Things I’ve Learnt Designing My First Client Site

A few days ago I mentioned that I finally have a reason to investigate, and learn to use Chyrp. That reason is a personal weblog for my current boss. I have never designed for someone else before, and have come across a couple of things I had not thought about previously.

I’m enjoying immensely the task of writing the code, and seeing the site come to life before my eyes. There are, however, a few drawbacks with working on someone elses site.

Chief amongst those is the fact that it isn’t my design. I can’t simply change the direction in which I’m headed solely based on how I feel about the design. I have given my “client” a direction I think we should head in, and now I have to stick to that proposal, and see it through, despite my yearnings to change the direction.

Second is the lack of ownership of the design. Whilst I essentially took carte blanche to come up with the whole look and feel of the site, I don’t own what I’m doing, and that means that I can’t save some piece of it for use later on in one of my own projects.

Finally, the limitations of the web are likely to cause consternation. My client may or may not be expecting the site to work perfectly the same in all browsers, and is unlikely to realise the limit of fonts that I can freely use to design his site. I don’t want the site to be a disappointment, but I’m unsure how to manage these expectations.

These are obviously things that all designers have dealt with since forever, but I am new to this, and am struggling with how to overcome them.