In today’s episode of The Profitable Graphic Designer podcast, we’re talking about design revisions. Throughout this episode, you’ll learn how to embrace revisions as a natural part of the creative process, communicate effectively with clients to minimize misunderstandings, and educate clients on the value of your designs. By the end of our discussion, you’ll have practical strategies to handle revisions with confidence and professionalism, ensuring smoother project workflows and happier clients.

 

Listen to the episode here:

Spotify  –  Apple Podcasts  –  Amazon Music

 

You will learn:

• How to reframe revisions as opportunities for improvement.
• Strategies for effective communication with clients during the whole process.
• Techniques for educating clients on the value of your designs.
• What we do, in my branding & design agency, to minimize revisions and how we handle them when we have them.

 

Aventive Academy’s Resources:

Free Client Portal for Designers: https://aventiveacademy.com/client-portal/

$12k Client Attraction Masterclass: https://aventiveacademy.com/attract-clients-workshop/

The Wealthy Client Blueprint: ⁠https://aventiveacademy.com/wealthy-client/

12-Week Business Program for Designers: https://aventiveacademy.com/profit

The Creative CEO Accelerator: https://aventiveacademy.com/accelerator

 

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TRANSCRIPT:

0:00
We all hate revisions, and we see them as a personal attack on our creativity. At least that’s how I was for many, many years. Maybe even like five years or so. I just always thought like, oh, clients don’t know. Well, in fact, most of the time when they asked for revisions, they were right.

0:38
Welcome to the Profitable Graphic Designer Podcast, brought to you by Aventive Academy. I’m your host, Kady Sandel. I’m a brand strategist, designer, creative director, and the CEO of a successful six-figure design agency based in Austin, TX, serving clients worldwide. After mastering the art of building a profitable and sustainable design business, I decided to help you achieve the same success.

1:02
I teach brand, graphic, and web design business owners how to attract more clients, increase their pricing, and develop design businesses that provide the financial freedom and time flexibility you’ve always dreamt of. We offer online programs, courses, and templates that you can use along with our Coaching Accelerator and Mastermind High Touch experiences for creatives. You can learn more about starting and growing your design business at aventiveacademy.com, but for now, grab a cup of coffee and join me in today’s podcast episode.

1:34
I never thought I would be recording a podcast episode like this one, at least not with this kind of mindset that I have right now. But let’s dive straight into this topic that many designers probably don’t want to talk about. I always saw clients’ feedback or revisions as something really bad. And yes, I always try not to have any revisions, but I also want to share how we at my branding and design agency, my team and I, handle revisions. How we ask for feedback. What happens when they don’t like our designs and things like that. So let’s uncover all of that.

2:19
The first thing that I want to talk about is embracing revisions. So what that means is let me actually give you an example. A few weeks ago, we presented a full visual identity to one of our clients and they loved it. Everything was great, but after the call and after they approved everything on the call, they got back to us via email saying that they do not like the icon for the logo. So we just sat down, me and my team, and figured out what next steps we can take in order to still have a satisfied client but without redoing everything.

2:59
When we sat down and looked into the feedback we got, we actually agreed with the client. We agreed that the icon is not the best fit for their brand. We saw why the client wouldn’t like the logo, and I’ll give you details. So we presented this logo with an infinity sign and a door, and we loved it. I really liked how it looked. Everything was great, but the feedback was that it’s just not for their brand, it’s not for their company. And when I looked at it, I saw this icon almost like an icon for a church because it had that open door and infinity sign, something forever. It wasn’t right, and I 100% agreed after I saw the feedback. Sometimes when we are in our designs, in our business, in whatever we do when it’s ours, we sometimes don’t see it. We need that third person to come in and tell us like, hey, what are you doing, in a nicer way, right?

4:22
I also want to mention that in the past, every time a client would come back with revisions, I always assumed their boyfriend or their mom or their brother or sister or cousin came with this idea of not liking the logo for some personal reasons. And while that can be true, I want you to know that that’s not always the case. Many times their reasons really make sense when they ask for revisions. Instead of seeing that as an attack on your creativity, see it as an opportunity to improve, to make something that does look better. Because it can always look better, right? Look at it as an opportunity to refine and improve your design. Remember, clients aren’t out to get us. They just want the best possible outcome for their project, and we want this too.

5:40
When it comes to handling revisions, it’s essential to establish clear channels of communication with our clients from the start. We have a client portal that you can download for free. It’s linked below in the description of this episode. So in the show notes, feel free to download that client portal. That is how we communicate with our clients, and that is how we go back and forth. It’s not via email or text or anything like that. It’s amazing. I love it. This is something that we created for my branding and design agency, and then just a week ago or so, I released it to the public, and every designer can download it. It’s very useful. Feel free to adjust it. And if you don’t use Notion, feel free to use the same framework or layout if you want to use Trello or Asana or any other platform.

