To find out more about what happens when a design turns out not as good as it was anticipated, Bored Panda reached out to Laura Vanagaite, an international freelance graphic designer who specializes in branding and social media content creation.
According to Laura, using the word ‘bad’ regarding design is not quite correct. Yet, it doesn't matter what we call it, the reality stays the same: “we judge design work anyway for its design and our eye catches mistakes very fast,” Laura explained.
The graphic designer explained that this is because “our brain needs less than a second to bring up a judgment, and way more time to rationalize on the topics of ‘bad’ and ‘good.’”
“Once we spot a mistake, we tend to stop collaborating with the agency or brand because we believed that they are more reliable and able to deliver a good result. If the final result is made with mistakes, you definitely don’t want to waste your time to clean up a mess again and as well pay for the badly done service,” Laura explained.
She added that in the end, for any business, it is important to build concrete trust with the customers.
When asked who is in charge of the mistakes left in the final design, Laura said: “When most people hear ‘human error’ they do not see the details, they see the person who is completely to blame.” There can also be some sort of communication issue or the fact that a designer was less skilled. “But this should always be foreseen by the manager who is in charge from the beginning,” Laura said.
“When you hire an expert in any field, you expect that things will be done the right way and that the mistakes that you would have made won’t happen. If it is a team, it means that the project manager did not pay attention to the final design and just approved it without looking, which shows a lack of professionalism and also not caring too much about the client and the project,” Laura explained.
We also asked Laura about how the designs get approved and how they reach the end consumers. She said that the design gets evaluated by personal preferences.
“To define the role of the client and designer, from the beginning there should be a clear brief from the clients' side and as well the designer should come up with the most important questions which will be solved in the design process.”
Another step is the design-review approval which, Laura said, “is typically done by either a design-review board or with the project manager. Once everything gets approved from the management part, then it can be sent to the client to receive either corrections or the complete approval.”
Laura concluded that communication is key and designers should not be left alone during the process. “It is teamwork and the support both from the management part and the creative part is a must.”
