Client Side of Design

Scher: My partner, Michael Bierut, had a wonderful post on his blog, wwww.designobserver.com on bullshit. There is a certain amount of bullshit that can be used to justify decisions because, obviously, you can argue things one way or another way. Your goal is to show that what you've done is a logical right brain, step-by-step perfect little piece of thinking that gets a client where they want to get to and makes them feel completely comfortable. So you demonstrate things in specific orders. You take a job and deconstruct it and show that when you put it back together it all logically fits because all the elements came from the design brief.

FC: Is that a totally cynical strategy?

Scher: If we are totally honest that's the case: why justify this one design versus the myriad that you could set up the same way to fit the strategy? But you do it because you actually believe that what you’re making is the right thing to do for them, and if you have to persuade them, then this way is as good as any.