6:27
The reason why many designers go through many revisions with their clients is because of the lack of communication. Many times the client is actually not the problem. The designer is, and I know it’s hard to take that. You don’t want to be the problem; you want to be the best and provide designs that your clients will easily say yes to. And that is possible. But it all goes back to how you’re going to communicate with your clients. Client communication starts when they reach out to you, whether that is through a contact form on your website, social media, or directly via email or whatever it is. You have to set the tone for that communication and how you are going to execute the project. So first things first, you’re going to tell them what exactly they can expect from you. You send the proposal, invoice, contract, and that’s all signed. You’re a professional design business owner.

7:41
From there, when you start working with them, and if you’re a visual identity designer or brand designer, I highly suggest you start with the brand strategy. Because brand strategy or a questionnaire, if you’re not someone who wants to do brand strategy, that is totally fine. But you have to understand the client’s needs. Their needs are not to get a logo design or packaging design or website design. Their needs are to grow their business, make more sales, get more customers, get more leads, sell more products, increase their website traffic. Their goals are higher and bigger than what we, as designers, see. We always think like, they need a better label for their product, they need a better homepage, they need better fonts. Yes, I totally agree they do need all of that, but their main goal is to grow their business. So always focus on that.

8:40
After you complete the brand strategy or gather enough information from the client about their target audience, mission, vision, core values, tone of voice, how they need to sound to others to increase sales or leads or revenue, then you’re going to start working on the visuals. When you’re working on the visuals, always think, how am I going to explain this to the client? What is the reason behind choosing this font, this color, this shape, this icon, whatever it is that you’re working on, this website section, or whatever? If you don’t know how to explain that, maybe you should move away from that design, or figure out how to explain it better. When presenting your designs to the client, don’t start with “This is a logo, black on a white background.” No, start with the strategy or reasoning behind it. Start with a verbal explanation. Start with the text, let’s call it text, before you show the visuals.

9:50
For example, right now we are working with one client who has medicine for dogs. I’m not starting with “Hey, this is your logo, these are your colors, this is your brand book.” No, I’m starting with, “So your ideal clients are these, and they’re looking for this, and they would love to see something like this.” When I’m talking about what they would like to see, I’m talking about how the brand needs to sound to the potential buyers. We want them to think of trustful brands that people see as not an expense, but as buying something for their pets. They want their pets to live longer, this and that. So I’m going into that first, and then I’m showing the logo and saying, “So that’s why we created this simple logo that symbolizes this and that and matches the strategy behind it.” I’m always connecting it and going back into that circle of “This is why we designed this icon or this logo or this website, whatever it is that you as a designer offer.” It’s very important for clients to understand it from the start so that they don’t have any subjective opinions, so that they don’t say, “Oh, I don’t like this purple,” or “Oh, I don’t like this shape, it reminds me of this and that.” No, we want them to see your designs as objectively as possible. We want them to see it almost like a third party, almost like they’re not the decision-makers. If we present something to them and they start seeing it as, “Oh, I like it” or “I don’t like it,” it’s not going to work. We want them to see it as, “Will my ideal client like it and will this work for my business?”

12:23
Before we continue with this podcast episode, I just want to quickly remind you that if you’re a design business owner whose dream is to have a successful and profitable career so you can enjoy the freedom and flexibility that comes with it, then I have something for you. The Profitable Designer program is my signature 12-week system that will help you improve your business, sign amazing high-paying clients, and truly achieve your financial and lifestyle goals. Visit aventiveacademy.com/profit to check if you can join us now or if we are currently not accepting more designers into the program. In that case, you will be able to join the waitlist and be the first to know when we open the doors again.

12:45
Now we’ll go back to the episode in a second, but I just want to add that designers who completed the program were able to sign five-figure design clients, 10 times their pricing, reach six figures and beyond, make $20,000 per month while working only a few hours a week, and more. Here is what Julia said: “It really has everything you could ever ask for to build a six-figure business that will allow you to have financial freedom.” And that’s why I personally did it. I wanted that flexibility. So if you want to be my next success story and achieve results like these, visit aventiveacademy.com/profit.

