Never Skip Strategy: Bite-Sized Advice
When prospective clients review our proposals and estimates before we begin working together, many often ask, “Can we skip the strategy session and get right into design?”
Common reasons for this request are:
The prospective client is budget-conscious and looking to cut costs.
The prospective client has a tight timeline and is looking for ways to speed up the process.
The prospective client feels they already have a deep understanding of their business and brand, and the exercise feels redundant.
While their request is well-intentioned, our reply is always the same: “No, because it’s a fundamental part of the design process.” Below, we’ll show you why strategy matters and why skipping this step will not save you money, save you time, or meet your project goals in the long run.
What is design strategy?
Design strategy is the planning phase of a design project that aligns business with aesthetics (how things look). It determines the goals and challenges of your business, and how design can effectively address them. A designer can make something look pleasing-to-the-eye, but that doesn’t mean it will drive more traffic to your website, attract a new audience, or help you build a new revenue stream. Design strategy makes sure the reason the design project is being taken on is clear to both the client and the design team, and to make sure there is purpose—not just “prettiness”—behind what will be designed.
How does it happen?
This will look a bit different for every design studio and different types of projects (for example, a brand identity project will have different strategy needs than an e-commerce website design project). In our studio, it usually looks something like this:
We have a “deep-dive” discovery meeting(s) with key project stakeholders that uses questionnaires and exercises that we provide to guide our discussion together and allows us to gather the information we need to do the next step.
After the discovery meeting, our team goes back to the studio, conducts research, and develops a tailored strategy.
We then present this strategy to you as a visual presentation and in a written report that will be used to inform the next phase of the project: design development.
Why does design strategy matter?
It builds team consensus. With all stakeholders involved in the planning process, it ensures that everyone on your team, as well as the design team, are in agreement before design work begins. It helps avoid disagreements or miscommunication in the middle of a project, which creates unnecessary headaches, but also prevents the need for additional design edits (which adds cost and requires more time).
It surveys the market landscape. While you might know your local competitors and businesses you aspire to be like in your sector, having an outside expert like your design team explore the market landscape is extremely valuable. We often find that our clients get bogged down in the details of their business, and overwhelm their customers with extraneous information. Since a designer is not as deeply invested in every day-to-day detail of your business, they can identify the big ideas, like what is and isn’t essential to communicate to your target audience.
A designer’s outside perspective can also be helpful in identifying what makes your business unique in a crowded field, and this will help you stand out from competitors. Imagine that your design team skipped looking at what your competitors are doing and they design a logo and use messaging that is similar to your competitor. Customers might confuse the two businesses or not understand your value proposition (what makes you the best business in your industry) and shop your competitor instead.
It informs decision-making through the following phases of the project. Design strategy develops guiding principles to use when making decisions to ensure the work is meeting your goals and objectives. It can be easy to forget that you should not make design decisions based on personal preferences (“I like the color blue.”). Design decisions should instead focus on more objective reasoning (“Does my competitor also use blue? Then we should use another color to differentiate ourselves.”) The design strategy keeps those objectives at the forefront throughout the process, which can streamline decision-making and ensure the design outcomes will meet the project goals.