HOW TO AVOID ARGUMENTS WITH YOUR DESIGNER Many restaurant and café owners find that designers argue with them about the best design for their outlet. At the beginning of my career I experienced this often and many other designers write to me to tell me their clients don’t understand them and haven’t paid them even though they are trying their best and their designs are beautiful. After many long years I think I’ve worked out why these arguments are inevitable. There are three contributing factors. 1. The majority of restaurant and café owners who hire a designer do so with the honest expectation that the designer’s job is to provide the design that is in the owner’s head (but which the owner often does not have the correct words to explain) at a price, which is set by the owner often without any proper calculation of, or advice about, what is a reasonable market price to pay. 2. The designer thinks that they have been hired to advise the best design to meet thier client’s business objectives and, although price is important, it is not as important as meeting the business objectives, which objectives are best, met using the designer’s artistry, which overrides their client’s untrained opinion. The designer thinks that it is the restaurant and café owners job to raise enough money come what may. 3. The restaurant and café owners hiring the designer and the designer do not discuss these things in advance, agree a realistic budget or negotiate about which of them will have creative control. Here’s what to do to avoid arguments arising and guarantee a happy outcome for everyone. 1. If you’re hiring a designer listen to them and they will listen to you. 2. If you are a designer listen to your client and learn all about their business before drawing any designs. 3. If you are hiring a designer ask yourself if there is any reason to believe why you are more of an expert about design than your designer. If there is you have not found the right designer yet. 4. If you are a restaurant and café owner hiring a designer do not expect the designer to guess correctly what design is in your head. The designer does not think this is their job. The designer thinks it is their job to design the best design for your business, they do not think it important whether or not you are personally attracted to that design, they think it’s only important that it attracts your customers, this is the right way to think since you may not have popular tastes. 5. If you are a designer and your client does not want to let you have control over the design and specification but does want you to control the costs ask yourself how this can really work in practice and explain the answer, if you can find one, to your client before asking them to pay you any money. If you can’t find the answer and you still take the work, don’t expect to get paid once the client finds out that what they wanted was unreasonable. 6. Both the designer and the person hiring the designer should obtain a detailed cost estimation from a professional independent expert, such as a quantity surveyor who has recently worked on similar projects and should not proceed unless there is enough money to complete the whole project properly. This may involve a small amount of design work and some small charges but, in my experience, avoids all arguments and surprises about money later in the project.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Aug 2013 18:23:07 +0000
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