An AGD colleague's plea for a careful choice of service provider
04.10.2016 by Andreas Maxbauer
In times when more and more cheap design amateurs are on the market, it is important to show what makes a designer professional, functional and value-adding. Andreas Maxbauer, speaker at the Alliance of German Designers (AGD), explains how you can convince customers with your professionalism.
On the trail of obvious design in a medium-sized, northern German city: the companies "Wurst-Design", "Aqua-Design" and a lot of "Nail-Design" can be found, even with its own educational institute "Nail Design Academy". And a mutation of the concept of design is also visible elsewhere. For example, the organization of services is now called service design; or in transportation design, the design of means of transport plays only a minor supporting role. Between these poles are all kinds of self-employed people who - often quite visibly - try their hand at design without any sound training. Design is increasingly becoming a general term for anything designed.
Profit comes from the professional
The inevitable consequence is the progressive deprofessionalization of the terms design, designer and designer, which are central to a designer. This certainly has economic consequences, because if the essence of a service is no longer clear, its value also becomes blurred and thus automatically lowers its price.
It is important (as outlined in the last column ) for designers to tell their clients about their own specific areas of focus and skills, i.e. to describe the value and benefits of what they do. This in itself sets them apart from the general public and, above all, from the low-cost homeowners.
However, it is just as important to show what is actually professional, functional and value-adding about a design agency, and thus to make clear the characteristics that set it apart from instant designers and dumping providers. And, as we will see in a moment, this not only has to do with good design, but above all with effective design and the way it is managed.
If a potential client lacks this information and differentiation between "professional" and "not-so-professional", they will make their decision based on the price offered. We also need to take more of a client's perspective when talking about our profession rather than our own. And focus on those who value a good collaboration. We ignore clients who don't want to pay for design services anyway, because they are usually dissatisfied and require a lot of support.
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