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Designers Hate Estimating, Pt. 3 of 3

In Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 of this series, I shared some of the common variables that designers should take into account to reduce their "cone of uncertainty" when estimating a project.

In this final post, I want to talk about the things that designers often don't quantify when creating an estimate.

Factor: What the client needs, as opposed to what they articulate they need. The client wants a new logo, but that's not the business problem that comes out in your exploratory call or meeting. If you need to reframe the problem for them as part of the process, you need to consider it as a variable and secure more time and money to do that work. The way I couch this to clients is that designers aren't just problem solvers. They also have talents in helping clients to understand their problems, clearly define them, and then solve them. This is our strategic role beyond providing decorative assets.

Factor: How the client will behave through the course of a project, and if that will influence your work. Clients ask designers for references, but it's not always a bad thing to check up on your clients and/or closely observe how they interact with their peers or other vendors. This kind of gut check should govern what kind of buffer or multiplier you apply to your project fee, or whether you wish to engage with them at all. Sometimes you need to say no gracefully.

Factor: Not budgeting for potential failures through the design process. Why do we budget for exactly how long it will take? There should always be contingencies for at least one point of failure. Assume that at least one thing will go wrong, and be prepared for it in advance of it happening.

Factor: Not having an articulated business process that fits another designer. Let's say you're indisposed and you need to pass off your project to another designer. Many designers make the fatal mistake of estimating it to a person as opposed to a role. Don't just say, "It'll take me twenty hours to design this logo." Think about how long would it take any designer to design that logo. Leave room, should you get too busy or need to hire a freelancer, that the project can be covered without losing your shirt on the estimate. This may sound like heresy to some solo-flight designers, but this is what keeps large agencies alive.

Factor: You've never done a specific deliverable before. If a project is outside your realm of expertise, most designers usually assume they'll eat the cost of learning how to do it. This opens up risk from the client's perspective, and also gives them a point of negotiation to have you burn up hours meeting impossible goals. Do your due diligence and consult with one or two colleagues and ask them for advice on how to bid the project. Don't just give it away if you haven't done it before, or let the client know you can be taken advantage of because you're not an expert regarding this one type of deliverable. You should always continue to control the process of the project, follow your established design methods as they apply to the deliverable, and not allow the situation to become a power play.

Designers Hate Estimating, Pt. 2 of 3

In Pt. 1 of this series, I introduced Construx's "cone of uncertainty" and how to narrow the risk in your estimates by determining what unknown variables exist in your project scope.

Let's work through what these variables usually are, and how they can be brought in line in your estimate.

Define the Problem before You Estimate

In your estimate, what you need to demonstrate most is your understanding of the problem. Your approach to how it should be solved would follow, and should always be consistent. As a quick example, let's think through the variables that exist in creating a new logo for a local business.

Many years ago, I would estimate doing a logo by looking back through previous project to see how long it took for a project of a similar type, bash together an estimate based on how long they think it would take, multiply it by 1.3x to give some cushion for contingency, slot in some money for printing costs if they need to create any supporting materials as part of their bid, and send it off to the client.

Today, I focus more closely on what the client needs before I think about how I'm going to create it -- even if I've done a similar type of project for them before. And I charge my client for this extra time spent on the estimate as part of my overhead and creative fee, because they're getting more than just a cost for creating a logo.

Let me try to break it down here.

There's data from your prospective or current client, relating to specific needs out of the project (looking for brand lift, increase in perception, greater sales, etc.), as well as competitive analysis and market research.

There's qualitative information that your client provides in the way of what customers and staffers think about the old logo, which adds up to an impression of why they need a new one. These elements shape up into a business problem, which must then meet your process.

This information can usually be teased out in a single phone call, with some follow-up via email. I recommend making a set of questions you always ask in the exploratory call and keeping them by your phone in case you're surprised by an opportunity.

Have a Consistent Process for Creating the Solution

Within that same exploratory phone call, you should delineate what standard steps the client would take through the project, and what they are given with regard to rounds of review per each deliverable as part of the scope of work. Get that on the table from your very first conversation, so they're aware that they will follow your working process, not vice-versa.

