Why is feedback so important?

Please remember, your designer is offering you a service. A little bit of tough love - they are the expert here, not you. Just because you googled ‘how to design a logo’ does not mean you know how to.

Do you question a chiropractor? Or a doctor because you saw something on WebMD that said you might have stomach cancer? No. So please don’t question your designer's expertise and knowledge. 

We are sensitive creatures, but we have learnt how to detach ourselves from our work and accept feedback. Note the word feedback, not criticism, not constructive criticism, but feedback.  

I honestly never gave any thought to this topic on educating the client on how best to talk to me about their thoughts and comments until I stumbled on this post. (Seriously, she is so good at what she does). So I’m going to artfully ‘steal’ some of her tips and add a few extras that I’ve picked up over the years. 

Please be aware that while we put in a lot of effort to get your design where we think you want it, we can only do so much if we are supplied with minimal, incorrect or ‘I dunno’ information. If possible, be upfront and honest from the get go and all will run smoothly. 

In this post, I will be giving examples of good and bad feedback. This is all legitimate feedback I’ve received from clients, and they weren’t even ‘bad’ or difficult clients. 

Hot Tip: Always keep your target audience in mind when giving feedback. It’s makes sure your designer is seeing it through their eyes too and your comments aren’t based on personal opinion eg. I don’t like the blue, because I don’t like the ocean. 

I don’t like the font. 

Say: I think the font may be too young and fun for our older, sophisticated female audience. A more minimal font may appeal more to our demographic. What are your thoughts? 

Make it pop. 

Say: I’m concerned our audience won’t respond to a black and white logo. Can we add some colour? 

I don’t like the colour. 

Say: It’s really important to us that our colour palette is strong. I love the yellow, but we aren’t quite sure on the soft blue just yet. What were your thoughts behind it? 

Make the logo bigger and bolder. 

Say: I’m worried that there isn’t enough difference between the logo and other elements. I feel like it’s getting a little lost and may be hard for our clients to see. Is there a way to fix that? 

It’s not what I had in mind. 

Say: I really like what you’ve done so far, but I’m worried it doesn’t align with our business goals and target audience. Can you talk us through your reasoning for this design? 

Here’s a logo I found. Can you just do exactly that? 

Note: This is a big fat, gigantic no no. Copyright is a serious offence and can result in major law suits and fines. Your designer will (hopefully) not copy someone else’s work. It’s extremely unethical. You can take inspiration from something, but cannot blatantly copy. It’s actually quite rude to even assume your designer would do that. 

Say: We’ve found inspiration of other logos that we like with a few comments, is there something in here you can use? What are your thoughts? 

Here’s one that I made that’s exactly what I want. 

Note: Another big no no. Do not even attempt this, no matter how tempting. It’s offensive and completely deflates your designer, which in turns means you will not get the best result. 

Say: Our business is based on travelling and partying through Ios, Greece, we would like our logo to be representative of the ocean, with bright, complementary colours to show an energised and youthful side to our business, similar to the vibe and style of [insert business name here]’s logo. 

I like it. 

Note: Get a thesaurus and remove ‘like’ from your vocab altogether. ‘Like’ is not a valid term when designing, use another word, something more descriptive to express your thoughts.  

Say: I really like the way you incorporated the hand drawn illustrations into the design. It really represents our artisan, hand-made products and we think our audience will resonate with that and make that connection. 

At the end of the day, the best way to approach feedback is to state why you don’t like something, or the problem you think it’ll cause your audience, and ask a question – why is that? What do you think? Is there a way to fix it? 

Asking for your designers' advice will literally make them giddy and blush, even though the design wasn’t perfect and will keep them motivated. We just want our professional advice to be respected and called upon. Simple creatures, we are. 

If you take this advice the next time you meet with your designer, not only will you be our fave client ever, but at the end of the project, you will have a successful, strong design that you will be proud to show off.