I have to design a brochure for a client. I don’t understand much of brand identity, but my client says his brochure should reflect the following:
- Professional
- It should not be the flavour of the month
- Must inspire confidence
- Must reflect the strength of the team
- “Our corporate promise is: Reliable Energy”. Therefore, it should inspire reliability.
My question is, while designing, what are the things that I need to keep in mind so that I adhere to what he have asked for?
I understand that the design should be simple, with standard colour and fonts. Apart from that, how can I make the brochure reflect the list above? How do you translate this in terms of design?
Answer
The problem you actually have isn’t the one you think you have, but it’s one that every designer faces often: the clients actually have no idea what they’re looking for, so they have given you a list of vague concepts instead of a clear design brief.
Your job at this point is not to start trying to design something. It is to work with the client as long as it takes until both you and the client have a clear idea of exactly what they want to communicate to exactly which audience. If you just sail into a design now, then unless you get very lucky you will end up in an endless round of major changes and minor tweaks that will take you far beyond the time you had budgeted for the project. Relying on luck is bad practice.
Not getting a clear design brief at the outset is the number one cause of designer frustration, extended project time and unhappy clients. It is very often the case, when dealing small-to-medium size businesses, that the client has not thought the project through in detail. You make yourself more valuable, and save yourself a huge amount of work, by helping them to do that in the beginning. If you and the client haven’t clearly defined the goal for the project, neither of you will know when you’ve achieved it.
This article on the AIGA website will give you some insight.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Ibrahim Azhar Armar , Answer Author : Alan Gilbertson