It should go without saying that all of your rounds of review and costs for work outside the scope of the proposal must be in writing to protect your interests. I also recommend providing an hourly estimate of your work for a project, not a flat fee. There is always risk in accepting a flat fee, as it places the onus on you for understanding all the ways a project could go sideways and accounting for them.

There's qualitative information that you control in forming your estimate, such as what kind of creative approach you think you'd take -- but I'd recommend articulating that in your creative brief. I wouldn't recommend writing the brief before getting a signature and a portion of your fee, but I generally have a glimmer of an idea of what approach I'd likely take. This thinking can sometimes provide some color in the estimate, but should never be doled out for free and can sometime be shared anecdotally if the client is looking for a detail to tip the scale in their choice of a designer.

In Part 3 of this series, we'll explore some of the incidental details that many designers overlook when estimating a new project.

Designers Hate Estimating, Pt. 1 of 3

Have you ever met a designer that likes to create time estimates for projects?

The process is fraught with peril no matter how you approach it. Estimate too many hours, the client balks at the price and you need to negotiate to a resolution. Estimate too few hours, the client gladly signs on the dotted line, and you end up taking it in the gut. Hit it bang on the nose once in a blue moon, and take yourself out for a double-tall latte to celebrate, before walking back to the office and rebalancing your books.

Well, I could alleviate some of your estimating stress by telling you that there is no perfect estimate...

...and then raise your blood pressure by venturing that your estimate could deviate as much as four times from your original figures, depending on the scale of the engagement. That is, if you don't properly define what you're delivering, and assess the risks appropriately.

Get out of the "Cone of Uncertainty"

For a quick lesson in estimation, take a page from the software development playbook, which doesn't really differ too much from the large-scale interactive estimation process -- and can be scaled down to apply to most design estimates.

Construx, a well-known software development consultancy here in the Seattle area, has an article on their Web site regarding the "cone of uncertainty" that's essential reading for any designer who is responsible for managing large-scale design engagements.

The "cone of uncertainty" is the zone in any project where a number of interrelated variables -- the details of the work to be done, your process of doing the work, who will be creating the work, etc. -- have not been defined. Any methods of reducing uncertainty can limit "scope creep" (or just plain "lack of scope"), and also create further clarity with your client over shared expectations for the life of the project.

The only way to escape from this scenario is to put all your information out on the table and determine what you don't know -- and get the answers -- before delivering your estimate. That'll be the subject of Part 2.

Are You A Non-Profit Designer?

I'm not talking about pro bono work. I'm talking about barely breaking even on existing client work. You can make the most beautiful design work in the world and run yourself right out of business. Here's how.

Bill different rates for different clients, based on how much you like them. Sure, give that classy nonprofit a hefty discount. And that referral you got from your sister, cut them a break too. Pretty soon, everyone's getting a deal, and you're bleeding money. Keep a consistent rate structure and you'll be protected in case of emergencies. Don't bill clients like you're running a retail store. You aren't selling a product. You're providing a service.

Give little extras away for free on every client project. It wasn't in the contract, but it'll just take you a few minutes, so why not make that sticker? And if they need changes to it along with a quick little one-sheet, that'll take only take a half-hour, right? There goes $1,000 out the window. Every time a client asks me for something gratis, I have to weigh the value of the work they've requested against the long-term value of the work we're contributing to their business. With rare exception, extra work always requires compensation. Otherwise, your client will expect the Mercedes-Benz luxury treatment when all you've got is a Toyota hatchback to offer.

Be a killer designer, but don't keep up with technology. Assume that every three years, the technology landscape will change dramatically. Browsers evolve. Markup standards change. Printers upgrade their prepress systems. Software vendors change the fundamentals of their interfaces. Not knowing your tools and implementation methods, or not having a strong support staff that can keep you up to date, can cause you major strife while you're also trying to get out the work. It also plants fear in the hearts of your clients and is a big risk factor for retaining business in the long term.

