[…] When you are pleasant, smiling, and well-mannered, that helps a lot in terms of human relationships. Then you need a dose of psychology to understand how to manage a client, a photographer, a team, etc. For the client management part, my experience in London helped me a lot. Anglo-Saxon culture is quite the opposite of Latin-French culture: don’t be a pessimist, never say “no,” say “yes, but”…How you craft an argument or a sentence in an email, how you reframe the problem so the client understands what you want but in a way that makes them think it was their idea. I feel like there is a very English way of doing business. This is very different from the French way of doing things, which is more direct and contentious. […]

[…] I am always surprised at how little knowledge and understanding there is of how things are done and also at the general lack of common sense. When you work with huge groups, you would think that the people you’re working with have solid experience and are seasoned in the fields of communication they operate in, but in the end, it amounts to very little. Few clients have true, 360-degree, long-term vision. […]

[…] A brief is like a problem that needs to be solved. The client asks you a question, and it’s on you to provide a solution. Instead of thinking about the true problem that the project poses, and the goal the project has to achieve, clients just end up benchmarking. Paradoxically, this means you end up copying what others do rather than distinguishing yourself from them. […]

[…] I live with architecture as part of my life. I am completely passionate about it. My favourite moments are the conceptual parts of the project, the ideas, being able to play between fiction and reality. Often I think I don’t want to deal with clients, institutions, and communities but then I come back and get the strength to start again.
We have to know how to manage these emotions and must play many roles to keep an office going. […]

[…] And so during my three years at the architecture agency, I would end up choosing a wallpaper or carpet, and a client would say, “Ah, actually, I talked with my friend, and actually, no, we don’t want this carpet; we are going to go with this wallpaper.”
It was depressing to me, and there came the point when I thought that I was going to work at MacDonald’s. At least no one would ask me to use my brain and at least I wouldn’t pollute my art. […]

[…] Finding interesting clients that understand our work, ask the right questions, and are ready to change the brief. Sometimes—and, fortunately, it’s happening less and less—the client just comes because of the hype or what we can bring in terms of visibility. And they really don’t get what we do. But things are changing, as I said before, so for the future, my only wish is to work with enlightened partners. […]

[…] I understood that our industry is completely wrong; if you pitch for a project, you are getting very little time and money; and that’s wrong. People should pay for the ideas, for the concept, for the big system we manage to create, all these items, the posters, the flyers, that is work based on the set of rules that you designed. At that time, the way I was speaking with clients changed. I started trying to educate them, to teach them that ideas have value and not the product because anyone can design a product. […]

[…] It is amazing to see that some big companies don’t get talents anymore because they don’t offer them anything. They are using people to produce things (…) And these kids are not stupid. Having a pizza offered after ten pm, working seven days a week on shitty presentations, they understood and the clients also understood. They are big ships, they are slow, they cost a lot. Clients started to trust smaller teams: they are more flexible and they feel confident. […]

[…] “Could we have this for tomorrow?” And no, it’s not possible, and it’s not healthy to accept that sort of thing. I know there are a lot of people who accept these last-minute jobs because they need to work, because it’s a good opportunity, because they need visibility, but I find it toxic to perpetuate these kinds of practices. It’s toxic for our community, especially since we already have a hard time gaining respect in terms of wages and working conditions. More respect would also benefit the clients. Taking one’s time to do things well, to reflect, not to go crazy doing something that is going to disappear in six months. No one will see it again. It’s on Instagram, and it won’t leave Instagram. […]

[…] We are in a big machine, and we have developed bad habits over many years. A lot of re-educating needs to be done as far as that is concerned. Many clients think that they’ll be able to replace us with artificial intelligence, that that would be easier, that they could just pay for a software… And it’s true that certain clients wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in terms of quality of work. Luckily, there are clients that value what we do and that can tell the difference… but not all clients… […]

[…] With a client who’s got years of experience, we like to go through their archives to get a sense of what has been done from their inception until now, why they want a new identity, why they want to communicate differently, why they want a campaign… You need to know the entire history of their projects. By exploring the archives, by diving deep — that’s where you find the nuggets; then you get creative and come up with a true expression of who they are. […]

[…] The more people trust you, the more a project is successful. […]

[…] When people trust you and you bust your tail, it’s no longer work. When the clients don’t listen to what you say and want to do something different and you’re constantly forced to fight them without ever getting to do what you want to do, then it’s work! […]

[…] There’s one thing that comes with age and wisdom, and that’s self-confidence. In the beginning, I was intimidated around clients. That state of affairs lasted a long time. Now they trust us more and it’s easier to get our ideas across. Well, it doesn’t work systematically and sometimes you have to know when to throw in the towel. […]

[…] I prefer working with people over several years, because during the first year you try to understand how they work, the second year you’ve got it down, things are moving forward, and then the third year the confidence level is high and everything is clicking. […]

