Friends make excellent tools in picking apart your design work, visually, technically and creatively. Firefox is no where near as dramatic when it comes to letting you know what needs to be fixed on your site.

Are mostly important.

Nothing burns hours faster than revisions. Nothing blows budget faster than revisions. Nothing ruins a design like revisions…or a blown budget. Clients and co-workers will discover news ways of improving the design once it’s physically in the works. If time, budget and scope are not kept in mind it’s likely to go overboard pretty fast. This is where collaborating effectively from the get go comes in pretty handy.

To handle a revision explosion you need to keep the goals in mind from start to finish and know when to stop. 
Decide which revisions are and are not necessary to aid in the success of the project. Barring time and budget chalk it up to a job well done or consider it intermission until the next round of revisions are proven worthy of your time and the client’s expense.


Here are a few handy hints to keep in mind BEFORE you start designing a project:

1. Time and budget. Budget and time. Always.

2. Stick to SCOOOOOOOPE!

3. Your design is temporary and it will get changed. Remember sites from 1991? Retro isn’t always cool. Don’t get attached.

4. Explore ideas first and save the refinement for the approved direction.

5. Design for the client’s client. They will be using this site, so make sure you take real good care of them.

6. Explain your design decisions. Make them thoughtful decisions.

7. Always remember the first rule of design: It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it.

A brand is not a logo. It’s not a company. It’s not a product. These things are all just one part of your brand. Like a name is just one part of a person. There are many attributes that make someone a unique individual and it works the same for a company’s brand. A brand should say: This is who we are. This is how we’re different from our competitors.

Rome wasn’t built in a day – so don’t expect your brand to be. It takes high quality work, dedication as individuals and team members, shared goals and hard work to create an effective and lasting brand identity. Good brand identity is a reputation and a level of quality associated with a logo. It takes a lot of time, people, planning, experience, energy, focus, research, money, ideas, mistakes [deep breath], chances, success, expertise, trials, patience and a lot of hard work to be the next Nike or Coca Cola [whew].

Create your message. Send that message to your target audience. Require your audience to give you feedback. Find out what works and what doesn’t. Find out what your people want; badger them…Badger! Badger! Badger! Without knowing what your audience wants, you don’t have much of a direction.

World just passing you by? Madonna did it. Michael Jackson didn’t. Madonna experienced musical success throughout the 90’s because she reinvented herself and her music continually adapted to what was most popular. The last song Michael Jackson released a few years back sounded the same as the music he was making in the early 80’s. Success embraces change and fosters growth within the marketplace. Just like with people, brands aren’t always perfect. They have good times and bad times. They change and they grow but as long as their core attributes never change then that’s what counts. If you as a person want to experience success you have to make mistakes. You have to take risks and try different avenues. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. In the end you take what you learn, apply it to your next run and eventually with enough persistence, hard work, and dedication, you will inevitably find success. Through your journey you are still the same person with the same qualities and you’ve adopted new experiences. Brands work the same way.