The Importance of Your Design Homework

While the importance of your design homework is most relevant to IDCO clients and our design process, but there are take-aways for anyone hoping to maximize their branding investment.

One of the many perks of working with the IDCO team, is that we offer a complete range of services—from branding design all the way to social media management. Once you hire us, we take over and you are able to get back to running your business. You might wonder how we are able to collaborate with our very busy clients to be sure that their unique style and functional needs are taken into account. The answer lies in our on-boarding process.

When a contract with a new client begins, our Studio Manager, Sam Harris, sends out a series of questionnaires based on your chosen services—branding, web design, copywriting, etc. Over the last several years, we have refined these questionnaires to really get to the heart of your business and story, but they’re only effective when answered thoroughly and thoughtfully.

It might seem like a fun way for us to get to know you and your business, but it’s so much more than that. The answers you provide us are the foundation on which we build your brand and are our entire teams’ reference point at every stage. The homework takes time and a little soul-searching, but the more effort put in on the front end, the more likely we are to deliver your perfect branding suite immediately.

Here are our best tips for filling out our questionnaires:

Don’t Procrastinate

This seems obvious, but let it serve as a reminder. You’re making an investment in your brand, and you want to get the most out of it that you can. Give yourself plenty of time to work on your questionnaires. You might need a few days to think about some questions or allow yourself that time to add to answers or even change them. Take time to gather inspiration wherever you find it.

Working ahead also cuts down on grammatical and spelling errors, which helps us tremendously as we work through all the copy.

Be Specific + Clear on Your Design Homework

We need you to describe your business and services as if we have no foundational knowledge of your brand. This will help us determine what’s important to include on your site and will help our copywriter create thorough service descriptions.

Give details about your experience, background, and anything significant that sets you apart from others in the industry. Having all this information in one place will help us prioritize and craft pages and content that are truly representative.

As design and aesthetic goes, we know everyone has preferences. Leave us a little room to work our magic, but be clear about anything you really like or dislike.

Talk About Where Your Want to Be

We know that for some it’s uncomfortable, but this is an instant in which you have to talk about yourself. Embrace it. We will put our expert touch on your branding and site, but it still needs to be authentic to you and your business. When completing your homework, focus on where you want your business to be in the future, not where it is now. That’s how we turn a rebrand into a game changer. In order for us to accomplish that, we need more than a couple sentences to work with.

Tell us about your roots, your audience, and your hopes for the future. Our copywriter uses your answers to tell your brand story, so don’t leave anything relevant out. And, this goes without saying, leave anything out of your questionnaire that you don’t want to see on your site.

Keep it clear and concise, but don’t leave anything out that we need to know or that might resonate with your clients.

Ask For Help If You Need It

If there are questions you don’t have the answers to, or you need a little clarification, just ask. We are here to guide you through the process and want you to feel confident in your answers so that we can get a true sense of where your brand is headed.

Be honest about how you want your site to look, function, and read, then let us take the reigns.

We know this homework takes a bit of effort and a little vulnerability, but your thoroughness has a direct correlation to your satisfaction with the end result. These questionnaires, when properly filled out, help us work efficiently and maximize your investment.

We hope you’ll keep these best practices in mind as you fill out your questionnaires. As always, if you have questions about our process here at IDCO, our inboxes are always open.