Getting the Most Out of Your Agency

Years ago when I was in university, it was my good fortune to do an internship with the company Tambre Productions. Tambre president and creative director Marvin Dolgay was and is one of Canada’s top commercial music composers. Marvin said something to me once that I’ve always remembered: he said he would tell his clients “don’t talk to me about music. Talk to me about what you want the music to DO.”

I’ve been thinking about this in context of a song called “Make the Logo Bigger” which I’ve been listening to quite a bit recently. It’s a common joke among designers, particularly at agencies, that clients always ask for the logo to be bigger on their creative. While this sounds like a reasonable request, many folks who do not come from a design background don’t seem to understand the need for balance and whitespace in design, and moreover they forget that making one element bigger invariability means making something smaller. Often, that “something” is the special offer or call-to-action that the creative is being designed to communicate in the first place. So, that seemingly simple request can cause more harm than good.

If you are working with an agency, what you need to help your agency partners understand is WHAT you want to accomplish, not HOW they should do it. The trained designers, copywriters, programmers, etc. will do what they do best to make sure the execution achieves your goals. That’s what you pay them for.

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