What we can learn from Project Runway (II)
An additional lesson offered by Project Runway concerns the designer-client relationship. This is one of the most difficult aspects of professional practice for any designer to navigate, and I can tell you that it’s not taught in design school – at least not when I was in design school.
In a recent episode, the Project Runway contestants were each paired with a new divorcee who hoped to have her wedding gown transformed into a garment suitable for her new life (previous seasons have offered alternative versions of this same challenge – asking the designers to re-construct clothes belonging to women who had lost a great deal of weight, for example). After the euphoria of the initial meeting, when designer and client equally anticipate the potential of what could be, difficulties in the relationship begin to arise. Tensions mount between the expression of artistic vision (the reason the designer was hired) and the fulfillment of client needs (also the reason the designer was hired). By the second or third meeting to discuss the status of the project, both client and designer are often wishing they were working with someone else.
To the viewing audience it would seem that designers are happiest when provided minimal direction and then be released to go off and work, in their own time and in their own way, engaging the client only when the project was ready for the “tah-dah” moment. At which point the client would be floored by the designer’s brilliance and fully satisfied with the results.
Nice – but a fantasy, for sure. Clients do get involved. They provide feedback and suggestions or requests, sometimes getting so caught up in the fun of designing themselves that they discover a latent desire to more regularly exercise their own right brain. And why shouldn’t they, when they are funding the project (at least in the non-televised version).
So who should be taking the lead here? Who needs to be pleased? Designers seek to express their creative identify through the product, and the fashions produced for Project Runway are often a one-off that only need to express the style of a unique client. But this is a model more reminiscent of a time like the Renaissance, when clients were devoted and long-standing patrons of individual artisans who worked directly for them.
The reality is that most designers seek commercial success, which requires a one-to-many (not just a one-to-one) sensibility. From architecture to product development, the outputs of the design process must have wide public usefulness and appeal. In this case the end consumer is not physically present in the design studio, in the dual role as client. Project Runway offered up this scenario when Macy’s asked the designers to create an addition to one of their signature product lines. With no obvious means of connecting with the prospective consumer for either inspiration or feedback, the designers were left to their own imaginations. The client played no role in aiding in their interpretation, though presumably they could have.
The bottom line is that designers and clients need each other, and each must take active responsibility for making a project successful. Designers must balance the confidence to express themselves with the humility to address the needs of others. And clients must develop ways to stay productively and knowledgably involved throughout the process. For more on that, please see my “How to be a good client” blog entry on 10/7/09.
