How to get a great website (or anything else)

We know what you’re thinking. If we wanted to read what Seth Godin had to say, we’d just go to his blog, not yours. Point taken, and we’ll stick to reporting ideas spoken at SVC in most of our future posts. But these 10 tips on how to produce a great website bear repeating, in our opinion, because they could apply to an ad, an annual report, or just about anything creative people are engaged to do. Don’t you agree?

The futility of marketing analysis

This site is mostly a library of recaps of recent workshops and presentations at Seattle’s School of Visual Concepts. But, every now and then, we run across something too good to pass up. Case in point: This article by Seth Godin, titled Knobody Knows Anything. Like most great thinking, his ideas are surprisingly simple–practically obvious–and definitely worth thinking about.

There are two kinds of marketing analysis, both pretty useless.

The first kind is done before the fact. This is when you and your team (and your advisors and your mother in law) weigh in about whether your ad, your product, your uniforms and your logo are any good. Call it ‘analyzing tomorrow’.

Analyzing tomorrow is a sort of analysis is filled with superstition, unsupported opinion, half-truths and most of all, fear. Fear of being wrong, fear of challenging the status quo, fear of going out on a limb. Fear of wasting money, fear of criticism and fear of the market.

Analyzing tomorrow is the province of consultants and pundits. People who predict what will work and what won’t, and are eager to tell you what you must do (and not do).

How to live happily with a great designer.

Almost all the articles on this blog summarize workshops we’ve held at SVC on design business practices, design, and creativity. But every now and then, something from the outside comes along that’s worth passing along. Case in point: Seth Godin frequently has interesting things to say about marketing, presenting, and the web. Now he’s aimed his pen in the direction of clients of design work. If you’re a designer, you’ll be hard-pressed to find fault with his suggestions. If you’re a client, you might do well to read on.

Why do some organizations look great… and get great results from their design efforts and ads… while others languish in mediocrity? I think it has little to do with who they hire and a lot to do with how they work with their agencies and designers.

Here are the things your design team wishes you would know:

1. If you want average (mediocre) work, ask for it. Be really clear up front that you want something beyond reproach, that’s in the middle of the road, that will cause no controversy and will echo your competition. It’ll save everyone a lot of time.