I had something of an epiphany the other day. For years I've assumed that most non-designers, clients included, don't know what good design is. But now I'm looking at things in an entirely different way. I think the problem might be that most clients don't know what bad design is.

Think about it. When was the last time a client turned up their nose at something you designed? Sure, it happens sometimes, but I've found that more often than not the issue is that the client can't tell the difference between what my firm has done and what somebody else has done, even if what someone else has done looks like something that came out of a cow's nostrils. It's not that they think my firm's design is bad, it's that they can't tell that the other guy's work is bad, and therefore they can't understand why my firm is charging ten times as much as the other guy.

This would naturally lead into a discussion about why people don't know the difference between good design and bad design, but that's a topic for another post.

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Actually, I was wondering if it could lead into a discussion about how/if to bring this up with your clients. Is there ever the opportunity presented where you could compare your work with a competitor's with the client? Give them a brief primer on good and bad design?

Others' experiences may differ from my own, but I've tried doing this and it doesn't seem to work, either because they don't want to learn or they cannot learn. I believe in most, if not all, cases it's the former rather than the latter, but the reasons why they don't want to learn could vary greatly. For example, telling you that your design isn't good might just be a cop out because it's easier for a client to say that then to tell you that you have crippling body odor.

i think that everyone is diffrent, so You can say :it's bad design , but I can say about the same : that's graet.

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