In a rushed American culture that values individual success so highly, it’s easy to get caught up in our own world. Even those of us who work in a service career like graphic design can find ourselves sometimes working in “auto-pilot”, going through the motions. For designers it’s also common to be more worried about growing a portfolio or making money instead of truly helping the clients.

I’ve been guilty of this in the past, and that’s OK sometimes. But when I let it go on too long, my quality of work pays for it.

What can graphic design be?

A graphic designer’s job is to come up with visual solutions for what are usually other people’s problems. It may be creating a logo that makes someone else’s brand more recognizable, a website that’s easier for someone else’s users to navigate, a poster that attracts a bigger audience to someone else’s event, etc.

This means when we’re too distracted with ourselves, our work is uninspired and in turn, weak. To improve as designers, it’s critical that we adopt a servant mentality. This mental switch causes loads of benefits to the clients and ourselves.

Why does it make such a difference? It comes down to a shift of mindset. We can choose to see design as simply a job, a way to make money from home, or a way to show off our skills. That’s fine, I guess, but what if we saw it as the opportunity to change someone else’s life, and in turn our own too?

A project can be a chance to help a small mom-and-pop shop grow to a national chain, or a small-time band reach the audience that will take them to the big stage.

I’m not saying graphic designers can single-handedly do this for others, but we play a critical role in helping them get there when we do our job right. To do it right means to do it with passion and focus. That’s why it’s so important that we aren’t distracted by our own problems while working, but are instead immersed in serving our clients to the best of our abilities.

The Perks of Truly Serving Our Clients

By putting our client’s needs ahead of our own, it’s much more likely that:

• we will find more effective solutions.
• we will find solutions faster.
• revisions become less frequent.
• the payment process will be smoother.
• we can charge more for our work in a justified manner.
• we’ll get good word of mouth that leads to more work.
• our work will be more memorable and impressive.

The list can go on and on. The point is that it’s a clear win-win for the client and us as the designer.

Going beyond graphic design, getting in the habit of putting others first carries over to several other parts of life too. This makes us more generous people, and overall happier in life.

Conclusion

Don’t design for the money or your portfolio. Put your clients first, at the very least while working for them. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small client or a big client. Give them all your best. It will pay off.

By putting others first, we can discover the true potential and purpose of design.