Session 7: Professional Workflow

Most design jobs go wrong before the first element is placed, because nobody established what the work was for. A brief is not a formality — it is the document that decides whether a job takes two hours or twenty. The questions that matter: who is this for — which specific person, not 'everyone'; what should they do after seeing it — call, register, buy, visit; what is the one message, if they only take one thing away; what already exists — logo, colours, previous materials; what does the client like and dislike, with examples; and what are the practical constraints — deadline, print quantity, budget range, who approves the final.

Ask these in writing and get written answers. This protects both sides: it forces the client to think, which usually reveals they have not decided, and it gives you a reference when someone later says 'that is not what I wanted'. A five-minute WhatsApp exchange covering these six questions will eliminate more revision rounds than any amount of design skill. Professionals do this without embarrassment, and clients respect it — it reads as competence rather than bureaucracy.

One more question that is worth more than the rest: what does success look like? If the answer is 'more customers call', you know the phone number must dominate. If it is 'people know we exist', the logo and name dominate. The design follows from the answer, and without it you are guessing.

Price the outcome, not the hours — but calculate from the hours so you know your floor. Work out how long the job will realistically take including revisions, decide the minimum you will accept for that time, and quote above it. Then adjust for value: a design that will be printed five hundred times and seen by thousands is worth more than one seen by twenty people, even if it takes the same time. This is the difference between charging ₦5,000 forever and charging properly.

Rough Nigerian market ranges to orient you, understanding that Lagos and Abuja sit higher and that reputation moves these substantially: a single social media design from a beginner might be a few thousand naira; the same from someone with a portfolio and a brand system commands several times that. A flyer is similar. A business card design is usually a small fee on its own but is far more valuable sold inside a brand package. A full brand kit — logo in three variants, palette, typefaces, tone, usage rules, delivered as a document — is a genuinely different product and should be priced as one, commonly an order of magnitude above a single flyer.

Three pricing habits that protect you. Quote per deliverable with a stated revision limit — 'one flyer, two revision rounds included' — rather than an open-ended fee. Take a deposit before starting, commonly half, especially for new clients; a client who will not pay a deposit is telling you something. And never quote a rush job at the normal rate; same-day work is worth a premium and saying so is professional, not greedy.

How you present determines what kind of feedback you get. Send a bare image with no words and you invite 'make it nicer', which is unactionable and can go on forever. Present with a short rationale — two or three sentences explaining the decision behind the main choices, tied back to the brief — and the conversation becomes about whether the reasoning holds, which is answerable.

The structure that works: state the goal from the brief in one line; show the design; give the rationale in two or three sentences referencing that goal; then ask a specific question. 'The headline is largest because the brief said registrations are the goal — does that match what you had in mind?' beats 'what do you think?'. Where you have a genuine choice, present two options with a one-line rationale each and a recommendation. This gives the client agency without opening an unlimited field, and it prevents the common disaster of a client requesting a direction, seeing it, and preferring the original.

Show work in context where you can. A flyer mock-up on a table, a logo on a shop sign, a social post in a phone frame — context helps a client judge, and it also makes the work look more finished and considered. It takes two minutes in Canva and it consistently produces faster approvals.

Unlimited revisions are how design jobs become unprofitable, and the fix is agreed before work starts, not negotiated afterwards. State in the quote that a set number of rounds is included — two is standard — and what an additional round costs. This is not stinginess; it is what makes a fixed price possible at all. Clients accept it readily when it is stated up front, and it changes their behaviour: knowing rounds are limited makes them collect their feedback properly instead of sending five messages over a week.

Within a round, collect all feedback at once rather than accepting it piecemeal. Ask the client to gather their comments and send them together, and treat that batch as one round. When feedback is vague — 'it does not feel right' — ask a diagnostic question rather than guessing: is it the colour, the layout, or the tone? Vague feedback answered by guessing produces three more rounds; vague feedback answered by a question usually resolves in one message.

And hold the line professionally. When a client asks for something outside the agreed scope — a fourth format, an extra post, a new logo — the correct response is not refusal and not silence; it is 'that is outside what we agreed, and I can do it for X'. This one sentence converts scope creep into income and clients respect it far more than quiet resentment.

Deliver completely or the job is not finished. A standard package contains: the print-ready PDFs with bleed and crop marks for anything that will be printed; PNG exports at full resolution for every screen piece; the editable source where you have agreed to provide it — a Canva template link is the practical answer for most small clients, and whether you hand it over is a commercial decision to make deliberately, not by accident; brand assets where relevant — the logo in full colour, single colour and reversed, at high resolution; and a short note stating what each file is for.

That note is what separates professional delivery from dropping files in a WhatsApp chat. Three or four lines: what is attached, what each file is for, the specs used, and anything the client needs to know — 'send the PDF to your printer, use the PNGs for Instagram, the logo files are for your sign writer'. It takes five minutes, it prevents a dozen follow-up questions, and it is the last thing the client reads, so it shapes how the whole job is remembered.

Name files so a stranger could understand them: `2026-09-27_AdeBakery_Flyer-A5_PRINT.pdf`, not `final final v3.pdf`. Organise into folders by client and project and keep every project's source, because clients return months later asking for a change and being able to open the original in a minute is the difference between a repeat customer and a lost one.