FMP Week 1

My project is to create an awareness of graphic design as an important part of our everyday lives. Many people do not realise how many of the posters around them they encounter are designed by a graphic designer prior to their display; many of these people who do not appreciate the works around them, are the clients that the work is produced for. This is something that I would like to explore and develop into a new way of demonstrating and engaging clients into learning about how important graphic design. I would also like to express how both they and the decisions they make within a job or task set affect the people working within the subject. Many clients hire graphic designers because they do not have the skill set to complete a task but are unaware of how much work actually goes into creating a piece of work. I will clarify and communicate the use of graphic design towards clients in an information-based way, creating and producing posters, leaflets/ flyers, badges, magnets and any other ways in which to get the message out into the industry motivating a response within the audience.

To produce this project I will have to investigate and generate a response of my own within this guiding my thoughts into well-researched and clearly developed pieces of communication. I would create my outcomes using computer software such as Adobe Photoshop, InDesign and Adobe Illustrator as well as combining this with traditional skills of drawing etc.

 Having previously planned out the seven weeks of the FMP, I was able to quickly determine what I needed to do in order to develop my ideas and concepts. I immediately started looking at sources in which helped to create an understanding of what Graphic designers thought about the client/designer relationship. One of these being an article called "8 Things Designers Should Teach Their Clients." The article was very interesting as it informed me of what a Graphic designer felt was important for a client to know. This is something that I need to convey with my own product and having on board the views of designers is key to understanding what needs to be taught. This website also talked about communication and how it is key and you are the expert not them indicating that designers should take charge and make sure that the client knows that they are not the one with the knowledge.

I also looked at many other websites such as What designers do. It was very interesting to compare the two different views and realities of both a graphic designer and a non designer. some of them varied greatly especially with the question what does a designers workspace look like? As well as the hours of work a graphic designer does; many non designers felt that they had a simple 9 - 5 job however it appeared that in actual fact they worked from around 9/10 until they had finished the work they needed to do, no matter how long their hours would be. On the other hand they agreed on one thing, respect. In the sense of each others opinions on each other they wanted to feel respected however it was apparent that the non designer talked about the designer in a positive way and they designer talks about the non designer in a negative way .his may be because of their client designer relationships they've had before.

 Worst clients comments turned into posters is another website I have looked at and started to develo my own ideas in the posters that were created out of the clients comments. I really hope that I create some posters like this for my final project so I have decided to experiment with my ideas against the original. Some of them are really good and work well but others really frustrate me.

Clients form hell was a great website that showed me the worst comments i've ever seen. The comments were racist and even generally showed a lack of respect. I feel that this is down to little knowledge of what they are asking designers to do, this is something I have seen throughout research and this backs it further. The client was asking the designer to do things that they didn't know how to do but felt that they were easy and could be done in no time at all.

Graphic Designer Vs Client. All of these websites helped to develop my ideas further, generating an insight into the world of graphic design and their clients within this sector. I would love to say that I have an idea for the final outcome but this is far from the case. The research I have has only inspired my thoughts in the sense of education into the topic and finding out ways in which I could potentially educate and communicate what I found out to clients themselves.

Many of the comments about clients were "you are the professional, not them." This means that you should not let the client take over the design process and should not let them think that they know what they are doing; if they knew what they were doing they would not be hiring you. This is something that I found to be a key comment within many of the sites I researched into. I would make the assumption that the client knows what their idea is and therefore feels that they know how to so things to what they can see in their head. If you do not design what they foresee then this is not correct in their eyes.