The art of the proposal is one of the most important pieces of design work any creative will have to master in order to grow and develop new business. Basically, it entails writing and producing the design concept the client is looking for but more importantly, it means tying that concept to a budget. It is the design proposal that tells the client how much they are going to pay and what they are paying for.
Most designers are weak when it comes to building and producing tight proposals. I have had to teach everyone who has worked for me how to do it at some level. Most designers are great at coming up with awesome sketches, renderings, or whatever that addresses a cool design. That is what they have gone to school to learn. Unfortunately, design schools do not teach the real-world financial applications to allow a designer to maximize a particular design’s bottom-line business model. By that I mean, a designer should not put the horse in front of the cart too soon. Of course there is a time for pure unadulterated creativity to thrive at a certain point in a new project’s design. Just don’t jump there before you have asked yourself a bunch of questions:
1. What does the client want to pay?
2. How long is this project going to take?
3. Who is going to be involved with the production or fabrication of the job?
4. What does this client expect from this design?
5. How much do I make after everything is done?
Simple basic questions right? Not so fast there Mr. Design Guy. Although you might find the five questions obvious in the overall strategy of a project’s development, I would ask you to think for a minute how many times you have finished a project and, in retrospect, not answered one or more of the above questions until something happened during the project that you did not think about. Maybe you got to the end of the job and there was no money left to pay yourself. Oh that has happened hasn’t it? What about projects that go on and on for what seems like forever. All the while your checking account is draining faster than Victoria Gotti’s swimming pool while you agonizingly worry and wait for the next progress payment? Never happened? Well, then how about question number 4: Did you ever get to a point in the project where a client finally says, “It just isn’t what I expected”. Mmm…
The important thing to accept and understand about all this is simple: as you leave the initial client meeting with a head full of great ideas and dreams of making the cover of DWELL magazine, keep a couple of things in mind. Most projects do not get bigger. They get smaller. By that I mean the client doesn’t usually know what the final project really is until you, as the project developer, create that scope and attach pricing to it. Once the client is “in the ballpark” they will usually freak out a little bit on what is actually happening and pull the reigns in a bit to keep their project under a very nebulous budget figure. It is your job to protect your investment in the project. Keep a reasonable distance from any final or dear-to-your-heart design ideas at this step in the process. You usually will end up cutting and editing a lot of your over-the-top concepts right off the bat. That really is not much fun for you is it? All your dreams of seeing your mug on the cover of the magazine kind of evaporate as the client repeats the Client Mantra, “I don’t have a big budget for this…” over and over. So find out what it is and design from there! Get over it. When have you ever had a client come to you and say, “I have an unlimited budget for this but I don’t really know what I should do so can you help me here?”
Secondly, your job is to get the job. Don’t however, violate question 5 to get it. If the answer is $0 or negative $$ you lose. Client wins. You’re an idiot. Start from question 5 and work backwards in developing the concept. Leave yourself plenty of room for some mistakes also. Make some money for once! Never forget that this is what you do. Quit with the “I do it because I love it” argument. Or worse, “I am doing this project for way less than I should because eventually it will pay off somewhere down the road”. That is a bunch of crap and it never works that way. In fact, you simply lose respect for yourself as a professional in assuming this mentality.
How many times has a client used this one on you: “Lot’s of people are going to see this and I’m sure you are going to get a lot of business from this project” while they are negotiating a below-cost price for their design? Take it from a guy who has been doing this for a while and has heard that line about a hundred times: total bullshit. It doesn’t happen. Usually most people who see the design simply remark on how cool it is and move on. If, by chance, they do in fact inquire about where the design came from (a comet will hit the earth with more probability than this scenario), whoever they ask usually never knows or remembers the name of the company or designer who built it. Think about it. When you see a cool design, how often do you run off looking for the original creator? When you hear this cheesy negotiating tactic spewing from some club owner or restaurant owner’s mouth, nod your head furiously as to acknowledge this client’s genius forward-marketing strategy and smile as if to say “Wow! You’re right! I am going to really take a hit on this so that I can get so much more business from you later – you dingus!
That minor regression aside, let’s look at the upside of the design proposal. This is your chance to show your client that you truly understand the design business. Unlike artists who do not have a lot of constraints put around their commissions, designers on the other hand, do. Our job is to solve a functional problem at the basic level. Doing it to satisfy an aesthetic reality is just the icing on the cake. Your proposal should address the solution to the client’s problem first and foremost. The pretty stuff is what sets this particular solution off from the rest of the world’s solutions. Understand the functionality of the problem and your creative overlays come naturally from there. Speak to this fact in the proposal and you erase the doubt in a client’s mind as to the need (or not) for your services. Keep your parameters (as well as the scope) simple and concise. Don’t over-design in the initial proposal. A) because you don’t have time, and B) because it is too early to know what the client wants yet. Your job is to present large brush strokes. The big idea. Top-down. Don’t give up the final design even if you know it already unless you want your “job” to end right now because once the client has the “perfect” solution to their problem, who the hell needs you hanging around rackin’ up the billable hours?
A proposal needs to sell your abilities and your strengths. It is a tool to convey to the client you understand the client’s needs and wants, hopes and desires. A sales tool yes, but also a plan or blueprint to help you progress to the next phase of design with a deposit check in hand. It should answer all the questions I presented earlier in a easily understood, readable fashion that tell the client, “this dude is da’ bomb!” , if your client says stuff like “da bomb”.
I have produced a CD that includes templates for a lot of these forms and proposal documents that a young, hip designer needs to have. I also have a whole section of design contracts that protect your young ass as well as the client’s. You need standardized forms and templates in order to build your biz and protect yourself. I am going to put it on the site soon for purchase or download but let me know if you need it NOW via email and I’ll give you the “starving-artist” price. It is around 25 bucks I think.
