Choosing which clients you’ll work with and what projects you’ll take on is among the most important decisions you’ll make as a working designer. Especially when you are just starting out, it can be very temping to say yes to any project that comes through the door, but I strongly urge you to step back and carefully consider the potential consequences both good and bad of any project before you accept the work.
Consider Your Time
Time is your most valuable resource and you need to think of it this way. We all only have a set amount of hours in a day, no exceptions. Any time spent working on one thing, means that you cannot spend that same time working on anything else. This is obvious when I say it like this, but it isn’t always the case when you find yourself in the trenches.
Your Trajectory
Think carefully about what kind of design work you excel at, and more importantly, what kind of design work you want to do. If you think about what you see yourself doing when you look five years out, ten years out, what kind of work will you be doing? What is your speciality? Remember that in order to become the designer you see in that picture, you’ll need the portfolio, the testimonials, and most importantly, the refined skills necessary to do that kind of work.
It takes time to build these things up and for each project you do that isn’t working towards that goal, it’s taking time away from becoming the designer you want to be. This isn’t to say, you turn down any job that isn’t a perfect fit for your dream, but that you do weigh the time it’ll take to complete, the skills that you’ll need to acquire to do the job, the compensation, and how it fits into your overall trajectory. Essentially you’ll be doing what economists call a cost benefit analysis.
Consider the Potential Working Relationship
Among the consequences and benefits to consider when doing any design job is working with any particular client. What I mean is the actual person or people that you’ll be directly communicating with to get the work done. Design is a service activity, so you’ll likely be performing some necessary task for somebody else who has a very particular vision for the product, but more importantly, has a personality, an opinion, and a communication style all their own. No two people are the same, and so it’s safe to say, neither are any two clients.
It’s important to realize when considering taking on a project, that there is more than the project to consider. You need to carefully consider the benefits and consequences of working alongside the actual client, the person or people requesting the work. You are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. Make sure you feel comfortable with this person or people. Make sure you feel that the person or people signal that they trust and respect you and what you do, and do your best to make sure they will be a good partner in doing this work.
It’s a Partnership, Right?
During the course of the project, you’ll be counting on this person as much as or sometimes even more than they are counting on you. You’ll need content and feedback at the very least. Some clients will have experience working with designers, but many will not. You’ll be responsible for judging their ability to take your direction, to meet your requests and deadlines, and whether or not they will be a suitable partner for your process.
Design projects have lifespans, you could be working with this person for a very long time. If they are not a good fit for you, your work, or your working style, it might be a good idea to pass on the project. At first it might feel like a loss, but if you look at it in the long run, it’s only a small initial loss for larger future gain.
Final Thoughts
If each client and each project adds to your knowledge base, your experience, and your portfolio, then both positive and negative experiences factor into the cumulative sum of your design career. The more varied and positive experiences you can collect, the better you position yourself for the clients and the projects that you want in the future.