Communication plays a vital role in every designer’s professional life. However, two types of communications are mostly carried out by the designers. The first where a designer communicates with his audience through his designs. It is called ‘aesthetic communication and is generally carried out in a very subtle, indirect and artistic manner. However, the second type is concerned with the communication which a professional designer carries out while dealing with professional matters. This type of communication is termed as ‘professional communication’ and is more direct, complex and verbal.

Designers throughout the world pay a lot of attention to their aesthetic communication skills and efficiently engage themselves in improving and refining this ability but when it comes to professional communication, even the most skilled designers turn out to be bad communicators when conducting their business. Whichever design domain do you belong to, you cannot undermine the importance of effective communication at any stage.

Although effective communication is important for all kinds of designers, being able to communicate effectively is extremely crucial for freelance designers as they often find themselves in situations where they must directly deal with professionals like clients, vendors and fellow designers etc. Therefore, for all those who are lacking in effective professional communication, here are a few Effective Communication Tactics for Designers to help you deal with it better.

1- Medium Matters Much

In a communication string, medium matters a great deal. Nowadays many communication mediums are practiced by designers, ranging from email, social media like Facebook and Twitter, phone calls and even text messages! However, to organize your communication in a better way, you should start by selecting a medium that is suitable for you and with whom you are communicating. Once you do that stick to it throughout the process and don’t jump from one medium to another every now and then.

Another aspect that you need to take care of is, keeping your personal contact information separate from the professional one. For instance, if you are using emails as a medium of communication, create a separate email address for business communication purposes. Doing so, will let your clients would know the most effective way to reach you, and you can well organize all your communication.

2- Establish A Pattern of Communication

The first step towards organizing any activity is to set a pattern for yourself. Similarly, for effective communication, there must be set patterns or policies for your communication activities. Also, once you have set a pattern, make sure you let your receivers know about it as soon as you start the communication process.

Your pattern of communication may include; the way you want to address the receiver, your response time, the response time you expect from the receiver and an alternative medium of communication etc. It is always good to prepare the receiver about your communication patterns beforehand to avoid any confusion.

3- Maintain A Written Record For All Communication

One of the characteristics of professionalism is to put everything in writing as much as possible. Especially when it comes to designers who have many clients and many different tasks to deal with, writing everything down makes communication far easier and much more organized. Things like contact details, meeting time, date and place, pending payments and billings and even the client feedback, all these things are good to be preserved in writing.

Moreover, when you are particularly engaged in email communication with your client, it is probably best to document every step of communication in a thread of emails. This will enable you to provide written references of their communication with you in case an issue arises and you need to immediately catch up with the history of the conversation pertaining to that topic.

4- Mind Your Manners

Manners and etiquettes are integral to effective communication. Whether your communication is verbal, written or electronic, it is equally generally for every for a designer to mind his manners in communication. There are times when clients get annoying and rather rude towards you. However, any issue can be handled without losing temper and that’s what constitutes effective communication.

If your communication is heavily focused on email communication throughout, you should realize the importance of ‘Netiquettes’. Netiquettes are the etiquettes of communication via email and comprise of many aspects that you should take care of while writing professional emails.

For instance, “Please” and “Thank You” are two of the simplest words, yet they carry a great deal of meaning and are very powerful. These words are the basic etiquette of communication and are potentially influential on the sender’s image.

Note: Take your time putting together a proper and well-written message and read it over several times before you hit ‘Send’. Sometimes, just rearranging your paragraphs helps a lot.

5- Avoid Design Jargons

It is totally understandable that while working in a flow, designers tend to communicate in their typical industry jargons. It is not a problem when communicating with other professionals from the same industry, however, when it comes to communicating with clients that do not possess the same level of industry specific knowledge, it is suggested that the use of design jargon be avoided. Always keep your client’s level of interpretation towards your work in consideration and make it a habit to communicate in the simplest manner possible. If in case, your communication requires you to write certain design jargons, try to put its meaning in brackets beside it. This practice will enable the receiver to understand your message better.

Professional communication had always been a concern for creative fellows, and same goes for the designers. However, it is not as difficult as it feels. With a little concentration and attention towards detail, any designer can conduct an effective communication and pave way for successful project completion.