It’s wonderful when someone who admire puts into words something that you already do. Of course Bob Gill (of Pentagram fame) says it better than me:
“Let’s say I got a logo to do for a dry cleaner. Instead of sitting in my studio looking through design books to get inspiration, surprise surprise, I thought it made sense to go to a dry cleaner and to sit there. I didn’t have a definite process that I went through. I just knew I should stay there until I had something interesting to say about dry cleaning. Just to sit there, to ask questions, to see what people were doing, to look at the back of the dry cleaner and so forth. And in the end you must be honest with yourself, I hoped I was honest with myself, if I had something genuinely interesting to say about dry cleaning I would listen to this statement and it would design itself.”

My version: get to know your clients business, their customers and clients, absorb it. Use their products, sit in their stores, get yourself in the same frame of mind as the other people there. See it from their point of view. Experience it. Learn about it. It’s called research.

Listen to the rest of the Bob Gill interview with Debbie Millman below. See his quite brilliant website here.

I found the quote (and the interview) at logodesignlove.com – The interview (and more details) are on Design Observer. Bob Gill image from UnderConsideration. (All great sites)