Fixing the right thing

I'd been trying to understand the lack of spark between the design work that my company creates and the stuff that was produced by (outside-consultant) digital designers of note. While all the usual suspected reasons are very much there (more experienced, more creative, more exposed to the right culture etc), I think I stumbled upon a little truth today.

What I found out was that the designs that my team produces(and they are a talented lot in their own right) smelled of wireframes. To the uninitiated, wireframes make up for the foundation that a good design rests on. Its an earlier step that is more analysis than art.

If I have to compare,its almost like being able to smell each individual ingredient's raw smell in a cooked dish. Who'd want to eat that? Ah, thats chicken, and oh, here's mushroom and hey, that's salt :)

The work from the outside consultants- well, thats a complete dish by itself, with no raw smell of individual elements coming across. I shared this feedback with my inhouse designer.

I think I could see the joy of discovering what was going wrong in his designs from his face. I could see hope- of his own designs improving and evolving.Of course, this dialogue could only work because he is an open enough person. A lot of designers aren't. We then talked of a possible process which he could try to not make it smell like a wireframe the next time round.

The Joy of discovering what's really not working- and fixing it- a very rare one indeed!