Connecting the Disconnect

The design industry can be pretty intimidating.

As a studio (or a freelance creative, or an agency, or whatever you are) you breathe design and its technological implementation every single day.

But there are others out there who don’t, and that’s probably the reason they’re not in our industry, just like we’re not in theirs. It’s all relative.

There is a disconnect between those who speak our industry’s language and those who don’t. The disconnect evolves into frustration, apathy, and stubbornness and can lead to real communication problems. Everyone wants to blame the other person for either not explaining well enough, or not “getting it.”

Stop the blame game, and let’s step it up a notch, huh?

We think it’s up to us to translate industry jargon, and make it as easy as possible for generally non-creative people to grasp a concept they don’t revolve their lives around.

Whether you’re an art director, web designer, or copywriter, you’ll eventually have to talk to someone who doesn’t know a lot about the process. Being able to have a conversation about it anyway becomes an important part of the general people-skills that make you a real human being. Plus, being able to weed out non-essential information and break down loaded terminology is a big part of pleasing clients. The hardest part is doing this in a way that doesn’t hurt the other person’s ego.

Yes, there will always be those who stubbornly don’t want to learn. There’s only so much we can do for them. What we have to realize is that others are simply scared of what they don’t know. The easiest way for them to deal with the frustration is to take it out on whoever is trying to explain it.

We surround ourselves with design-related jobs every day, and it’s a second language to some of us, but there’s often a disconnect between us and the rest of the world.

In our opinion, it’s our responsibility to try and fix it.