Whilst being an Art Director I have many arguments, lets be nice – discussions, with colleagues involved in the projects. It is very easy to become so involved in the project that you lose sight of the end result. It is imperative that you are objective with your views and you look at the projects with the end user in mind.  Being a good designer means that your subjective view must be an objective view, taking into account the message, the target audience, and the result desired from the project.

The design may not be the perfect design in the eye of the client, account mangers or critics but if fulfills the brief and gains the desired results then the design is right. It is said that you can have the best looking design in the world but if it does not convey the message, whether it is literal or not, then the design has failed.

I have on many occasions created a design that I have thought is “great” and “looks lovely” and proudly shown the concept to colleagues and peers expecting to see awe on their faces, where actually I received looks of confusion and comments like “Yeah its nice but…” . My mistake every time this happens is that I lose my objectiveness, I become so involved in the design process and do not bounce ideas off of other people, that the design become a subjective design. As  designer you must bounce the ideas and be prepared to take the criticism and re-design until the brief is fulfilled.

In today’s market deigns can become global overnight, if it touches a nerve with a blogger and it is placed on the internet then people around the world will see it instantly, but this is not the target market, people will comment and the majority of the people will only be viewing it subjectively. With this in mind though, target markets these days have become much more broad,  and there is a much larger cross over between  classes of people that never used to cross over. For example 30 years ago it was unlikely that a target audience would span 20 – 40 year old women who run companies, are new mothers and want to go to the gym 3 times a week. In today’s market people have many more roles in their lives and the crossover of these roles is becoming greater and greater. This enlarged target market impacts how we design subjectively, or should I say objectively.

Understanding the audience is imperative and defining who the audience is at the start of the project through the use of user personas can help all involved view the project in an objective way. The user personas can especially help the client. Many times a companies directors or staff view their projects as “their baby” and are rightly protective over the image that it presents, however it must be remembered that they are usually not the target market and they must be objective about who they are trying to reach, and this is where the user personas come in,  they do not have to be followed religiously but they are a gentle reminder of who we are designing for. Additionally we must remember how the end user will view the content and project, and if it is important for everybody to see the project or just your target market.  On every project one of the first question raised when the new illustrator file is opened is “What is the minimum resolution for the website?”. Whilst this may sound a technical question it essentially is not, another way of phrasing the question could be “So who will be looking at the website, who is the  lowest common denominator of our target audience?”.

Let me explain.
If we are designing a website that is aimed at a user who uses small monitors or older machines, or are in less developed countries we must design to these restrictions. However if our target audience is gamers on the latest machines and monitors the size of small horses then we must be objective about the resolution and design the site to the larger screens, yes the people on the smaller monitors may not have such a rich and engaging experience on the website but they are not the target audience, they will not be buying the latest 3D game as they will not be able to play it. We want to engage and entice the target audience.