How can I explain to clients why they shouldn't use a print designer to design their website?

Question

I have the problem all the time of clients coming to me with their print designer who just wants to give me a design and get me to code it up.

I'd prefer to be able to give some input in with considerations for SEO, usability, download size etc, but quite often the designers are of the mind that the design is finished and mustn't be changed. The designs usually look great on paper, but don't end up working very well as websites.

What's an easy to understand way that I can explain to clients that if someone is a great print designer, it doesn't necessarily mean that they understand everything that does into web design?

Answer 1

Prepare ahead of time. Create pages which are beautiful and well-crafted for print, but do not work well for whatever reason (too many graphics, fixed size, small fonts, etc). Then create a plainer, CSS-based site with fewer and/or smaller images with the same general layout. Run them from a server on the public internet, not the local system, so the full effect of bandwidth-heavy images is noticed.

Customers who are used to printing flyers or advertisements need to be taught that a website isn't just a pretty brochure, but should be interactive and usable by visitors. Once they see how annoying a "pretty" website can be, they will probably change their mind.

Answer 2

Different media require different approaches; as an artist, they should know that. Explain that you will keep the look and feel as much the same as possible, but there are some things that have to be different ... My mantra, "the right tool for the job."

Answer 3

As Adrien pointed out: Different media - different basic needs - different requirements.

A poster does not have to be usable, nor does a flyer have to work on a cell phone. A TV advertisement would not work on a sheet of paper nailed to a wall, and a website won't work well as one if it's not made to fit its media properly.

To be a capable web-designer, you need to handle HTML and CSS well - including graphic design, usability, user friendlyness, semantics and layout techniques. A print designer mighgt be skilled in the graphic design-part, but that alone will never become a web site. Simple as that.

Graphic design skills help, but is just one of several basic requirements for web design.

Answer 4

Would they use the famous Web 0.1 approach ?

1. Using your favorite word processing software, design a flyer that contains the information you'd like to convey to your website visitor
2. Once designed, print the flyer on a color printer
3. Lay the printed sheet of paper face-up on a table, preferably a clean, wooden table
4. Take a photograph of the flyer using a camera, preferably a digital
5. Download and print (or develop) the photograph of the flyer
6. With a normal scanner, scan the photograph of the flyer
7. Upload the scanned image to a frame on your website

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Web_0_0x2e_1.aspx

Answer 5

It's tough. One of the toughest parts about programming ANYTHING is when customers have preconceived notions of what it should do/look like. In projects when you get the job description before the actual visual design you might have a chance by giving them a list of requirements, but once they spend two hours making a granite sculpture of their website design it gets a lot harder to change their minds.

If you haven't been given the design yet, you might want to make it a requirement that at the very least you and their designer come up with a design collaboratively. If you get in touch with them directly it might be easier to explain your demands and critique their work from a web scripting perspective without creating a lot of back and forth through a third party. It also might help to keep a running list of things you can't do - every time a designer gives you an infeasible project, make a quick note of why it can't be done and pass that on to other clients in the future.

There are also plenty of books and articles on usability and good web design out there for you to reference if you need to prove to them that it's a different world and that they may not have the best frame of reference for it. If you're really dedicated, there are plenty of web design courses out there that could give you the credibility to take full charge of the design yourself.

No matter what you're thinking, know that the solution is definitely going to require a large amount of collaboration between you and their print designer. Whether it's to the extent of you coming up with a template for the site and him filling it in with illustrations/logos or the two of you spending some time on a chalkboard somewhere plotting out the layout, you're going to have to come up with a situation where both you and your client have a significant amount of say in the final product.

Answer 6

Web and print design have fundamentally different (and perhaps diametrically opposed) properties.

Print design is all about control: ensuring the final production piece looks exactly like the mockup. The kind of person who is drawn to, and excels at, print design, is obsessively detail-oriented, and frets endlessly about outputs.

Web design is pretty much the exact opposite. Any given site may be rendered on a 42" plasma TV screen, a high-end color-matching monitor, iPhones, Kindles, even IE5. Good web designers are obsessed with inputs. "Does this design have everything it needs at the most common worst display situation?"

I've known very few designers who excel in both media. The kind of person who is drawn to print design is repelled by web design, and vice versa.

Answer 7

I have found that the easiest way is to explain why. I explain to them that if they want any chance of being found on Google, then the site needs to be written with SEO in mind. I then very clearly explain how Google "reads" web pages, and how SEO works. This usually convinces them (the business owners) that my way is right. (Who doesn't want to be on the first page of Google?) Then I find that the graphics artists are either very compliant, or I get to use my own graphics artists that I like to work with exclusively.

Answer 8

While this is a few months old now, here is my suggestion if someone is still looking for one:

Ask them if they are familiar with TV and billboard advertising. Why aren't TV ads just billboard ads put onto the screen? It is a similar idea with what can be done on the web compared to print. The additional dimensions that can be used like interaction or sound along with pictures.

Answer 9

I expect to receive designs in CSS and HTML format. You'll need to charge for this conversion...most likely an excessive amount.

Factor the extra hoops you will be needing to jump through to make their 'website' work into the price and the client will start to see the light.

If you can use your designer or do it yourself, the integration charges would be severely reduced.