Give designers ownership

If someone starts a piece of work, let them finish it.

Design and creativity is one of those things where ownership is really important. That’s not to say that designers and creatives should not collaborate, that’s usually a really good idea, especially at the start. What’s important is that at the end, the designer can say “I did that”.

In my experience, if you give designers projects that they can own, they will do a better job because they will care about it more. I can’t think of a nice way to put it, but designers are a bit selfish. They want to put things in their portfolio, they want to be able to say that a great piece of work was theirs. That is how they grow their careers.

You’ll often have illustrators, motion designers, copywriters and other disciplines working with graphic designers, and it makes sense to split the work between the different skillsets. That works because usually the project can be split into distinct parts. And they each get to own those parts. Same with junior vs senior designers, the ownership can be more clear cut.

Keeping the work with one person isn’t always easy to do in practice. People get sick, people go on leave, deadlines change and a different person finishes the work that another person started. That’s reality, but really try to avoid it if possible. Your designers will thank you.

Takeaway
– Try and resource a job so that one person has ownership of each distinct section.
– Anytime you hear yourself say “It’s 75% done, can you finish it off” is a red flag.

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