Developing great creative isn’t really the hard part. With the right team of writers and designers – and good information to build on – Alstin’s usually got that part in hand. Sure, there’s sweat, and sometimes tears, but the lightbulb usually flickers on and the fun part, the creative process, begins. The tricky part is getting buy-in from the client particularly when the “client” is actually many clients.
The more people involved in reviewing and (gulp) revising the creative, the more the work will suffer. There’s nothing sadder than walking into a conference room to present really great work and watch it die a slow and painful death as it is passed from hand to hand, person to person, around a crowded table. Creative is subjective. Some people like blue, others yellow, that’s just the way it is. We can work with that. Even in a crowded room.
But, what if you had to design to please not a handful, but millions, of people.
Douglas Bowman was the first visual designer hired by Google. This was nearly three years ago and, up until that time, Google, the most-used search engine in the world had, tellingly, been running for more than seven years without a designer on staff. At the time he accepted the position, Mr. Bowman viewed it as a plum opportunity. What designer wouldn’t want to be in a position where his or her work would be seen by literally millions of viewers? But in his three subsequent years at Google something went very wrong.
You can find the details on Mr. Bowman’s personal blog in a post entitled “Goodbye, Google” that outlines the reasons for his departure. It makes for interesting reading on its own, but at its heart you’ll find a challenge that every person in the creative industry and those who turn to us for help are facing in the digital age. How much of digital design is driven by aesthetics and how much is driven by data?
At Google, for instance, Mr. Bowman cites a time when Google conducted online tests of more than 40 shades of blue when the in-house design team couldn’t decide between two blues. That’s millions of viewers, with a click, determining what shade of blue to include in the “design.” Creativity by proxy. Other examples abound.
The moral of the story isn’t simply that one person didn’t like a design atmosphere driven by data, it’s that a world-class designer one who was intimately involved in the process says that design was harmed, not helped, by too much information. Too many opinions.
Design, by definition, is an art. It seems that something is lost if we try to make it a science.
Author Bio:
Patricia Cara, our Vice President of Creative Services, has an eye for design no doubt honed by years of painting, photography, cooking (and school-projects). Every AE's go-to goddess at deadline time, Patty, with Alstin for more than 24 years, keeps it real with impromptu office dance parties and the latest iPhone apps. 
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I’ve been working with Alstin for 21 years and have experienced the frustration of too many opinions when it comes to choosing the creative design that supports a recruitment campaign.
Most people who would like to have an opinion aren’t part of the audience that the campaign would need to target.
I have artwork from three of my favorite campaigns designed by the Alstin team prominently displayed in my office. They were all great recruitment campaigns that worked!! There would be more but there’s not enough space in my office!
the Alstin team has always delivered!