September 18th, 2006
The advantage of working client side
You may guess from the complete lack of updates here that I’ve been rather busy since returning from holiday. Getting into the swing of things after a holiday is bad enough, but getting back into the swing of being a commercial designer again after four years at a public service broadcaster is a challenge. I’d like to think I’m up for it though. That said, working client side is an incredible challenge and, if presented with the opportunity, I think every designer should jump at the chance.
What do you mean client side?
I mean working for an organisation for their output rather than clients. So, if you work for AOL, or the BBC, or Yahoo! or Google, then you’re working client side.
As you may know I worked for the BBC for four years, which overall were incredibly rewarding for a me. It did require a complete change in the way I thought about design though which I guess is the reason for this post.
What’s the difference?
Client side designing (and I guess it’s the same for development) is a little bit like painting a bridge. You never finish. Once it’s done, you go back to the other side and you start again. It’s about continual, iterative improvement. Little by little the product is improved. The benefit of this for a designer is you get very unique view of the process compared to an agency/client relationship. In a way, you are the client. The sense of ownership is far greater than in an agency. However, it does have a downside or two.
As I said, you never seem to finish. There’s rarely a sense of closure because there’s always something else to do. This can kill morale and, I think, it’s the factor in determining good management of any internal design resource. Projects need clear edges. Start, middle and end. Go for a drink and start the next project next week.
Of course I do have the benefit of hindsight here. And let me just say this isn’t a dig at the BBC by any means, I’m just, well, rambling on about things I’ve been thinking about for a while and now I’m freelance some things have become very clear. I’ve also spoken to a few people about working client side and we all seem to share the same issues and problems, but also the same advantages.
The benefits of designing client side and then agency side
First of all, there’s the audience.
Working for a public broadcaster in the UK, as is probably the case for any publicly-funded media organisation, the audience is pretty much the organisation’s bottom line (mostly). Audience approval and traffic is the measure of a site’s success. Not advertising or subscriptions but what the audience thinks and the traffic the site gets.
Being a designer within that audience-focused environment is fantastic. It’s all about the end user. There is a flip-side though and I’m sure this is the case for any designer working in this industry today. That environment isn’t always conducive for producing creatively challenging projects, let alone solutions.
Then of course there’s time.
Things on the client side of the fence, particularly where the bottom line is a little blurred, run a little bit more slowly. Thankfully, I worked in agencies for a good few years before the BBC and that part of me remembers I need to work quickly, efficiently and to budget in order to make a profit. Oh, and it’s certainly helping for the development of Flow.
Do you work agency or client side?
It’d be really interesting to hear your views on working client or agency side. Love it? Hate it? What challenges do you face every day? What are the real hurdles you’ve had to face and overcome? Who knows, maybe I can help.
I prefer doing both. I have yet to find the sweet spot of how to split it up, but I think that being on both sides of the fence gives you the upper hand. It allows for empathy on each side, rather than being one-dimensional.
I really enjoy doing agency work, partly because it makes personal projects that much more valuable. I’m sure working on both ends has helped you in developing Flow, and the ability to work on both has definitely helped me to understand the practical limitations and benefits of both.
I agree with Dan, I think to be well rounded you really need to get some experience on both sides, although I really love doing regular client / agency work because of the ability to change projects so frequently. Working client side also can mean duldrums from working on the same project for weeks, months, even years!
(Looking forward to your client management solution Mark!)
I think it depends on the client you’re working for. I always thought I wanted to do agency work because I grew quickly tired of working on the same project over and over again and the slow-moving mentality of the companies (actually, Universities) I was working for. Then, I came to my current job (working for an innovative newspaper and news media company) and found that if you have the right client, there are a great deal of advantages to working on internal projects. I think I actually like it better now. But, a lot of that has to do with the fact that my company has a lot of varied projects and a sincere desire to innovate and take risks—which makes it a lot less boring than some previous jobs I’ve had.
I work client-side, but with the diversity of products I don’t often get the “never-ending project” feeling. It happens, just not that often. I also work freelance on evenings and weekends to exercise some creative freedom. Helps keep the morale high. :-)
Having spent half of my career working client-side, I’ve found two main things that differentiate it from working for an agency:
1. The client is in the same building as you
Not necessarily true if you’re working for a big company, but the point is that most companies with an in-house design team still tend to emulate an agency/client relationship, with the various other departments you service being the clients. So you’re still serving clients in the same way you would working for an agency, except that this client can come peer over your shoulder whenever he/she wishes.
2. You work with one brand
Agencies with multiple clients have the potential to afford you a variety of brands within which to be creative; when working client-side, you usually have one. And chances are, it’ll get old.
I guess my experiences working client-side have been a bit more negative, but I still much prefer agency or freelance work. There’s something to be said for separation and variety.
I work client-side now, and I previously worked for an agency and I’ve got to say I hate working client-side, but its probably my personal situation. I could see it be more pleasant if the situation was different. Reasons why I hate it:
1) I feel like a small gear in a big machine</stong> — I feel like what I do doesn’t make a difference. I don’t feel I’m appreciated either. This could certainly happen on the agency side too, but when you work client-side its typically for medium to large corporation and the more people, the more likely you will be underapppreciated.
