Have high profile design studios shut the door on smaller clients

HAVE HIGH PROFILE DESIGN STUDIOS SHUT THE DOOR ON SMALLER CLIENTS WITH THEIR HEAVY PRICE TAGS?


As a creative it is the dream to work on projects with vast budgets for established high profile clients. We all want our work to appear on the big screen, in design shows and on websites viewed by the world. But with this fame and fortune comes a thin veil of misery for another client demographic. Since we began push.play we have been inundated with requests for work from clients with moderate budgets and it is these projects that keep us going. However it is become obvious to me that countless design organizations both locally and nationwide have adopted an alternate approach. Good design is no longer at the core of their ethos, instead they choose to worry about the profit margins and simply produce work that “does the job.” Is the proclaimed status and high pricing of these studios intimidating potential clients who just can’t afford to pay the big money asked for the quality design they require.

During my time working for some of the highest profile agencies in the UK and abroad, I often found companies were unable to pay the price quoted and instead had to settle for subpar design work by imitating designers found scattered throughout online freelancer websites. Not only does this give the client an unsatisfactory final product, but it also shines a bad light on the design industry as a whole.No designer starts out their careers with the intention of being obsessed with the financial side of the business, but with the recession still looming over our heads it can be very easy to get sucked into that way of thinking. Bills needs to be covered, wages need to be paid, and ultimately work needs to be done to meet those targets. But this approach can leave smaller companies out in the cold. Startup businesses, sole traders and the self-employed professionals still require effective design solutions, but are quickly discovering their options have become increasingly limited due to the sizeable price tag and cold attitude of many agencies.

When I foundered push.play not only did I want to create a studio that was full of inspired fun and creative individuals, but also to approach both clients and projects different to a lot of the other local design providers. We wanted to be an approachable studio and maintain the understanding that forming relationships with smaller companies can lead to mutually beneficial outcomes in the future. I got into the design industry because I have a passion for what I do, and whilst financial security obviously plays a part in any business we will never let it overcome our enthusiasm for the design process and the final outcome it produces for our clients.

Don’t get me wrong, we all want to earn money in life and be successful, but we also want to take our clients on that journey with us to the top. I have always said that satisfaction is death for a creative and I feel that we will always want to do better both as individuals and as a team. The only thing we require from our clients is that they share our passion and desire to produce the best work possible.

 

IMHO, there are a lot of web studio around the world, and I'm sure they always get client, from small into big corporate. For me client satisfaction is more important thing rather than the money. Because good result (ex. website) can make client spread our potential as web developer to another friends (word-of-mouth-marketing) that make our web studio get free publication from client.

I believe in karma, if we do good thing we can get good thing. That's why I still make website for charity with no money, because I did it to complete my passion to spread good design (website) to other people (client).

 

Thanks for your reply! I totally agree what smaller clients lose in budget they make up for in promotion. A lot of the work we have done with larger budget has come from clients who heard about us from someone who we helped previously. The problem I think is that there is a lot of pretenders out there who burn these people and also tarnish the web designer profession.