Whether you’re an artist, graphic designer, or involved in any other kind of creative pursuit, it’s important to maintain your creative integrity if you want to be fulfilled in your work and minimise frustration.
This means having control over your own creative direction and being true to your own self-expression.
If you’re an artist, this can mean creating what you want to create, rather than what people tell you you should be doing, or what is most likely to sell (although realistically you may have to find a happy medium, at least when you’re starting out.)
In web design, however, you are unlikely to have as much creative freedom if you are designing a site for someone else. The client will usually have some idea of how they want their site to look, and in some cases they can provide far too much creative guidance.
So how do you design a website for a client while maintaining your creative integrity?
Lay Down Some Ground Rules
When doing creative work for someone else, you need to be clear from the start that you’re the expert. Provide details of how you work, to let potential clients know what they can expect when they work with you.
This example from A Little Bit of Something may be on the extreme side, but it makes it clear that this designer is not going to tolerate too much creative input from their clients:
“You wouldn’t tell Mr. Marks of Spencer how to make slacks or Mrs. Audrey Audi how to build motor cars, would you? So please, Sir, don’t tell me I should ‘bevel’ things. Get back to doing what you do best and let me do the web designing.”
It works because it’s presented in a humorous way. People who get it will be happy to leave the designing to him, and people who don’t get it aren’t likely to contact him in the first place.
Be Consistent
Make sure the work featured in your portfolio is consistent in style and quality. That way any potential clients who browse your previous work will get an idea of what they can expect from you.
Obviously every site will need a unique design, but if the style and quality of your work is all over the place, your customers may get the wrong impression of what you are capable of, and that may lead to disagreements when you show them your design for their site.
Turn People Down
If someone comes to you asking for something that isn’t in line with what you do, or you don’t feel comfortable with, it’s perfectly acceptable to turn the job down.
For example, if someone asks you to build a Flash site, although you may have the ability to do so, you might not be comfortable doing it because you know it won’t perform as well as an HTML site.
I’ve experienced this as an artist, when people have come to me asking me to draw a funny caricature of them playing golf in a Superman costume. While this is something I could probably do, it’s not in line with the style of work I usually do, so I usually refer them to other artists I know whose work is more suited to this style.
Accept Constructive Feedback
Sometimes your client might offer constructive design feedback that can actually be useful.
It may be that something in your design has overlooked one of their business goals, or a certain design element is inconsistent with their overall brand.
In this case, don’t be precious about your work. If the client can provide a good reason for changing the design, then you should do your best to accomodate their request.
Offer Advice
If you find yourself in the unfortunate situation where your client is trying to do the design work for you, sending you horrible graphics to put on the website, or suggesting crazy colour schemes, you may have to decide whether you want to succumb to their requests so that you can still get paid, or to walk away from the project.
If you decide to continue, the best thing you can do is try to advise the client that in your expert opinion this is not a good way to proceed, but if they insist on doing things their way, then you can take no responsibility for the performance of the website, and that you don’t want to be credited with the design of the site (you certainly don’t want any Frankenstein websites in your portfolio.)
Don’t Be Afraid to Walk Away
Hopefully if you’ve taken all the measures I’ve suggested above, then you will have weeded out all the wannabe web designers and your clients should let you have the creative freedom that you need.
However, at some point you may find yourself in the situation where your creative integrity has been compromised to the point that you can’t continue with the project.
In this case, if you can’t convince the client to take your advice, then you may decide to bite the bullet and walk away.
This is a last resort, but if you really don’t feel comfortable with what a client is asking of you, then it may be the only solution.
You should certainly think about writing something into your contract that will protect you if you decide to cancel the contract on the grounds of losing your creative integrity.
Don’t Sell Out (too often)
As you can see, maintaining your creative integrity is not always easy when you are doing work for other people.
Occasionally you may have to sell out and do what a client wants so that you can get paid, even if it means compromising your creative integrity.
I would just advise that you try to avoid this whenever possible. If you find yourself selling out on every project, then you really need to look at why you are attracting the wrong kind of clients, and what you can put in place to avoid this.
If you continue to compromise your creative integrity for too long, then not only will you have very little quality work to put in your portfolio, but you will soon become disillusioned with the whole creative process, and you will lose any passion you once had for the work.
Have you ever struggled to maintain your creative integrity? Tell us about it in the comments.