Advertising and marketing industry thrive on collective team effort and content writers and graphic designers are an integral part of this collaboration. Content writers and graphic designers often have to work with each other to successfully complete a project and ultimately make the clients happy. A successful team effort is the one where communication is effective and each party reaches an agreeable outcome.
Any kind of marketing piece will always comprise of words and creatives, this makes effective collaboration between the two of paramount importance. Also, every marketing project varies as per client needs, thus while working as a team, there arises a scenario where the writer and the designer are on two different creative wavelengths. It’s a fact that the writers and designers have two different ways of thinking and working but for a project to be successful, it is essential that their pragmatism and creativity align with each other. So where exactly does the problem arise? Let’s try to list the important ones –
Wordsmiths vs Creativity:
For writers, it’s all about words, they try to write and speak the language of the brand. On the other hand, designers try to convey the same through creative designs. That in no way means that their thinking and mode of approach to a client brief can’t align with each other. In fact, if they try to work as a team, they can achieve satisfying results. Effective communication plays an important role in such situations. It helps them to understand the client briefing and provide solutions to many questions such as how much content is visually possible for a design? Where should an image take precedence over content? Is the message getting conveyed better through words or just the illustration? Will a minimalist creative do justice to the message the writer wants to convey? And the list continues…
Crunching Deadlines:
Sometimes, even the demands of clients don’t help the situation; especially when they come up with shortened deadlines. These “I need it right now” situation offers very less amount of time for any effective communication to happen between the designers and writers. Also, in agencies both writers and designers work with different clients at the same time and are confined to packed schedules, this makes it difficult for them to communicate with each other before working together on a particular project.
So, where do we draw a line? How and where can we find a solution for this? The optimal solution for these kinds of scenarios can be effective communication. Although it sounds difficult, the ultimate goal should be to ensure that they sit together, brainstorm, and come up with a solution that meets the briefing of the clients and that too within the agreed deadline.
Mutual Respect:
As mentioned earlier, both the writers and the designers are a master of their own respective fields. However, they might only have rudimentary knowledge about each other’s profession, which acts as a major roadblock to their effective collaboration. Even if both the parties have the best of intentions for a particular project, their suggestions outside their profession become a source of conflict between the two. Thus, having mutual respect for each other’s profession and willingness to both communicate and listen should always be appreciated and if necessary, made mandatory.
Helping Hands:
When working as a team, each team member is expected to have each other’s back. So, if a writer is over-burdened with the workload, the designers are expected to create content that fits the design as well as the client brief without being dependent on the writer. And this has to work vice versa. Although the end result will not be exactly what both parties had imagined at the start of the project if it matches the high standards of the digital agency, there is no harm in letting the project go-ahead for further approvals.
So, to conclude, striking a perfect balance between the writer and the designer can work wonders for both the client and the agency and produce some harmonious results. Keeping effective ideation, time limitations and realistic achievements in mind, the relationship between content writers and graphic designers can be strong, healthy, efficient, and long-lasting.
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