Do spec work to land every project. Rule of thumb: If you can afford to give away a week of work for free in order to land every new project, you probably shouldn't be doing spec work. You should be taking a vacation due to your extraordinary wealth. Or, as is more often the case, you should be scrambling to improve your cash flow by closing new-business opportunities that only require proposals -- and fewer flaming hoops to jump through. Besides, those flaming hoops usually set your clothes on fire and then you need to run around in circles, waving your hands in a panic until help arrives...

Taking Stock of Using Stock Imagery and Type

At first glance on the magazine page, you notice the tightly-drawn outline of the Los Angeles skyline, and below it, a pool of blue-green water roughly splashed and dripping down the page. Within that three-dimensional puddle are any number of shapes that merge and swirl together like a Rorsharch inkblot: men resting in large inflatable rafts rendered in razor-sharp vector outlines, hand-drawn sketches meant to represent scribbled paparazzi with cameras raised to their faces. And did I mention the typography? The slab serif face fading in and out of the water, calling out different facets of the brand's services...

As I looked deep into the design, I began to pick out elements that I recognized from various stock agencies, from the ever-ubiquitous Getty Images and their iStockPhoto microstock service. The typeface resolved itself into a familiar friend, just distorted a little in Adobe Illustrator. In time, I could see little other than a vector illustration that was hand-created by some artistic soul, who then blew into their vision a rash of raster and type assets that were cleverly arranged and manipulated, but not singularly unique.

Such is the hazard of being a designer in today's stock-controlled environment for visual assets. The times can often seem fleeting for those designs that rest upon custom-created imagery and illustration -- those tiny details that elevate your creative work from an intelligent execution with commodity imagery to a singular work of commercial art.

You can create good design with mediocre imagery or so-so typefaces. But you can only create great design with great imagery and killer type use. And great imagery and type costs money, time, or both -- something many clients are loath to sacrifice for a deadline. They see sites like Getty Images or Corbis and assume that we can just go buy what we need, drop it into a layout, and we're "Good to go!"

Here's a few rules for ensuring that projects with custom asset needs escape into the world with some measure of soul.

1) Never use royalty-free imagery or microstock for high-level client work. Period.

These days, the shelf-life of a design is however long it takes for an image to "crash" into another. I vividly recall landing what seemed like the perfect photograph for a high-profile advertisement, and right when the ad ran, seeing the same photograph plastered across the Web site home page of a direct competitor.

The client, angry, called and asked how such a thing could occur. We explained to them that since they'd cut the photo budget out of the contract, we had no choice but to use royalty-free assets -- and even rights-managed assets would have held the risk of an "indirect" collision with another placement in a similar industry. The client wasn't thrilled with the outcome, but future projects did contain the proper amount of money for use of rights-managed imagery that was vetted through the stock agency to ensure there was no overlap of use across any close industry.

In the end, it would have been cheaper to just shoot the photographs!

Unless assets have been manipulated far beyond the original presentation, or used as a very quiet support in a layout, the use of royalty-free or microstock assets is much too risky.

2) Don't let clients negotiate the cost of assets out of your contracts as "padding." You'll burn time and money seeking out the right visuals, or salvaging poor imagery.

Make it clear to your clients that great design requires quality assets. No questions asked. Either they give them to you or you charge them for acquiring or creating them.

Ensure those costs are captured in your fees, no matter whether it's a photo shoot or the rights for high-quality stock imagery, plus markup. If they try to shake you down in this area, chances are that in the end, they may not value your overall design as much as you'd like.

If they are a marquee brand and the work you're creating has shelf life beyond the immediate deliverable, consider a photo shoot or custom illustration as part of the cost of doing business. (Also, it's a definite red flag if you're working with a major brand and they can't provide you with a pool of custom-created assets to support their overall brand needs.)

If you need to negotiate on price, work with your client to negotiate on your fees, but keep your photo costs and markup on those services to ensure profit. In the end, you'll likely save money by not having to burn countless hours searching through the stock pools for "that perfect image."

