20. Don’t say: “You’re the expert here. Can’t you just do your creative magic?”

Why? Well… yes and no. Designers are (or should be) experts at creating beautiful, functional designs from the guidance and parameters you provide. But, as we’ve mentioned in previous points, having something to go on in the first place makes the process much smoother: a detailed creative brief is ideal, but even something as simple as providing some examples of designs you do and don’t like can be very helpful. Jeff Sholl at Propoint Graphics puts it this way:

“‘You’re the expert here’ basically says: we [the clients] defer to your judgment to read our minds and give us something we didn’t even know we wanted. That is a lot of pressure to lay on a graphic designer….The bigger issue is the amount of freedom it gives the designer. This phrase gives us unlimited freedom to try to tell the story that you know best. We can deliver Picasso, but if you were looking for Rembrandt there’s gonna be an issue.”

Designers can put all their creative energies into creating an interesting, effective design, but only you know what you want, so it’s ultimately up to you to communicate that.