How Do You Deliver Work to Clients?

Tony Hardy

Well-Known Member
Hey everyone,

I wasn't sure of the right forum to pop this into, but I guess this one is as good as any?

I was wondering, when working on a branding/logo design/illustrative project for clients, how you deliver this to clients?

Is it a case of "here you go, this is what you've got, see you later." Or, are there loads of options for them feeding back and you revising?

At Canny, we've recently started delivering our work in rounds. For example:

This is Round One in a large branding project. They then get to make choices/reductions/explorations as the project rolls on:

http://puu.sh/oqgYz/cfe6e06742.png

And here's Round 2:

http://puu.sh/oqh1a/619bb92602.png

I'd love to know all about the processes you go through when delivering you work to clients?
 
Not quite the same area but with my 3D visualisations I normally have a few 'rounds' where they can see smaller or lower quality images to give feedback on things like the camera angle, the placement of items etc before the main rendering which will usually take longer to produce.
 
Well it depends on the project. Illustration projects tend to be the most time consuming both in creation and edits, therefore clients don't really get rounds of variations as much, it's more of a take it or leave it but happy to make minor amendments, or something new if you are willing to pay kind of thing. But usually, there is a clear understanding of what the client is looking for before pen hits the page. Obviously, approval of drafts are made before they are turned into full on, complete illustrations.

But to take your example of branding/logo design which is much more my area of expertise, I give 3 free rounds of revisions and after that I charge an hourly rate for any further amendments / revisions. When I first started out, I used to provide multiple design options like you have, but realised it is not really the best way to go about things. Less really is more, like most things design related. I don't mean to turn this into a critique, but you have provided your client with 14 design options to choose from, 14! And most of them are variations of the same design. It is far more beneficial for both you and your client to provide them with your best 3/4 completely different designs, using different fonts, and then make 3/4 variations of their chosen design; which I see you have done in Round 2, but again 14 variations is a hell of a lot! Realistically, you only have 4 different design ideas there, which is more than enough.
 
I try to sell them on a concept before I even show them a visual. If I can explain the idea behind the identity and branding in a single sentence and the client gets it and likes it, it makes my job a hell of a lot easier. I typically only need to show them one concept at a time, they either like it as is (with a few tiny amends) or require amends.

Essentially I'm working in a similar way to you by refining a single design, but I skip the process of presenting lots of ideas since it just distracts the client. I've always found it's best to have them focus on a single design. It's a pain when they like two concepts and want them combining.

With websites I build up, starting with a solid brief that covers aims, target markets, deliverables etc as well as covering inspiration from other sites/competitors the client has picked out, then I move onto getting the copy sorted and wireframing (there's a bit of back and forth between these two), then it's a case of presenting the 'final' design for the client to look at. Constantly referring back to the brief and thinking about the end-user at every stage normally results in a site that nails it pretty much straight away. However, tweaking CSS and removing those errors that only the client gets is another matter entirely…
 
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