A lot of people don't know how to talk to designers.
They might get a design for review and request that the text be moved left a bit, the title colour changed to grey, and the photograph converted to sepia. Of course, if those suggestions were any good then it's likely that the designer will already have tried that and a hundred other things before sending the design over - being a back seat designer doesn't help anyone. The designer can go ahead and make all of your changes but it's just going to waste everyone's time as you manipulate the design via the phone or email (you're designing it now, not them) until you eventually end up with something you're happy with (but isn't as good as it could have been), a bored designer, and a bigger bill at the end of it all.
Why did you hire this designer anyway? If you were so good at design why didn't you design it instead of designing by proxy? Here's the question: did you really want the black box moved down a bit and the text moved over or were you trying to fix a problem, to achieve a result? The latter.
So why not hire a good designer and let them do their job? Get your design for review, notice that it feels too cluttered, doesn't emphasise your brand enough, feels too serious, or whatever and then tell the designer this and let them figure out a solution. That's what they're paid to do. Tell them what you want to achieve and why, then let them work out how.
This approach isn't limited to graphic design. Have you got a web developer who's changed something that you're not happy with? Don't tell him to make X do Y and W link back to Z. Tell him what the problem is and why and let him work out how to fix it. As a bonus you now won't have to take responsibility for the solution if it doesn't work - so you won't feel too bad about asking him to work overtime to fix it.
Tell designers WHAT and WHY, not HOW. Win.
In parts of the world such as India and East Africa a large proportion of the population, especially in rural areas, does not have access to grid electricity. Yet many of these villages have mobile phone coverage and the networks are planning on rolling out more. Clearly the networks need to power their masts - so, could they power the villages as well?
According to a white paper recently published by the GSMA, the global body for the mobile phone industry, the answer is yes - and what's more, the best way to do it may well be using sustainable 'green' energy sources. The paper concludes that there is the potential for 200,000 such green Community Power projects worldwide, which could provide electricity to 120 million people. I was lucky enough to be part of the Cairneagle team supporting the GSMA in this project.
