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Green Design

When people hear “Edmonton” in the international arena, there are a few reactions:

• Is that the place with the big mall?
• Oh, that’s where Wayne Gretzky played with The Oilers.
• Where?

But now, we’re trying to add, “They have this amazing art gallery.”

The Edmonton Art Gallery is an unassuming building in the heart of Edmonton’s downtown. Perhaps it was the “unassuming” part that spurred the recent bids to completely redesign the structure and even change its name to The Art Gallery of Alberta. International architects of world reknown came to our small little city to showcase their ideas, and in the end Randall Stout from Los Angeles, CA was the winner.

With the jump in energy prices, Stout’s carefully thought-out energy-saving ideas tipped the scales and impressed The Art Gallery of Alberta board.

At any rate, what does that have to do with graphic or web design? Plenty. What separates designers from fine artists is this key thing: designers create something that has a defined function. While great looking design is crucial to keep the audience engaged and add value, if the actual form doesn’t give your clients results or its defined function is negated or confused by the audience, then you have nothing. Another lesson to be learned is that you should always provide something extra that wasn’t in the client brief — Stout did his homework and found out as much as he could about Edmonton, while several of the other architectural bids made it obvious they did not. Edmonton has harsh winters. A pretty, but flimsy roof won’t do any good.

Often, clients really don’t know what they want, so it’s crucial to continually ask questions and do some personal research. In my old workplace, they called this type of thinking, “surprise and delight.” People like getting treats, whether it’s tangible or not. Getting something you didn’t ask for but needed is always a great feeling. It builds trust and illustrates that you actually care about the end product and end result — instead of it being “just another job.” You can make your client feel unique.

What are some things you’ve done to “surprise and delight” your clients?