Grab your color swatches, fonts, and stock photos…It’s time to do battle. It’s time for a Designer Death Match.
On some projects, you just assign one designer to work on it. They take full responsibility to learn about the client and design a solution for that particular goal. Most of the time this works well. The designer has a sense of ownership and familiarity with the client. Generally, you want one person to take the lead and manage the vision for each client.
One the other hand, sometimes it’s better to let designers fight it out to see who can come up with the best design.
By pitting designers against each other, it motivates us to step up our game. Also, the designer death match gives the client a chance to see more than one interpretation of their message.
Here are some things to keep in mind to manage the competition:
- Keep it a friendly competition.
- Make sure everyone has the same creative brief. The goal is to get unique solutions to the same problems, not designers trying to solve the wrong problems.
- It’s OK if designers try similar solutions. My idea of “funky” or “corporate” is different from another designer.
- Present the designs to the client in the same way. If they are all on boards, the client can see them as equals be able to compare the designs.
- Let the client decide the winner.
If managed correctly, you can build strength in your team, instead of building resentment. By working towards the same goal you share in the specific issues related to a project. Designers will have something in common and also gain insight to one another by seeing how they thing about a project.
In the end, the client is the big winner of a Designer Death Match.
