… so now, instead of hunting down design jobs, i hunt down people who have bigger communication problems. i include all the clever bits of design and code trickery that su and i are interested in messing with in our proposals, and i do not involve the client in much of that creative process. that is incredibly counterintuitive to me, because i was trained to treat the client relationship as a hand-in-hand creative journey with reviews along the way to define the client’s desires. but in doing that, i am constantly making things i don’t think are right because of possibly incorrect creative input from mr. or ms. client—so by removing them from the process, i retain a lot of my own autonomy, and their peace of mind. it cuts down on a lot of pain points for both me and the client.

this struck me as crazy talk when i first started doing it, but it actually works in this day and age, when people need things fast, and they’re used to shopping for fully fleshed-out pieces of design on the web, like tumblr and wordpress templates. the idea of a custom process to them is kind of nuts, and incredibly intimidating from a financial point of view—an ever-present cartoon thought bubble over their heads with the words “how much more does this cost?” in it.

via fixingthehobosuit.com

Nice blog post by Patric about his ongoing evolution as a designer. I have a bunch of thoughts about this, but I will save them for later in the month when I get to talk to Patric & Su directly during their visit to NYC!