How Designers Deal With Rejection: 6 Tips to Improve Designer-Client Communication
There are lots of endlessly talented designers with graphic design services that often experience some hardships while dealing with rejections. How to handle rejection at work is a common issue, but it becomes an absolute cornerstone for a creative professional. Designers need to not endlessly turn down projects or lose valuable clients. They need to learn how to communicate with customers competently and adequately present their work portfolios, make amendments and deal with deadlines, etc. Here are some tips to help understand how designers may deal with rejections and how to hire & communicate with them under no illusions.
6 Tips to Manage Rejections
So, rejections happen. Here’s how to turn them from frustration into an opportunity for designers and their clients. There are at least six recommendations to consider in order to turn the cooperation between the designers and their clients into more constructive, based on win-win principles.
1. It’s the design being rejected — not the designer
Design is an applied work; it is primarily about solving brand problems, and being paid up for excellent skills and professionalism, but not about art or designers’ self-expression only. Therefore, designers should not be offended by the customers, if they do not agree with them, agree on the proposal, and try to understand what is behind it.
2. Better think smart
Thus, clients aren’t focused merely on any artistic expression — they’ve got money at stake, and this count. For a designer, it’s wise to think as businesspeople too, try being in their shoes to achieve the ultimate cooperation and produce awesome designs that both are beautiful and highly functional. Being tech savvy also is a plus for both.
3. Better avoid total control
For creative people, it’s always advised to set their designs free without getting too attached to the creative work, though it’s hard for art men. Of course, that’s easier said than done, but a professional designer will learn to balance their creative ago, ambitions, and self-expression and the true product design business goals. For clients, it’s also wise to understand that they may be too strict with their conclusions, and art is generally subjective, and you’ll never control how anyone responds to it, either.
4. Better be patient
Both customers who contact the designing team in a confused and frustrating situation and the company’s designers must have patience: high-quality product design service is always a big challenge. It is the time spent communicating with the client in order to better understand their problems and needs. On a client’s side – it’s time spent to provide detailed requirements. Remember both are here to achieve a common goal – create a product for the user.
5. Dwell on an agile mindset & design thinking
Often, how to deal with rejections is centered on the methodology you apply in the working process. The agile mindset proposes the set of assumptions or behaviors that promote an agile work environment and improves team productivity by helping to work fast and clearly and make fast decisions based on transparent communication and highly effective interaction. So, there is no place for offenses.
5. Clients are not enemies, so aren’t designers
For both, it’s essential to realize that they are in good company, and of each other, too. Every creative person has been rejected at least once — likely more. And every client has to reject at least once, though it’s not pleasant for them, either as they are wasting their precious time and money. Everyone is looking for an ideal match from start.
So, the improvement of designers in communication with the client stands by offering them to interact openly and fine-tuning their goals by applying a smart approach and highly effective analytical design thinking alongside the other tips. It will be a key to better communication and project success.
Conclusion
There are a few things to remember when faced with rejection: having a design rejected for creative people often means a client looking for something else to fill their business needs. Unlikely any rejection has anything about designers personally, the same is with a client as a person — rejections of some piece of work aren’t a rejection of people or their talents to them. It’s just business, nothing personal, and the sooner both participants in this process realize that, the better for results. Often, how to deal with rejection means overcoming their own demons on the way to success. If you communicate with clients daily, it’s better to be patient even in the most challenging cases. For both clients and their design teams, it is better to thoroughly understand the users’ problems and offer smart solutions than to lose time on empty expectations, art/business conflicts, etc.
Feel free to contact us and learn more about smooth & flexible cooperation, professional product design services, and effective communication from an expert design team in no time.