3) Always assume all visual assets, whether purchased from a stock agency or provided by the client, will require retouching. And budget accordingly.

Just because you bought an image at Getty Images doesn't mean it's going to print beautifully on a CMYK press. Never think that any image whose rights you acquire, from custom-created to stock-licensed, will ever be prepped for reproduction in print or proper use on the Internet. Always budget the time or the outside resources to assure the quality of your assets. I never let an image out into the world without some level of color-correction.

4) Don't go back to your client to get approval for using a new typeface. Factor the licensing costs for yourself and/or your studio into your fees.

Designers love to work outside the box, and projects such as logo development always ask for seeking out new flavors of type as inspiration. Just fold the potential costs of licensing a new font into your agency fees, instead of selling in a killer logo and then dropping the bomb on your client that they'll need to pony up an extra $500 to cover the typeface for your agency. This conversation usually ends with a pissed off client and a designer eating the cost as overhead.

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The stock industry has created a beautiful illusion of instant-access imagery and fonts as a commodity for creative professionals, as well as anyone else who can afford the licensing fees. Let's do our best to educate our clients to the real complexities of ensuring quality visuals in our design work -- and get paid accordingly for it.

How to Avoid FrankenConcepts

1. Show radically different ideas, not variations on a theme. If you don't show dramatic difference between comps, clients are much more comfortable playing art director. If you have one great layout and still need to generate multiple concepts, don't just iterate on the original.

2. If it's interactive work, clearly explain your documentation. I don't like to show "concepts" for UX, but when shifting from wireframe into multiple screen design concepts, be prepared for the client to react to details that were clear and "approved" in the documentation. Clients can start mingling elements of multiple screen designs to "solve" the problem, while it's often best to return to the wireframe and update the information architecture of the page first.

3. Show fewer concepts whenever possible. Any more than three, you're at risk.

4. Get them to love your idea before they love your execution. Be prepared to design less, not more. Microdetailing your comps can lead to your filigree being folded wholesale into the final design. This is why I always recommend showing sketches whenever possible, and getting the client to swoon over the direction before the visual.

5. Make sure the content structures don't wildly differ. If you introduce new types of content to a page -- i.e. "This idea has a pull quote, while in the other one we tried long copy..." -- you're introducing different layout features that could be mixed and matched. For interactive work, this isn't as much of a concern, since you'll be working off a wireframe. Though this could be a problem. (See #2.)

6. Articulate your creative strategy for each comp before showing the work. I find this the most important rule of the bunch. By drawing a boundary around what you're trying to accomplish, the details feel integrated with the concepts and don't "peel away" so easily.

Have any ideas to add?

How Many Concepts Should I Present?

Ah, the age-old question. Sure, it says you'll show three in your contract, but you just know they'll buy the twinkly idea that hit you in your morning shower. Why go through the hassle of designing out those lesser ideas that won't get client buy-in, but will demonstrate "range" and "value" as part of your ongoing relationship?

I have a few business rules about how many ideas to show. In numerical order.

One Concept Is for Friends and Art. Or You're the Shizzle.

If you're designing an art project, like a band poster or a pro-bono project for a friend, one concept is fair. If you're a hot shot, in-demand designer -- Stefan Sagmeister comes to mind -- one concept is part of the cost of engaging their firm. One concept is the illusion of a perfect solution, delivered by a rock star. So you'd better be one.

For us mere mortals, if you're designing for a corporation of an appreciable size, showing one concept can come off as sheer arrogance. I've had heart-to-hearts with local marketers about showing up to client presentations for major branding initiatives and being handed one concept -- and a dud at that. In every one of these cases, they've had to argue their agency down from their lofty perch to even consider an approach within the creative brief and budget. Is that really good client service?

Working with corporations, they are going to want to see the range of your thinking to frame up that single perfect solution. Now, this said: I have walked into the shooting gallery with only one concept, but only at great peril and backed by heavy artillery in the form of fully-baked research and strategic positioning. But try it at your own risk. It's too easy to get burned.

