resolution perhaps, try harder to offer to help. Sometimes we can offer more, and sometimes not – but in the new era of information, content really is king. And THAT’S coming from a graphic designer who likes (shamefully) drop shadows, glossy buttons and lots of texture.
So how DO you write content if you have 25 pages of website to write and you are not a writer? Back to the elephant. Another adage goes well here: How do you eat and Elephant? One bite at a time.
Hey, Brian:
This is an interesting debate!
I once heard a blind man say he was lucky he had lost his sight instead of his hearing. It made him focus so much harder on the words! He could still enjoy the radio or a stage play. His loss of vision made his imagination (image-ination?) far sharper. He could even listen to the television, but felt sad when he thought of deaf people who could not hear the orchestras on public service networks.
For those of us lucky to have both, vision is very important. Redpoint creates beautiful, attention-grabbing graphics. Wordsmiths like Lorne or me can extend that interest with the magic of language. Initial attraction is vital. I love to be with a beautiful woman (my wife) but our relationship would be shallow if we had nothing to say.
Keep on creating your fascinating, eye-catching design work. Then send in the writer to do the interviews and create the content. That way, clients can get their messages out using the interesting “sound” alongside attention grabbing vision. They will have the best of both worlds.
Best regards:
Wayne
So what I’m really hearing here is that in many industries, there is a struggle to provide detailed and targeted content. It’s an interesting phenomenon. Long gone are the days of counting galleys and precise typesetting. Who do we thank? And what is the opportunity that has to be present in any type of service vacuum?
I think that clients coming in are uneducated and have been able to get any service they are willing to pay for. The old adage, you get what you pay for is true but also a bit misleading.
I am a professional writer in my industry and get paid everyday for preparing information sets for people, businesses and contractors in general. I am happy the Good Lord has blessed me in my career path and company specialities, but realize that I am limited to the parameters my clients place on me.
What I mean, is when I sit down to develop a proposal for a company to submit to a formal funding source, I am able to read the requirements of the documents and the intended out comes needed to qualify my client ideally for whatever they are trying to secure. This is the same process for a resume, cover letter, marketing document, employment proposal etc. What limits me as a writer, is if my clients are unable (or unwilling) to communicate their needs, skills, abilities, resources, knowledge, experience or specialties in an accurate and thorough way. No matter how skilled I am in research and writing, I will do a limited job at best presenting their greatest assets!
So I do agree with partnering with skilled communicators, both visual and written, but clients have to be educated in regards to how limiting lack of input and development can be to their specific projects.
That being said, I know that I can do a better job (most times) in presenting a written presentation for client then they can themselves; just as Brian can definitely produce astronomically richer visual presentations than 99.9% of companies on their own. The magic happens not when someone just takes over, as Brain or I can, but when a client engages deeply in the research and development process, and in turn hands over control to professionals who can run with their content.
You can cut your own hair, but it usually takes considerably longer and turns out less impressively than just consulting with a skilled hairstylist. That being said, if you sit in the chair and say “just cut my hair”, no matter how skilled they are, your hairstylist will be limited in how well they can perform. They have no knowledge of your needs (quick styling in the mornings, looking professional for an industry, conforming to / rebelling against the newest trends etc.) and therefore can only perform limitedly within the parameters you have placed them.
Those are my two pennies!
Peace Out (Thats for Brian, he knows my hip hop history!! LOL)
Well said Brian! I see a parallel with my experience as a commercial photographer. The client will often come to me saying they need photos of their widget for a brochure or website, with very little input as to specifics of what they need to communicate through the images. The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” CAN be very true, but only if the photograph is thoughtfully created with the intended message in mind. Are the thousand words I create with every exposure clearly stating the right message for my client’s objectives to be accomplished, or are they obscure ramblings, meaningless or irrelevant to the audience? That’s the real issue for me, one I take very seriously, and it ought to be a real concern for them as well, but it often isn’t. Many times when I begin to ask probing questions of what the objectives for an assignment are I get , “You’re the professional…just take some pics of my widget that look great!” as a response. I can’t agree more with your call for a concerted effort to achieve a higher level of communication and collaboration in the creative process.
That’s part of the reason I really prefer receiving assignments from a competent design firm rather than directly from an end client: they have already done much the legwork of informing the client of the process and then engaging in a thorough, thoughtful planning process which will have clearly established the objectives for every aspect of the the project, including photography?
As I was saying to you the other day, Brian, in order for me to do my job well involves fulfillment of a process involving four C’s: Communication with the client, Collaboration with other design professionals, Control of the visual elements used in the image, and, finally, the Crafting of the message in the form of a photograph. My work can only be as strong as the weakest link in this chain of process.
D.A.
That’s a good point Lorne, at the end of the day, if we are all being asked to help produce some end deliverable, how we get there shouldn’t matter so much. Partnerships and collaborations make it easier in a small market to bring the right skills to the table. We all will then. Look at us… socialists!
Good points Brian. The answer, of course, is to tell those clients that you have a great team of professional writers who have worked in multiple industries across varied media for diverse audiences – in other words, the team at Grandview Consulting 🙂
And that by using us, they are freed up to do their “real” work…
(bonus to you – you are welcome to just say that our three writers are part of YOUR team at Redpoint)
L.