Subscribe to this feedGrokking the Client

I ran across an article the other day that used the term "grok" – a word computer geeks and sci fi nerds know from Robert Heinlein's 60's novel, "Stranger in a Strange Land."

"Grokking" is a kind of sublime empathy. To grok something or someone is to really really really understand it or them.

In the branding and website design creative process, grokking is necessarily the first step.

As the creative director at e9digital, I do whatever it takes to get to the "essence" of the client and their business. And this essence doesn't necessarily come through a defined, scientific process. Nor does it come the same way for every project. For one client, it wasn't until I had watched videos of their Christmas party that ideas started forming. For another, it was the quiet, careful way he asked questions that gave me the most insight.

In both cases, I knew I had successfully grokked them when I saw a "picture" in my head of what their website, logo, or even tagline, would be. These pictures aren't of fully formed websites or type treatments, but might be a vision of the interior of MOMA filled with happy partygoers. Or, it might start off as a song I just can't shake until it forms images that make me go: that's him!

Once I see the picture, then I can get into that happy productive zone where I sketch or even go right to my Mac to start the literal designs.

What gets me to this happy place the quickest is: lots and lots of input from the client.

At e9digital, we have our clients fill out a creative questionnaire which is our own blend of all the marketing, research and insights knowledge we've gleaned through our many years of experience. They're asked straightforward questions like: Who's your audience? – as well as psychobabble stuff like: If you were a cartoon character, who would you be?

I can tell you that the clients who let loose and have fun with the questionnaire – who fill everything out in detail, who tell me they think they'd be Aladdin's Jasmine (and why) – are the ones that have a head start in the creative process. And if they go above and beyond the questionnaire and send me extra things to ponder (think: office party Christmas videos), they move further ahead.

Still, for those clients who are more reticent and actually skip whole sections on their questionnaires, I resort to the good old fashioned interview, or "friendly interrogation" as I like to call it. Some people are just better verbally than on paper, and vice versa.

But no matter the lengths I may need to go in order to extract the things I need, it is still my responsibility (and not that of the client's) to grok.