Two Concepts Are for Day-to-Day Projects, Tight Bids, and... Pitches.

When working on "big idea" campaigns and day-to-day, meat and potatoes projects such as collateral and environmental graphics, two concepts fits the bill. How many brochure covers does the client really need to see to make an informed choice? How many ideas to you want to show when they're going to govern a huge campaign? Any more and you're just asking for it.

If the client doesn't feel either design concept or campaign theme hits the brief, there's likely some great ideas that ended up on the cutting room floor, just waiting to be executed. Either that, or the brief wasn't tight to begin with. If it's not your fault, you could hit them with a change order to cover that extra round of work. You can't "miss the mark" if the target was in the wrong place.

If you're forced into doing a pitch, don't ever show more than two concepts per assignment -- and your absolute best ones, at that.

Three Concepts Are for Real Challenges.

If you're going through a branding exercise or developing an enterprise-level Web site, three concepts are completely fair. However, scope needs to be tightly controlled at the first round. Don't show color studies for all your logos right out of the gate, or develop multiple Web page exceptions when the client hasn't even bit off on a Web page shell.

Keep each concept simple -- as the purest, most uncomplicated expression of your idea.

Four Concepts Should Never Happen.

Three is the magic number, not four. Show a client four ideas and you're just asking for Frankenconcepting. Too many choices is always a bad thing. Stick to prime numbers.

Five Concepts = Fat Wads of Cash.

In some heavy branding exercises, I've done five to eight concepts. Was that a good idea? Not really. In the end, they quickly whittled it down to the three we knew were top-notch. We were getting a hefty fee, however, and the client felt like we'd shown real range and value for their dollar. More projects came through the door from that client, and we were able to bring it back to two concepts for future work.

If you're getting great compensation and love the thrill of executing a dozen ideas to their last detail, feel free to throw every last concept at the wall. Just know that in the end, only one of them will ever stick.

The Design Client's Bill of Rights

When do clients get upset? When they expect something common -- such as a swift response to an email -- and you don't write back for a day. Or when you show two concepts when the contract said four. Or, heavens forbid, you show up for a meeting 15 minutes late and don't call them well ahead to warn them.

No matter whether you're flying solo or working within an agency, there are key expectations that every client considers a given: timeliness, transparency, value, and respect.

Read these next paragraphs in the voice of the client that appreciates you most.

The Design Client's Bill of Rights

1. Timeliness

I know when I'm getting deliverables, how long I have to review them, and when I need to pay you for them. Up front, on a schedule, net 30 or 60 -- this must be clear from the start of our engagement.

Additionally, we will keep to scheduled meeting times and you will not be late without warning. I am always exempt from rebuke for tardiness, as I am busy working to ensure your work is approved with your best interests in mind. However, if you're billing me by the hour and my lateness is costing me money, please gently let me know.

Once a schedule is set, your work will never be late, unless an unforeseen circumstance arises and you contact me well in advance of the deadline to ensure that my superiors do not clobber us for the possible appearance of unprofessionalism. If we change the scope of our project, I expect you to negotiate a new schedule with me that allows the work to proceed to the best of your ability without compromising fully our initial time frame.

2. Transparency

I need to know where we're at in the project at any time.

I need to know the thinking behind the work that you show me, the work that I choose, and when necessary the work that I decline. I am your advocate in my corporation/organization and need to be able to own the agency's perspective when I speak before my boss, my CEO, my peers, and the general public. Do not assume that you will be able to participate in every meeting within my company to defend the work.

I need to know the impact my project will have on my customers, my company, and the world at large, not to mention sustainability issues and ethical concerns that may transcend the work and damage our reputations.

3. Value

I am always seeking fairness in agency/designer fees. I will mindfully defer on negotiating minor fee changes if my project has a major, provable impact on brand equity.

That said, my corporation will usually require me to bid work through multiple agencies, so be aware that the cost of your work will always be factored into the overall value of our potential relationship. If you're underbid, that doesn't mean I'll always choose the lower bidder. I will choose the best vendor for the project.