[…] We always have a balance between these two: self initiated projects where we have full autonomy and control, and commissions where we open up space for an outside party to develop a dialogue. Both are extremely interesting and rewarding. But with commissions there is often a danger of time pressure and therefore compromises. Not that everything always has to be our way. But we really dislike shipping things that could be improved. […]

[…] The cynical me would say that a lot of commissions are flawed from the start, and they always will be, and we need to learn how to spot them. Too tight to a deadline to really talk, get to know each other and develop something. Unjustified hierarchies, muddy dependencies or ego driven desires. Basic moodboards and plain “hype idea” recycling. I shed a tear for our industry each time we find these requests in our inbox; picturing the hidden dynamics that lead to such requests give me goosebumps. […]

[…] The art of the brief is difficult. A brief both clear and precise is rare. For a designer, deciphering a brief is the challenge. It’s not the client’s job to prepare briefs, except for communications managers. Which brings me to another piece of advice I would give: learn to decipher a brief, ask the client loads of questions, interest yourself in their business, the better to understand them. What does the client want beyond what they are telling you? […]

[…] I try to be generous and flexible, and always professional. Take Nike, for example, I gave them everything I had in mind for our first project.
This has often been my method. Clients tend to like my initial ideas because there are lots of things to see. […]

[…] DL
I am responsible for new business and if there’s a new client, I want to meet them. So my design approach – and it’s a big part of the quality of the project – is reading the room, making a connection with people: who are they? What are they concerned about? What are they inspired by? And who in our studio can react in a way that is relevant for these people? How do we work with them in a way that they keep feeding the inspiration, the creation and so we’re not afraid that it might go wrong? I really try to tune in… My part is more the tuning in on the human level. […]

[…] DL
When you really want to be a partner for a client you have to have a strategic point of view on the world we both operate in, from a holistic point of view. Not only the market but what is happening in the world on a grander scheme […]

[…] JE
Clients wanting something because they’ve seen it on Instagram or whatever. But we just don’t work with those people. It curves the expectations. […]

[…] I wasn’t really the best architect for my clients, because I didn’t really listen to them. Clients talked about compromise. To me that was an awful word, but they kept telling me that compromise was a wonderful thing – that this is how the world works. So I managed to alienate three of my biggest clients.
By the time Calvin (Klein) came, I had been used to making all the decisions myself. Calvin had his own aesthetic, he had his own design ideas and I was there to make his store. That was a big learning curve that really changed my thinking, because I started to listen. I realised how important the client and the collaboration are. […]

[…] There’s always a client who makes you work a little bit harder; and that’s how you improve. […]

[…] Presenting ideas has to be as straight and direct as possible. […]

[…] Every brand or collaborator is different in the way we deal with them. You have to build trust with them and build a conversation where they understand your creative thinking and your problem solving. They must be willing to take the risk. And you have to show them why it’s important to take risks. […]

[…] You have to build trust with clients and build a conversation where they understand your creative thinking and your problem solving. They must be willing to take the risk. And you have to show them why it’s important to take risks. […]

[…] However, nowadays, when a big company decides to redesign their logo, talent, creativity, and vision are not considered essential. […]

[…] In my profession you can never think for one second that people comprehend what you’re doing. They’re incapable of telling the difference between a good logo and a bad logo, a good font and a bad font. A rule is to only show options you’re proud of, so you’ll be pleased no matter what they choose. […]

[…] When faced with such a complete misapprehension of our profession you have no choice but to educate the client. […]

[…] Remember when you went to the movies and you were actually happy to see those 15 minutes of advertising? Remember that time? And you would say: “Jeans… Levis … ah, nice! New message, I haven’t seen that one”. We had these times. And now clients are a big marketing thing: all these surveys, what everybody wants, how to convince and be convenient to everybody, wanting to be liked by everybody. Brands and products have this problem too. If you go to the annual Milan Salon, over all these years, all these new chairs are coming out. They all look like one another. There’s almost no signature piece behind it anymore. No one is daring. […]

[…] One of the other problem is that all this generation of young marketing guys have changed sides from agency to client. And they are now the leading points in the marketing department of these big companies and they haven’t learned differently, they only have one way.
 You guys are also teaching in these schools. You still know that if you have an ‘after’ in a club in France where all these advertising people are running around and you’re talking to them about their industry, none of them would ever admit how bad the quality is at the moment. […]

[…] (MS) We know, especially when you work with clients, that people have to present internally before – but sometimes it’s a bit of a pity when an art director comes up with images from other artists for example, or some materials and show them to the client. Especially if they are not creatives, it can be very hard for them to let it go. Even for us; if they show us a picture which may be a very good one that really explains the project, it’s very hard to get rid of it. […]

[…] (MS) For every project we ask ourselves: “Does the client fits us, or do we fit the client?” and “Can we add something to what they have in mind?”
When we’re not sure, we make a concept, send it over, and see the feedback. If it says: “Maybe we can stick to the other one”, we know we should not work together, because it means we cannot help each other. It’s not a way of being arrogant but it’s more that you want to make something… […]