13:10
Now let’s go back to the episode. The other thing is embracing revisions. And I know I already mentioned this at the beginning of this podcast episode, but what I mean by that is when I present a logo design or when my brand designer presents the logo design or websites, I’m always on the call. They present it so that I can look into my clients’ faces. It’s funny, I do that all the time. When you’re presenting something, we schedule a Zoom call, and like last Monday, my brand designer was walking them through the reasoning behind every single design she did. She had a full presentation and was going slide by slide. I’m just looking into the screen, looking at their faces. I think we had six or seven people from their team, from my client’s team. I’m just following their faces and looking at what they think about it, how they take in the information. It’s very important to read people’s faces. But that’s a different topic.

14:58
When you’re presenting your visuals, your designs, you can always say, “We allow for revisions in case you don’t resonate with this color choice or this and that.” You can say, “We do offer revisions. As mentioned in the proposal or contract, we offer two rounds of revisions.” Someone asked me how many logo designs or how many visual identities, like how many options do you provide to a client? I provide one. We provide one solution to their one problem. There’s always one logo, one color palette, one font. Sometimes we have multiple fonts for different things, like one font is for their tagline, one font is for their website, one font is for something else. But we design one brand. We don’t give them options to choose from. If they don’t like it, which literally has never happened, actually, it happened only once, and that was four or five years ago when the client came back and said, “I really don’t like the typography. I really don’t like the logo.” I was like, “OK, I can see that. Not fully, I don’t agree with you, but give me a couple of days and maybe we can find something else.” We completely redesigned the logo. This happened only once in the past nine or ten years.

16:18
So the last project that I talked about, not the pet medicine but the other one that I can’t share yet, is kind of like a wellness center. When we presented a logo, we presented one logo, one font, everything. They just didn’t like the icon. So now we are working on redesigning the icon. As mentioned, I totally agreed with them. I don’t like the icon either after I got that feedback. Revisions are really not a bad thing. It’s not that the icon we provided wouldn’t work for them. It definitely would. But what we have right now, five days later, resonates better with their target audience. It’s going to look better as a sign. It’s going to work better for their business. And it’s really good. I know we are presenting it today. By the time I release this podcast episode, it will be a couple of weeks ago. I know they’re going to approve it. Feel free to DM me on Instagram and ask me what happened. I just love the new icon. I think it was this collaboration between us. And when I say us, I mean my branding and design agency, so me and my team, and my client and their team. It was literally this work-together collaboration.

18:29
In the past, I would see me on one side of the table and clients on the other side. Now, we are all sitting down around a round table, talking and figuring out how we can help this brand grow. It doesn’t matter that it’s their brand. We work for them or with them. We are all working on this one brand, providing amazing designs and visuals so they can grow.

19:03
What happens when you get feedback or clients requesting revisions when you don’t agree with them? That means that either you didn’t explain the reasons behind your designs well, or maybe there is no reason. Sometimes we provide visuals that look really good, but it’s very hard to explain and justify, so clients don’t understand it. You have to figure out how to minimize those revisions by providing context, explanation, and having a really good brief before you start designing.

19:42
It’s on you to explain what you want and why you did it to the client. Sometimes we have bad clients. There are bad clients who try to micromanage, who want a ton of revisions. But again, it goes down to the process and how you are leading this process of designing and working with a client. You can definitely minimize revisions through effective briefs and explanations. It really all goes down to how you communicate with the client, how you explain everything, how you collaborate, and how you work together on providing the right solution for them.

20:34
At the end of the day, you have to figure out how to educate your clients. They don’t know what they don’t know, so don’t be angry and mad. Don’t feel offended when they’re asking for revisions or feedback, or when they just want to know more about why you chose this font, why these colors, or if they ask, “Hey, instead of this dark gray, can we do dark brown?” No. Don’t be offended. It’s not like you selected the wrong color. They just don’t understand it. Or maybe you did select the wrong color, but then that’s fine. Embrace these revisions and feedback. You will come up with something better, or you will figure out how to better communicate to your clients so they understand what you designed for them and why.

21:29
Thanks for tuning in to the Profitable Graphic Designer Podcast. But wait, before you go, if you enjoyed this podcast episode and want the chance to access one of our online courses for free, simply leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Each month, one lucky reviewer gets to pick a course as a token of our appreciation. And here’s a reminder, we are here to help you build the design business of your dreams. Whether it’s creating compelling proposals, attracting $10K clients, pricing your design services, improving your portfolio, reaching six figures and beyond, or helping you stand out, we’ve got you covered. I invite you to join over 1,000 designers in my signature 12-week program, The Profitable Designer. Visit aventiveacademy.com/profit. And also don’t forget to hit that subscribe button. That way, you’ll be the first to know when each new episode drops so you never miss out on future content. Until next time, be sure to connect with us on Instagram at @aventiveacademy, where we share valuable business tips, stories, and resources for brand, graphic, and web design business owners. Bye for now, your host, Kady Sandel.