Dear Realtor:
Please find me a commercial building. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My commercial building should have somewhere between two and sixty rooms. Just make sure the building is such that the front doors, windows can be easily added or deleted, and do not forget that I need a large exterior space to display all twenty five of my business meta key words.
Carlos, if the REALTORS(R) client were anything like the REALTOR for whom I just finished a site, after the REALTOR found exactly what the client said he wanted, then he would say, "oh wait, now that I see it, that's not what I really wanted after all."
Another gem from the same client, "I don't want your marketing advice, I just want you to do graphic design."
Suzanne Stephens, Point2Agent Design Partner
Classic case of not letting the professional do his/her job. You hire a pro to do a job, let them do it. I feel for you Carlos. Oh, and do you need an insurance policy for that ever changing commercial building?
Stephen, good design should also be strategic, and good web site designs should encompass several aspects of marketing strategy, including SEO. I ran a full service ad agency for several years as well as working for many different advertising agencies. Our approach to marketing strategy was threefold: the overall marketing strategy plus the creative strategy and the media strategy to support the marketing strategy. As an ad agency CEO and/or Creative Director, I typically worked at the front end of the strategic planning process. We referred to implementation of the creative strategy as "creative production." Because few REALTORS have much knowledge of strategic web site design I frequently work with clients to help them develop their online marketing strategies.
Anyone with a copy of Photoshop can call herself a graphic designer and can do production work. Not any graphic designer bring 30 years of senior-level ad agency marketing planning and strategic design expertise to the table.
Leigh, apology accepted. Hey! At least you have a pocketbook! That's important. A smart client will find a designer whose style she likes rather than hiring a designer, then asking the designer to design a site in someone else's style. If you see a Web site you like, hire the designer who designed that site, not some other designer.
Carlos, forgive me if I appear to have highjacked your blog!
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