You hear this all the time, 100% customer satisfaction guaranteed....in the mall, on websites. This has been the mantra of great customer service for a long time, but does anyone care? does anyone mean it? In fact, what exactly is 100% customer satisfaction?

Is it satisfying the customer by sacrificing your (seller) satisfaction?

Is it vouching for your customers instead of your own employees?

or

Is it just keeping you and the customer satisfied at the same time?

Most of you would say it is the third option. Sure it is possible in 99% of the cases from my experience but we are talking about 100% right. If you have been selling something for a considerable period of time you sure might have run into customers that fall in the 1% category. How do you deal with such customers? Do you fire them? Do you sacrifice your satisfaction for theirs?

Sure I have had my share of bad customers as well. Some take away your designs and never respond to your mails, some want revisions and more revisions without paying an extra dime. As time goes on you attain immunity against such bad clients, you devise methods to protect your interests while not harming those of the client like asking for an upfront payment, charging for revisions etc. I came across a post from Alexander Kjerulf of Postive Sharing titled the Top five reasons why "The customer is always right" is wrong. In it he cites several examples of managers standing by their employees against difficult customers.

I, for one is a person who strives to provide 100% customer satisfaction. Often I explain to the clients that I'll do pencil sketches first and after your approval only I'll start vectorising the art work but more than 90% of the time I go ahead and create vector graphics of the art work for the client to see instead of pencil sketches. I am delivering more than what I have promised and my clients love me for that. Is that 100% customer satisfaction? ;)

Image credit: Dominik Gwarek

Labels: Alexander Kjerulf, customer satisfaction, Postive Sharing

The pen tool is the hardest tool that you will come across in Illustrator if you are just starting out on illustrator but if you master it, you open the door to a whole new world.

So let's begin our conquest of the world of the Mighty Pen Tool.

Even for beginners it isn't difficult to spot the pen tool in the tools palette. If you are unsuccessful in your attempt to locate the pen tool just hit P in your keyboard, your cursor automatically turns to the shape of a Pen Nib. Now just look at the tools palette to see which tool is selected. There you'll see our mighty pen tool.

Not very difficult isn't it?

Now let's further explore the pen tool. If you click on the Pen Tool button a sub menu pops up giving us various options. The following picture shows us the sub menu.

Let's find out of what each of these tools does.

The first one from the left is the default Pen Tool. It is used to draw paths just like you use a normal pen to draw on paper. It's shortcut key is P

The second from left is the Add Anchor Point Tool which adds an anchor point to an existing path. An anchor point, as the name suggests are special points along a path which can be manipulated to change the direction of the path. It's shortcut key is + (plus). Try to invoke the tool by clicking the + key in your keyboard. Pressing the + key in the Num Pad may sometimes bring up other tools.

The third one is the Delete Anchor Point Tool. You might have already guessed what it does. Well if you haven't, don't worry it just deletes existing anchor points along a path. It's shortcut key is - (minus)

The last one is the Convert Anchor Point Tool. By now you already know what an anchor point is and what it is for. This tool helps us to manipulate an anchor point like changing the direction of the path.

Now we should try out each of these tools to put into practice what we have learned.

Create a new document in Illustrator. By default you will have the Selection Tool (shortcut key V) selected. Select black as your stroke color and none as your fill color. Use the following figure for reference.

Hit P in your keyboard and the Selection Tool will turn into Pen Tool. Tada!

Now click anywhere on the document with the Pen Tool and pull up. Hold down the Shift Key to make sure you keep to a straight line. Release the mouse bottom. You have just created your point A. The whole point of holding down the Shift key is to pull in directions of 0, 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270, 315 and 360 degrees around the anchor point.

Now click on another point a little away from point A. Hold down the Shift key and pull to the right and release the mouse button. This is the point B. You might also notice that the points A and B are now connected by a curved line. Well this is your first path in Illustrator, CONGRATULATIONS!

