Please Stop Asking Me to Make it POP.
Rant alert.
Most designers pride themselves on being visual problem solvers. Taking a client's needs, desires and business goals into consideration with nearly every design and coding decision.
There are varied reasons a client contracts a professional to take care of their project but every project DOES start with a problem to be solved. "Client needs XYZ." After client and designer have discussed cost, scope, timelines and goals, most times based on very well defined information from the client, there comes a moment in the design phase where the client's feedback simply consists of the words:
Make it POP.
Can someone please, tell me what the hell that means? It's nothing I've ever actually had defined for me. Not in school and not in any of the twelve years of my design career.
Oh and there are variations designers should be aware of, you know, so that should you happen to encounter one you can address the situation appropriately...
There's no POP.
It just doesn't POP.
We need more POP.
We'd like to see it POP.
Can we... Make it POP.
Crafty clients will certainly have other as yet undiscovered variations. Of course the answer to all of these is either "So.", "No" or "We can't." and sometimes "What?" because this type of feedback means NOTHING. It's the equivalent of telling a 911 operator "Help me I'm in L.A. and I'm dying." Oh, and account/project managers/salespeople, please don't even bother forwarding or otherwise conveying this type of input to your design team. It's a recipe for nothing but having a lot of people throw-up just a little bit in their mouths... simultaneously.
For a designer to help a client solve their (design) problems, the designer needs real, tangible input and feedback. Whether that feedback is positive or negative doesn't matter, it gives the designer a sense of if they are heading in the right direction or not (based on what the client wants to see not necessarily what the proper design decisions are... but that is a whole 'nother post...)
So now that I have that off my chest I'll likely be able to refrain from punching someone in the neck next time they utter that damn phrase in a meeting.
<./Rant>
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