When designers look back at the many things they’ve been told over the years, they often wish that they hadn’t ever asked for advice in the first place. Even in the highly social, creative and generally technologically advanced world of graphic design, traditional common wisdom and old practices can linger way too long. To be truly creative, designers must constantly see beyond common wisdom and find the unique truth that matches their specific style or client’s needs.

To Make Money in Graphic Design, Focus on Money

Many design agencies have grown and fallen over the years, and it is impossible to determine every factor behind the success of failure of each company; however, one of the most common mistakes in the industry is the widespread implementation of a budget-focused approach. When designers are forced to work with money as a priority, bad things happen. The sole goal of any designer should always be quality, not the amount of money he or she is earning. Design firms and freelance designers should be financially savvy, but must take on each project with the focus on creating an excellent quality design for the client.

Designers Don’t Need Communication Skills

Although most types of design are generally self-explanatory, clients will always want to hear an explanation for almost every aspect of a design. After all, they paid for it! While it’s reasonable to believe that a designer’s work should have success without his explanation, designer’s that can’t articulate their work in a clear and rational manner won’t be very successful.

This problem is more common that you might think. The technical jargon that designers understand won’t make much sense to the average client, so clearly explaining graphic design aspects can be very difficult for designers. The designers that master the art of communication and learn to explain their work to the most uncreative of executives are the ones who have massive success.

The Designer Always Knows Best

The only designers who use the “I’m a professional and I know best” argument with clients are the ones that are actually not very professional. The times of professional omnipotence are over. Even doctors, lawyers and other highly-regarded specialists no longer work under the assumption that they have a knowledge monopoly. Ask your own doctor and he will tell you how patients come in all day long asking about the research they’ve already done on the internet.

Most clients do realise that designers have a better idea of what to do than they do. Why hire you otherwise? However, if your client doesn’t give his own doctor complete professional authority, then why would he give it to a designer? If you’ve told your client that their opinion has no merit and that they must simply accept your professional judgement, you’ve already lost the battle. You can be sure that you won’t see any referrals from that project.

There are hundreds of other exceptions to the common wisdom of design, but these should serve as a wake-up call. Never accept advice for the complete truth without doing some of your own though and research first. Take what your mentors say as a foundation for your own creative growth and form your own opinions. You’ll be much more successful that way!