Calling all Graphic Designers / Website Marketing students

eatmosushi

Heyo.

My family runs a manufacturing business, and we have a modest marketing / graphic design staff or roughly 3-4 people that design our catalogues, magazine adds, create images for our products, etc.


As the crawling through the ranks future owner of the business, it has been suggested to me that I should, "take some classes".


So the question is this:

What do I need to learn about what you do that will help me effectively interact with you?

I am planning on looking up what is on offer at the local community college

NotYou

In what way do you want to interact with them? Do some of the work? Tell them what to do? Be able to open their files and change text?

In my opinion, your company should have a lead graphic designer, and he should be responsible for the team making quality work.

If you want to interact with them on a boss/worker level, then you need to be a better graphic designer than they are so you can properly guide them to a polished finished product.

So i guess I'm asking, are you trying to become someone who will critique their work and have them working toward your "vision," or are you just looking for a basic software knowlege. Because a few classes won't get you anywhere near the level of a pro graphic designer, and if you just want to learn the software, I'd say you don't need any classes at all.

Jasconius

Your company must be huge to actually employ full time designers.

Interpersonal communication and psychology classes never hurt in the context of management. Almost every college offers em.

Some basic art/history classes wouldn't hurt.

Some colleges, especially community colleges offer new media design courses because they are somewhat of a "buzz" topic. You'll at least learn some fundamentals there.

Remember that *you* are the boss, and it's their job to interpret your wishes, and if they can't do that without you taking focused design courses in a college then they are not well trained. You shouldn't need to know very much about design at all in order to work with them.

And there will probably be a shitstorm of people here that will disagree with me on this point, but the key idea here is *necessity*. It's not necessary, nor should it be.

Atheraal

Business classes are usually helpful to owners, as is at least enough accounting sense to make sure nothing obviously shady is going on. As for marketing, I'd think your online catalogue is how a large portion of your customers find you, so maybe some SEO classes?

Szechuanosaurus

Jasconius wrote: »

Remember that *you* are the boss, and it's their job to interpret your wishes, and if they can't do that without you taking focused design courses in a college then they are not well trained. You shouldn't need to know very much about design at all in order to work with them.

And there will probably be a shitstorm of people here that will disagree with me on this point, but the key idea here is *necessity*. It's not necessary, nor should it be.

I don't know why anybody would disagree with that. The reason you hire graphic designers and marketers is because they have certain skills. You come to them with a need like "We need to sell more sprockets this quarter" and they will find solutions to meet this need through design and marketing techniques that they know and understand.

Micromanagement is bad mojo for any businesses manager. The key is to finding experts in the field that you can trust and I guess that comes from seeing their work actually producing measurable results, even if you don't understand exactly why it did or how they did it.

If anything, I'd fall back on the adage 'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing'. You know something about a certain field of design or marketing and then you think that makes you qualified to make sweeping design and marketing decisions. Like a web design client who has read a book about search engine optimisation and then decides that the only important aspect of their website is search engine optimisation. So, they make their web designer focus on that to the detriment of the myriad other design issues that make up a successful website and then shit-talk the designer when the website takes on half a million visits a week but fails to make any conversions and can't even pay for it's crippling hosting and bandwidth costs.

The real key is to listen. You've hired people with the knowledge and experience, so when they talk, get your money's worth and really listen to what they are saying. You'll pick up all you need to know to communicate effectively with them if you just listen to them. If they're saying something that just sounds batshit crazy and wrong, go with your gut (you're still the boss, after all and failure or success ultimately rests on your shoulders - no blame-shifting mister!), but if what they say sounds rational and well thought out even although you don't completely understand it, they are probably right.

From recollection, this book might help you better understand the design process and how designers communicate with non-designers and vice versa. It's written from the point of view of an internal design team as well, so it might just be a perfect fit for you.

eatmosushi

oh no no no, i'm definately not micro managing them.

but in a few years i'll be signing their paychecks.

i have a management and labour relations degree, but, i don't know, i just hate the idea of walking into their office and not really quite knowing what they are doing.

i'll be taking a look at that book, Szechuanosaurus

Thanks for the advice, everyone!

MagicToaster

As an inhouse designer, the only thing I hate is when I am given ambigeous direction. Sometimes, people will come up to me with a concept, they'll say something like "I want this to give a sense of distress", and that's fine. Sometimes, people come up to me and tell me exactly what they want, and that's fine too.

But what really gets me going is when people don't know what they want, but want to pretend they do. Be honest with your designers, if you know what you want tell them and be demanding, if you don't know let them show you options. But never give out a breif like the one I got some weeks ago:

"What I want is for this project to represent, in an abstract way, mental and phisical health composition of men and women and how we as a company offer that to our clients, as well as the corporate bennefit which is the essence of our communications strategic plan"

As opposed to:

"We are creating a coverage for a new client, mostly family men ages 45 - 60. We will offer not only prescription drug coverage but also mental health coverage. Make it appealing to this group, but don't make it so exclusive so that employees not fitting this demographic will also feel like its for them"

Other than that, I can only suggest that you start getting in the know of how long the whole design process and print work flow takes. A lot of people ask me to design something and expect 5,000 copies on their desk by 12:00. Remember; design has it's process, so does printing, so does delivery. It's not an instant thing.

flatlinegraphics

as long as you talk in needs and not in hows, you should be fine. that's why you pay them.

aka, don't make design decisions. there is nothing, nothing, that turns a professional off like an outsider second guessing their decisions, regardless of profession. don't tell a five star chef that they should use american cheese, don't tell an engineer that a giant wing will make your honda go faster, don't tell a designer that red bold text is a great way to draw attention to things.

having some idea about the process will help. and you have a group right there that will probably sit and talk endlessly about the process. these are people that have invested years into their craft, and generally know a thing or two about the hows and whys. treat them as adults, and as professionals, and everything should be fine.

MichaelLC

I would love a owner/boss who just signed my paychecks.

I appreciate the desire, but yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about knowing all the details in what they do; that's their job. If you're a good leader, people will come to you if they need more direction/guidance on a project.

So general business advice would be to talk to the people, and learn more about them than what they do.