Dan Mall reveals his tips for working out what a client really wants, and for getting your work signed off when it's done.
Sometimes design can be the easiest part of your job; whether you work with Photoshop, HTML or CSS, you'll often find that the hard work really starts when you've finished designing and you need to get your bosses and clients to give your work their stamp of approval.
The fact is that you can't always rely on the work to do the talking; getting buy-in from the necessary decision-makers is a skill in itself, and this is the subject of Dan Mall's talk from Generate New York earlier this year.
'Proper etiquette for the advancement of design' is the title of this talk, and in it Dan shares some stories of tools, methodologies and non-traditional deliverables that can help you turn a finished design into one that's approved and ready to go, and which can help you nail down what a client really wants in the first place and so get a flying start on any project.
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No matter what area of design you work in, Dan's talk is 45 minutes well spent and will leave you armed some essential new working techniques, as well as the ability to make everyone you work with say 'please' and 'thank you!'
Learn how you can help your work get that all-important stamp of approval with Dan Mall
And if you want some more great tips, get to Generate London in September where, among a wide range of workshops and sessions for anyone working in web design and frontend development, you'll find Mike Kus with his talk, Be the black sheep.
Mike believes that every client is unique, and yet many websites are starting to look the same. Rather than follow the crowd, you need to stand out by standing alone, and in this talk Mike will share the secrets of how to extract an organisation's identity, and use it as the inspiration to help you craft truly distinctive web designs.
As well as Generate London, there are upcoming Generate events in San Francisco on 15 July, and in Sydney on 5 September. Hit the Generate site for more details and to book your tickets.
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Jim McCauley is a writer, performer and cat-wrangler who started writing professionally way back in 1995 on PC Format magazine, and has been covering technology-related subjects ever since, whether it's hardware, software or videogames. A chance call in 2005 led to Jim taking charge of Computer Arts' website and developing an interest in the world of graphic design, and eventually led to a move over to the freshly-launched Creative Bloq in 2012. Jim now works as a freelance writer for sites including Creative Bloq, T3 and PetsRadar, specialising in design, technology, wellness and cats, while doing the occasional pantomime and street performance in Bath and designing posters for a local drama group on the side.
