back when i was doing a lot of logo work, i had a routine.
i’d sketch something, get it to the point where i actually liked it, and then, instead of sending it to the client, i’d send it to Nana first. my business partner. and usually a couple of friends in the industry too. “thoughts?”
they were good people to ask. they knew the work, they knew me, they had no reason to be nice about it.
and they never agreed with each other.
okay, not never. but there was always something. Nana would want the mark bigger. someone else would say the typeface felt too safe. a third person would like the exact thing the first two wanted me to kill. i’d come away from it holding four opinions and a version of the logo in my head that was worse than the one i started with.
i told myself i was getting feedback. i was being thorough. i was being a good collaborator.
i want to tell you what i was actually doing, because it took me years to see it, and i still catch myself doing it.
i was making sure that if the logo was wrong, it wasn’t only my fault.
you don’t want feedback. you want a co-signer.
here’s the thing nobody says about asking around.
most of the asking that happens before you ship something isn’t about the work. it’s about not wanting to be alone with the decision.
think about why we do it. not the reason we give, the real one.
asking looks responsible. it photographs like humility. nobody has ever been criticised for getting a second opinion. you can spend a week polling people and it feels like diligence, even when all you did that week was avoid pressing send.
asking spreads the blame. if four people signed off and the thing flops, it wasn’t your taste that failed. it was the committee’s. you arranged your alibi before anything even went wrong.
asking delays the moment. every “let me just run this past someone” buys another day before the work is out in the world with your name on it and nobody left to ask. the asking becomes a place the project lives instead of a thing that gets it finished.
none of those are about making the work better. all three are about making you feel less exposed.
let me tell you about a brief i got.
there’s a restaurant in Accra. i can’t say which one, but if you’re from there you’d know it, and you’d know it’s not cheap. i’m friends with some of the people who run it, and we were building a new brand together.
the brief they sent me was one of the most basic briefs i have ever received in my life. it literally said, make something for our company. we’ll know it when we see it.
that’s it. no audience. no positioning. no sense of what they wanted this thing to feel like. just: you’re the designer, go design, and we’ll react.
and the reason that brief is so frustrating is the same reason my “thoughts?” texts to Nana were a problem. “i’ll know it when i see it” is not a brief. it’s a person outsourcing the decision and calling it collaboration. they hadn’t decided what they wanted. they wanted me to keep guessing until something made them feel sure.
now flip it.
i’ve hired and worked with some of the best designers i know. and the thing they all have in common is that they are confident about what they’re selling you. they don’t show up with six directions and ask which one you like. they show up with one, and they tell you why it’s right.
it’s admirable, honestly. and it’s even better when you can tell they actually understood what you were trying to do. that combination, a clear point of view plus real understanding of your problem, that is the entire thing you are paying for. that’s the whole point of hiring someone.
so here’s where it lands.
feedback can sharpen a decision you’ve already made. it cannot make the decision for you. the second you’re asking so that you don’t have to choose, more voices make the work worse, because now you’re averaging four people’s taste instead of committing to one person’s. yours.
the point of view has to come first. input is a knife. it’s only useful once you’re already holding the thing you want to cut.
“i just want to make sure” is almost never about being sure. it’s about staying off the hook one more day.
how to ask like someone who already decided
none of this means work in a bubble. it means earn the right to ask by deciding first.
1write your call before you send anything.
one sentence. “i think it should be this, because that.”
if you can’t finish the sentence, you’re not ready for feedback. you’re ready to go think. nobody else can do that part for you, and asking them to is what creates the mess.
2ask for reactions, not decisions.
“does the opening drag or does it land?” gets you something useful. “which one should i pick?” hands them the wheel. the shape of the question is the whole game. one keeps you in charge, the other quietly makes it their project.
3pick one person, not four.
one reader whose taste you trust, who will tell you the truth, beats a panel every time. a panel just means you get to wait until everyone agrees before you move, and they will never all agree. that’s not a bug you can fix. that’s what panels are.
4put a clock on it.
“i’m publishing friday. tell me by thursday or i’m going with my gut.” feedback with no deadline isn’t feedback. it’s a waiting room with better lighting.
5keep the veto on your own work.
you asked, you listened, now you decide. if you take every single note, you didn’t want a collaborator. you wanted to not be the one responsible for the outcome.
6catch the ask that’s really a stall.
next time you reach for “let me run this past someone,” ask yourself what you’d do if you couldn’t. usually you already know the answer. the asking was just the flinch before doing it.
that’s the discipline. decide, then ask, then decide again, and keep your name on the final call.
i eventually just sent Nana fewer texts. not because his eye got worse, it’s as good as it’s ever been. because i realised that most of the time i wasn’t stuck on the work. i was stuck on being the one who had to say “this is it.”
so here’s what i’d tell you, and it’s the same thing i had to tell myself.
trust your intuition. trust your skill. trust your gut. you are in the position you’re in for a reason. you did the reps. you have the eye. when the moment comes to call it, take the swing, and hit it like you’re the one who’s supposed to be up there.
because you are.
— mike
reply and tell me the one decision you’re currently asking other people to make for you. i’ll tell you if it’s actually theirs to make.