Don't hide costs or penalize me for the lack of forethought in your bidding or my strategic approach. Work with me as a partner to help me understand where we need to meet, both fiscally and professionally, so that both of us win.

If you can't do the work for the costs you estimated, let me off the hook quickly enough to allow me to engage with another vendor before my boss fires me, or bring me options that both of us can live with, being mindful that I may not return to work with you again -- no matter how great the final result can be.

4. Respect

If I smell oversized ego, or if you tell me I just don't get it, then you're history. I'm responsible for my business and have to live with the consequences of your recommendations.

I expect you to convey, through everything that you do for me, the knowledge that you care and respect our shared partnership. We have a relationship that is predicated on our focus on creating meaningful design communications. This can influence everything: how you dress, how you talk, how you describe your work to my boss, how we catch a beer after work and you respect the client/designer boundary. We aren't friends. We are colleagues.

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If you have the ability to do so, you should write up expectations for what your clients should expect of you right as you're hired.

If you can't return an email in two hours, tell them. If you need one to two days flexibility on your project milestones because you're overloaded in your studio, tell them up front. Don't surprise them along the way. If you do, you'll risk diminishing your long-term relationship and chances for success because of something unspoken, unfulfilled, or unwittingly ignored.

Not Just Clients. Thought Partners.

Yesterday I heard words from a new client that made my face light up, as it's the kind of client relationship I think we all truly seek: thought partnership.

If designers want to be seen as agents of change, not mere decorators, we need clients to see us as thinking about their needs outside of the work at hand.

Standing tall as a holistic thinker, you can enter into larger, bolder discussions that will help shape and change more than just their marketing -- you'll change the quality of their business. You'll show them an outsider's perspective on their customers, the community they play in, and their overall corporate strategy and brand. Otherwise, you're just taking orders. Without being a party to the larger discussions happening within your client's organization, you can't begin to originate the kinds of ideas that can create positive change on a large scale for the good of their customers.

That said, don't forget the "partnership" part of your role. Just because you're orbiting the client's hairball (to borrow Gordon MacKenzie's phrase) doesn't mean you get to take pot-shots. A good portion of your designer-client partnership is being cognizant of how your ideas are going to influence their organization. Some ideas you originate and share with the client will change the way they do business. The same goes for you. The client often shares ideas with you that dramatically influence how you do business. It's a two-way street, and many designers forget in the heat of the battle over which concept and what idea that without the client there to support your business, you don't have a business. And without the client being part of the ongoing conversations you're having to help grow their business, then you're just designing things on demand instead of really making a difference.

A Creative Brief Should Be... Brief

See the title of this post.

A brief is digested, in all senses of the word -- a condensation of thought that indicates a clear strategic direction. Killer creative thinking comes from focus. You need a bull's eye to aim at, not a dartboard.

In my experience, there is an inverse correlation between the length of a creative brief and the quality of thought that goes into it. I have fond memories, as I'm sure we all do, of reviewing a brief in abject fear, realizing that the client is requesting work that communicates three or four different ideas within one piece. Many of them can be contradictory.

This is when you need to work with your client to narrow their strategy to the right key message -- one that is easily communicated and makes sound business sense.

The creative process can be easily co-opted for the express purpose of focusing the client's marketing or branding strategy in the work itself. This is a waste of time and money for the client and the designer, and no way to run a profitable business.

Ideally, a brief should never run longer than 2 pages. Everything else is just incidental detail. Do all those facts and figures and charts need to be in the brief? Can you communicate them in another way or provide them as supporting material? When I see a thicket of details in the brief, they are often secondary to the goal of the project. Everyone needs to share the goal before the details can fit.

The real litmus test to a compelling brief is when you polish up your designs, board them, meet your clients in the conference room, and introduce your work by sharing one to two succinct sentences that summarize the entire strategic direction of the project. At this point, their heads should be nodding expectantly, as they wait for you to reveal how you've clothed their business needs in compelling artistry.