No, I don’t do branding, thanks.

The struggle of explaining why UX/UI designers can’t take branding projects

One of the many joys of having “designer” in your job title is the assumption that you are a professional graphic designer. Regardless of what you actually do.

I ,for one, am a UX/UI designer. And this happens a lot. This is how it usually goes:

A freelance client contacts me after the app design/evaluation is done and…

C: Hey Hanan!

H: Hey!

C: I really love what you’ve done with our app! And think I trust you enough now to hand over the rest of this project to you.

H: Thanks. Where do you need further design work? *honestly thinking it’s just a list of new features I have to find a usable and beautiful way to include in the design*

C: So we’re done with the app design but we still need the branding done. Can you take the job?

H: what?

Let’s discuss why this is just wrong

Didn’t you just say that you were impressed by my UX/UI work? where in our relationship did I give the impression that I take graphic design gigs?

The answer is no. I can’t take this project.

But you’re a designer…

Yes.

I’m a UX/UI designer with no graphic design background🤷🏻‍

does that make a difference?

This truly bothers me. Read this carefully please:

Having the word “designer” in my job description does not mean in any way that I should be good at graphic design.

I do realize that many UX/UI designers started their careers with graphic design, but not all of them. People are pursuing careers in IT regardless of their education and backgrounds these days. I’m a biomedical engineer for example 🙄, and I chose to learn UX/UI design for a reason.

Dear Client… when you ask me to design a logo, or to do the branding for your company, or (OMG!) do rollups for an event…I must say no. And please don’t ask again. I don’t have the knowledge nor the experience required for that. And I’m not interested to invest time in learning it.

You’d be surprised how far a client can go to convince you to take the job just to save themselves the trouble of finding yet another designer to finish their app design. Sometimes the client honestly does not know the difference. But in many other cases, they just want to skip the process of finding and building a business relationship with another designer.

Dear Client…Graphic design is a science of it’s own. So is branding. There are professional designers for that sort of thing, and not all of them have ridiculously high hourly-rates. Invest some time in finding one, it’ll save you the time to get the design to match the vision in your head. And time is money, right? think about it.

C: so you won’t do it. H: No.

If you are any kind of designer who faces this issue and cannot reject the project for any reason (e.g. you work in a corporate environment..)

there is a great guide on designing logos here on medium that shows you how to tackle this task if you absolutely have to. I suggest you check it out for a full guide. But here’s the gist of the first article (before the actual design work begins)…

1. Understand the business identity, ask them about their character and purpose.
2. Take a look ate their marketing material & social media posts. It’s important to see their style in actual online content.
3. Know what must/must not be there. What are their requirements and limitations.
4. Understand the target audience. Design for them, while honoring the client’s character.
5. Research rivals. Know what they’re doing. Be inspired, but don’t steal!.

Next post, is a UX/UI case study 😍. Stay tuned!