Design in business tends to be a collaborative effort. Â Mainly this is because nine times out of ten the person with the idea doesn’t have the ability, and the people with the ability aren’t often focused enough to have the ideas. Â Not to offend either set, but creativity and business sense appear to be, in most people, diametrically opposed. Â That means the more of one you have the less of the other you have.
So, if you are the idea guy, you take your thoughts to someone else.  You’ve laid out the parameters and explained what you wanted.  The designer has gone off and done what you asked and is showing it to you.
The first thing to remember when entering a design process is that until you’ve actually released, you can change anything. Â Even after you release you can probably still change things. Â So when your designer brings you the first pass at implementing your idea, the first thing out of your mouth shouldn’t be pointing out how they totally screwed it up. Â This is a first draft, this is the collaboration part where the designer is trying to understand what you want, in his medium, and you help him. Â Until you learn to literally project your thoughts into someone else’s head, you have to realize that what you dreamed up and what you put on paper as specifications are not remotely identical, and the translation from your brain to paper and then from paper to the designer’s brain is going to cause variation. Â That’s why the two of you need to work together.
Don’t put your designer on the defensive and lead with criticism. Â Look at the work and begin by talking about what you like. Â What elements appear to be going in the right direction. Â And then, when you are done, begin being critical, however, remain constructive. Â If you don’t like the format of something, don’t just say, “I hate that. It’s ugly.” Â Try instead something like, “The words are right like I specified, but I’m not loving the font you chose. Can you show me a few others?” Â If you don’t understand something, ask — the designer is likely happy to explain where he started and how he got there, and if he’s off the mark you should correct the error in his path and help him get to where you want. Â Of course, that doesn’t mean you sit in the designer’s work space and tell him how to do his job.
Just keep in mind how you would react if someone came along and told you how stupid your idea was versus them telling you it’s a good idea, promising, but there are these one or two details you might want to reconsider before you get in too deep. Â In other words, the Golden Rule.