And it’s true. Normally, people think that something simple is related with something cheap, and yeah, that makes sense but only if you perceive simple as less, not too much effort, quicker, etc. But if you wanna make something simple and powerful at once, you need to change your perspective of many things.

First, to make something simple, you need to understand how it works to perfection and how was built, then — only then — you could imagine new ways to create the same thing on its minimum expression but powerful enough. This should be your mindset from the beginning to the end:

Understand. Deconstruct. Reconstruct.

Let me give you an example:

Steve Jobs wanted to create something beautiful to the eyes of people, very simple and powerful at the same time. He understood how computers worked and what people needed and took that to do something special, something simple, the result — as we all know — was brilliant. But again, at first, he understood how to simplify computers to its minimum expression and make them just as powerful from the inside to outside. What would happen if he would have imagined this product with a different approach or mindset, would we use the same computer today? Course not.

Sadly, we as designers face many times how some clients think that make something simple is related to something cheap, they don’t think that this process to understand, deconstruct, reconstruct is valuable enough, they are just thinking in the final product but not in the whole process before. The idea of ​​simple was distorted and misunderstood and I’m sure that many of us have struggled with that at least once.

But now I’m gonna tell you how you can counteract that mindset.🎉

Imagine that one day a client visits you to make something ehhh….simple.😖

Imagine that he approaches and whispers to your ears “I don’t have too much budget, so just let’s make something simple”

— and then, after your ears bleed … —

You’d think at first glance that this is not the type of client you want to work for, OR — better than that — this could be an opportunity to take advantage of it.

So, you have 2 ways to respond:

1. Being dramatic 😩

“You’re one of the worst clients who don’t understand anything about design and I don’t want to work with you &$%#@@.”

or

2. Being visionary 😎

“Ok, got it, but first I’d love to meet you, understand what’s your problem and thinking of a possible solution together. Then, we could talk about how this solution will help your business and talk about what will be my price.”

Two different approaches, right? Maybe, the first one is the thought we had since we started to deal with clients back in the day BUT, the second one is thinking about how you can educate your client by changing his mindset about design with a business approach, you show value and then you negotiate.

We need to be smart and know how to deal with that, we all want to work with “ideal” clients but in real life, they’re hard to find, so, your mission as a designer is to EDUCATE them 🙏🏼, and explain that “Simple has nothing to do with cheap” and that everything must follow a process to success — yay! 🎉—

Of course, as designers and taking into consideration that our business is not about wasting time having meetings with no purpose, we need to be strategists and know about what client deserves that type of special attention to foster a new relationship, because if not, you will have nothing but disappointment at the end.

Remember, perspective is everything, even for these type of situations plus you will be remembered for boosting and changing the game from something ok to… E V E R Y T H I N G.