<strong>2) It gets boring easily — Working on the same website all the time can get rather boring. Things get stale very fast and that could hinder your creativity if you don’t watch out. Working agency side, the projects change on a regular basis and you get to start fresh on something new.
3) There’s a bureaucracy for every decision — I don’t even tell anybody my ideas anymore because they get shot down or they get lost somewhere in the shuffle. I’m too cutting edge for them I suppose, for the lack of a better phrase, this company is so “web 1.0.”
I will jump at the first chance I get to go back to agency-side. I love working on different projects and there’s a lot more room to exercise innovation.
Dan: Doing both has got me in the position I’m in now. When I was working client side, I really needed the commercial aspect as well, so, I did freelance. Problem was, I enjoyed the commercial challenge so much I began to need it in my career again. Eventually, one had to go.
Doing both is a great position to be in. It really does span a massive chunk of working in this industry. I’m just not sure, as a designer, you (meaning designers generally) can effectively adopt both working practices at the same time.
Jeff: You’re right. It all depends on which client you’re working for. The BBC were great, and they do some incredibly daring stuff. In fact, industry defining stuff. However, I guess my gripe was more to do with working practice than who the client was.
Rob: Oh the brand! Working with one brand, I found, was a bit of a killer. Yes, I got to know the brand really well but found it incredibly difficult (especially when you’re dealing with a brand with as much baggage as the BBC), to push it in any direction.
I think my overall experience at the BBC was a positive one. There were negative aspects to working client side, but like you, on reflection working agency side is preferable.
Chris : I know what you mean about the bureaucracy. I think this might be a problem in the majority of client side work.
For a client to have it’s own internal design resource, they are usually of a certain size. With that size comes the multi-layered management structure and the subsequent farting around where making decisions is concerned!
I’ve worked both, and it’s definitely a ‘grass is greener on the other side’ situation. On the client-side, I longed for some variety in what I was doing, which became a grind.
It was only after moving to agency side (and currently running my own agency), that I realised how rewarding being on the client side could be. I have a couple of clients that I would love to do more for, and have loads of ideas for how we could improve their site, but they don’t have the budget for it. Barring doing free work, we have to temper everything to fit, and I really wish sometimes I could just spend all day every day making their site better, instead of watching the clock and stopping short.
I’m sure a good six months of it and I’d be looking for variety again though!
I get to work client side for my largest client — I have a desk on site — whilst doing other work too. I think it is great. Working client side gives a greater immediacy to the design work — if the client doesn’t like it, he’s only a desk or two away. There’s also the instant benefits that are possbile with small but significant changes to a working web site. There’s also more feedback about how the site is being used, whereas with one off design jobs you never really know how much it is used, or which bits work best.
So I would say that client side work makes for better commercial designers.
I’m currently doing a bit of both in my full-time employment: working internally most of the time, and servicing external clients some of the time.
Maybe it’s the company I work for, but I actually find that it’s easier to work for external clients: they know exactly what they want before they ask for it, they have deadlines in their own mind, and a rough idea on just how much they want to spend. Whereas, internally, we get ideas thrown at us that are “urgent” when they’re far from it, and most of the time, they’re badly thought out. I think having a team in-house has led the bosses to become much more compacent as to their attitude to web development and design…
But I agree with you Mark, it’s a good experience to have under yer belt, especially if you go freelance on a full-time basis, which is something I’m within spitting distance of now. Thank God! Or should I be frightened!? ;o)
To word this another way, I definitely think there’s something to be said for working on _products_.
I spent 3 years doing the rounds of agencies in London and while the work was interesting and exciting it was stressful and money was tight. Most small to medium sized agencies seem to work on very tight margins so they need quick turnarounds with the minimum of manpower.
On the flip side, working on product apps has been a whole different experience. The working ethos is very different, with the emphasis on employees instead of output. The work can be as rewarding but treading the same ground can be frustrating.
It’s a toss-up! A mix of the both is probably ideal…
Clients side :D.. love it..
My biggest problem is always the expanding application requirements.. Day 1 its x and y by the end of the week its x, y, z.. and so on..
This effects both design and dev..
Thats my 2cents..
Speaking with my professional hat on, I have worked on both sides of the fence.
The most dangerous situation is when you’re working client side, under the client’s manager, and they don’t have any motivational or management skills.
I work both sides to be honest … on the one hand, I do plenty of work for clients (which is what our company is there for!) but on the other, we’re working on in-house stuff — stuff that is useful to us from the perspective of being able to perform actions for clients without spending a lot of time — i.e. mass emails, etc etc.
So really, I think it’s good to concentrate on your clients a lot of the time, but also to invest some time in your own organisation.
Honestly, haven’t had the opportunity to work in a brand. but i think that working in a small team is really nice. i worked with a designer as a group and it was good, better than working alone.