What difference did it have from drawing a curved line on paper? First off all, the curve you got was the smoothest you ever drew in your life. Secondly it was much quicker than drawing on paper, just 2 clicks of the mouse and you are done. But what did you miss? Of course that soothing feeling of drawing on a paper with a pen.

Well, that was easy but hold-on there are a few other tricks as well that you need to learn to master the Pen Tool.

The curve you created looks alright but wouldn't it be much cooler if it was a reverse curve instead of a simple curve. A reverse curve is one which changes it's direction twice, at least that is what they taught me in my Transportation Engineering class.

OK here is where the Add Anchor Point Tool kicks in.

Hit + key in your key board to select the Add Anchor Point Tool and click on the curve as shown in the figure below to create a Point C. You notice that on either side of the point C, two handles also crop up on either side of point C.

These handles are going to help you create a reverse curve.

Hold Shift+C to bring up the Convert Anchor Point Tool. Click on point C then press Shift (this is very important, if you press shift key first and then pull the whole curve moves) and pull in the direction shown in the following figure.

Well the curve isn't exactly a reverse curve, the angles need to be much greater than this, like this.

….well may be this is too much of a reverse curve LOL. Never mind this one augers well for demonstration purposes.

Although the symmetry of he curve is lost as it was a quick work, take a note of the points where I have made Anchor Points. You'll notice that I have made Anchor Points at the summit of the curve as well at the valley. This is the best practice as it gives you greater flexibility, if you have to make any changes to your curve in the future.

Now we have covered three tools namely Pen Tool, Add Anchor Point Tool and Convert Anchor Point Tool and that leaves us with the delete anchor point tool. As you continue your journey towards mastering the pen tool you'll come across one or two points in your path that you feel do not fall in line. Well, then it's time to KILL THEM! Meet your asset (CIA code) Mr. Delete Anchor Point Tool. He is a nasty tool and kills without mercy. There will not be even a trace of the poor victim. Let's master him.

Let us try it on our poor unsuspecting Point C. Hit V. Select the path ABC we created. Hit the - (minus) key in your key board to activate your asset (Delete Anchor Point Tool). Sneak behind the point C, once you have positioned right on top of Point C, click (Bang!)

Now hit Shift+C to select the Convert Anchor Point Tool and use the handles projecting from Point A and/or Point B to change the degree of the curve.

You could make all sorts of crazy shapes using the pen tool. Try making the following shapes.

As a logo designer this tool is my best companion. I draw logos in a Quad Ruled Book, Trace it on a tracing paper with a fine tipped pen, scan it using my HP Scanner, place it on Illustrator and trace it with the Pen Tool. I would soon write a post on my logo design process.

I hope you have enjoyed this short tutorial. As they say practice makes perfect and soon you'll drawing complex shapes like this.

Labels: illustrator, pen tool, tutorial

Any one who has been in the design industry for sometime must have experienced a situation where the client tells you that the design you have provided was not what he was looking for. Then the client gives you examples of work he likes and asks you to make something similar. Well there could be two explanations to this situation, either you did not get a design brief from the client or the client never bothered to answer the questions in the brief properly. After reading through this article you will have the solution to both these problems.

What exactly is a design brief?

Here is the definition of the term Design Brief from Wikipedia

"A design brief is a comprehensive written document for a design project developed in concert by a person representing the business need for design and the designer."

This is strictly applicable in the case of corporate clients, established businesses etc but what about small scale businesses like a book shop or a restaurant? They don't have the expertise to prepare a detailed document like a Design Brief. Well, that’s where you the designer kicks in. Instead of just asking the client to prepare a design brief by themselves you provide them with a design questionnaire which they will fill and hand over to you. This system has several advantages, the most important being the fact that each designer is unique and looks for the answers to some specific questions in addition to the generic ones. Some questions are formed out of the personal experiences of the designer through the years. Well let's now get to the business end of things.

A Sample Design Questionnaire

I) Generic Questions

Under this category are questions that any design questionnaire should contain.

