creativematch: Is the original idea often the best?

Thursday, 10 July 2008

Is the original idea often the best?

Just chatting here at New Designers to students, and one discussion caught my minds eye, so to speak.

One of the students, Andy Griggs, had come up with a great snowboard/ski waxer - and was showing this on the university stand.

andy griggs snowboard waxer

It caught my eye because snowboarding is a passion for me, but it was our discussion that got me thinking.

We talked about how he got to the final design, why the more obvious 'iron' shape with handle had not been used, for instance. It transpired that what he described as his 'original' design may have been the best solution - although the end product still looked great.

But he was in education, and the project was supposed to take a year, so he continued working on it.

Perhaps it was this that made what was a hot idea not what it might have been.

In the design process, I have often found that the original ideas are often the best. Sometimes, working on more ideas is about fee building and massaging client egos rather than coming up with a solution - and perhaps this is 'embeded' in education.

Would our quality of life be better if we (and our clients) accepted less design collateral, but still got the original and best ideas?

Just think we could work for 20% of the time, earn 80% of the money and have LOADS more fun on the slopes.

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Posted By Mark Lesbirel at 4:47 PM in Category:creative 'business'

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Paul Winter

I totally agree with Nikki, but how do we manage clients that want to see 'a few more' suggestions, or 'can we see it landscape too' please.

Is there some research into how much of what is actually designed on paper actually reaches print or web or manufacturing. Of course, we can't expect every designer to come up with 1 solution which is then bought by the client - but can we cut out some wastage and time?

Are there guidelines for developing different solutions?

15 Jul 2008

Nikki

I can hear the collective intake of breath across the design world as you describe taking time to work on more ideas as unecessary 'fee building'.

[I think I did say 'sometimes' - mark]

Having barely enough time to complete a project and get more than two minutes sleep a night is a luxury in such a deadline driven industry.

Yes, often the first idea can be the best, but this is not always the case and it is only by researching further that you can be sure of this, testing the design out on all possible usages (ie, checking your flashy new branding logo is actually readable at 5pt in single col as well as in full col on a three storey advertising screen).

The learning curve that our student friend should take from this is if you do find that your original instincts were the best, then you should go back to them. Having the confidence to trash several weeks work in order to retain the best solution is a skill that comes with experience, and does not mean that those weeks weren't a path that needed traveling in order to form that conclusion.

Any Designer worth their fee would not dream of sitting around playing with a project in order to massage anyone's ego, a great Designer would either have quoted properly for time in the first place, or would take the project further, coming up with additional concepts that the client may not have realised could be intrinsic to the project working in a live environment. (it's called managing a project rather than just following orders).

So rather than pushing an already good concept for the sake of it, I would have liked to see our student creating marketing campaigns around the project, coming up with packaging designs, getting engineering students involved in production costings, maybe even a prototype made. It's only after all this can he be truly sure his original design is actually as good as he thinks it is.

15 Jul 2008