Name : John Doe
Email :
Business Name : John Doe Constructions
Phone :
Website :

1. Please enter the name of your company exactly as you would like it to appear in your logo. (e.g. 'Fiat')

2. Do you have a tagline. If yes please enter it exactly as you want to see it here (e.g. 'invent')

3. What is your core business? (e.g. 'Car manufacturer')

4. Please describe your products or services: (e.g. 'luxury cars, spare parts')

5. Do you already have an identity or logo design?
If yes, why are you making a change? (e.g. Our company has grown in stature over the years and are now looking to expand our services in to Asia and now we need an identity that indicates our global appeal)

6. What mediums do you plan to use your logo on? (e.g. 'Business Cards, Building signage, trucks, website')

7. Do you have a preferred color scheme? (e.g. We would like to have blue, red in our logo. No light colors like yellow. )

8. Please attach examples of logos that you like with reasons.

Now these are the bare minimum questions any design brief should contain. I hope you have noticed that all the questions are in fact complete sentences. This sort of urges the client to give detailed answers to your questions. For example asking the client 'Preferred Colour scheme' and 'Do you have any preferred colour scheme?' are two different things. The former gives a feeling to the client that you are in a rush and need quick, short answers but the latter sort of urges the client to frame his answer in a proper manner with as much details as needed. Providing example answers along side your question also helps the client to answer the questionnaire quickly and ensures that the client will not get stuck in between wondering how to answer a question.

In addition to these extra questions you should ask the client the following questions as well.

9. What is your target market: Who are your customers? Is your products/services aimed at a particular sex / age / income range ?(e.g. ' Our customers are 25 or higher, and they prefer to pay some extra money to get a luxury car')

The above question is relevant due to the fact that in addition to your and the client's taste you should also appeal to the target market of the client. This is very important as the target market should be able to relate to the logo for it to click. This is where you should let the client know that their personal interests and tastes should take the back seat and those of the target audience should be put forward.

10.Would you like a symbol or a logotype?

Some people think that a symbol is an essential part of a logo. Well not always some world famous brands like Coca-Cola, Virgin etc do not have any distinct symbols in their logo, they are just logotypes. They make use of unique logotypes.

11.Which of the following characteristics describe the image you want to project? (e.g. ' Modern, Traditional, Familiar etc..')

I think the importance of the question is self explanatory.

12.What kind of font would you prefer to be used in your logo (light, modern, heavy)

This is another question which designers often ignore. Most of them offer a multitude of font variations and asks the client to pick their favourite one which is a huge waste of time and could be avoided with this simple question.

13.Define your company in 1 sentence

The answer to this tells us what a company feels about itself and the logo that you design should also convey the same.

I am sure that even the most seasoned of designers might have come around a situation where the client sometimes backtracks from the design brief and tells you that we should try something different. The reason for such backtracking could be attributed to the client not paying enough attention while answering the design questionnaire. It is very difficult to avoid such situations but there is a way out of it. You should arrange a meeting with the client after they have handed you the Design brief to discuss the contents of the brief. It should preferably be a face to face meeting but if you are on 2 different sides of the globe you should at least ring him up. I strongly discourage the use of IM's because you will get tired of typing soon and the whole point of the meeting will be sabotaged. Talk to your client about the brief. Make sure that you have understood each and every one of the client's responses in the brief. Go to this meeting prepared and may be buy your client a coffee.





Closing Tips

1. Limit the number of questions to a maximum of 15.
2. Ask questions in a polite manner.
3. Make the client feel that we are in it together.
4. Give suggestions. If the client asks you to do something which you don't feel right as a designer, let him know that. Try to convince him that the decision will back fire instead of just doing everything the client says. Give reasons.
5. Keep in constant touch with the client. Get his mobile number so that you can stay in touch easily but do not bug him with mid-night telephone calls.

Labels: client-designer relation, design brief, design questionnaire

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