UPDATE: We received a Twitter reply from @CDOTNews. See the end of the post for details.

To:
Gabe Klein, Commissioner of CDOT
Chicago Department of Transportation
30 N. LaSalle Street
Suite 1100
Chicago, IL 60602
cc: Rahm Emmanuel

Dear Commissioner Klein and Mayor Emmanuel,

It’s no secret that the city of Chicago currently finds itself in a challenging financial state. The economy and the previous administration’s decisions and poor budget planning have left our city with the desperate need to do more with less. Many organizations and businesses face similar challenges — and there are a lot of ways to cut costs, trim expenditures, and stretch the city’s money. But crowdsourcing the new CDOT logo is a terrible idea.

On the surface, it might appear that holding an “open call” for logos would yield many more options, and thus, a better chance to get what the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) needs out of a new identity. And of course, in these challenging economic times, “free” might seem like the obvious choice, but as part of a graphic design firm that focuses on identity design, I have to tell you that this is a dangerous path to tread. I can almost guarantee that this logo project will go off the rails if kept on its current course, because fundamentally, a disconnected logo design process is a lose-lose situation for both the clients, the audience of CDOT, and any graphic designers involved. Here are some alternative strategies that we’d suggest, rather than resorting to crowdsourcing. Building some or all of these thoughts into a revamped logo design process will help ensure that CDOT gets a logo that accurately and powerfully communicates its essence, without breaking budgets or wasting the precious time of our city government employees. So, here they are:

Hire someone with a track record.
Instead of giving everyone a shot at this large-scale project, it seems much wiser to find some experts. Just as you wouldn’t want to have a “dentist-in-training” or a “dental hobbyist” work on your teeth, it makes sense to work alongside a team who has been down these paths before. Hiring a proven and experienced design team will help you to get the project right the first time. They will save you time and money, since they are aware of regular pitfalls, important requirements, and next steps that your internal CDOT team might not be aware of. Even though each logo or identity project is unique, there are underlying principles and overarching methodologies that come with experience, and an experienced identity design firm will employ those to make sure the project will run smoothly from initial brief, to concepting, through execution and production.

Realize that more is not always better.
It might seem like common sense to say that the strengths of crowdsourcing design are that you get more bang for your buck. Lots more designs and design options should automatically lead to more quality logo options to choose from, right? Well, not really. The money you might have initially saved by not paying a strategic design firm will be wasted in countless hours spent sifting through a deluge of weak, poor, unprofessional and inappropriate design submissions. It takes a lot of time to curate the logo entries that have no filter of quality, thought, or craft.

By disconnecting from the process, you sacrifice rapport and strategy.
One of the foundational, essential elements of any good design project involve building relationships and understanding the needs of each client — whether they be budgetary, political (not in Chicago, of course…), or strategic. What have the previous CDOT marketing and design efforts been? How were they received internally and by the general public? What internal efficiency issues need to be kept in mind? Who will be evaluating the success and quality of the designs? What specific criterion do these decision-makers bring to the table that are separate from (or at odds with) the actual project goals? These kinds of points sometimes are less tangible and difficult to communicate, but they often mean the difference between success and failure in a design project. To ignore this aspect of the process is tantamount to asking hundreds of strangers to submit their “best guesses” as logos.

In brief, create a brief.
It’s rather difficult to reach your destination successfully if you don’t know where you’re supposed to wind up. The posted “project description” consisted of the following: “CDOT’s looking for a new logo. Help us! Send your designs/ideas to cdotnews@cityofchicago.org.” The page that this tweet pointed to is no longer available, but regardless, good graphic design requires a stated set of goals and needs. This project will not achieve its potential without a solid design brief. Creating one would be one step that can’t be skipped.

Show Chicago voters that you’re repairing the economy by hiring a local design firm.
Mayor Emmanuel, you’ve talked in public about how strongly you support business development in Chicago, and medium and small business are part of the beating heart of this city. Well, this is a great opportunity to show that you meant it, by hiring one of the many great design firms in the city. Of course, feel free to contact us first, if you like.

This course of action won’t win you any friends within design.
Undoubtedly, the concept of crowdsourcing the CDOT logo was meant innocently, as a way to drum up excitement and press for the CDOT, to get people involved in city government, and to stretch the shrinking budgets you have. But working design firms and professional design associations will see this in a completely different light. Unpaid contests and spec efforts actually belittle the work of solid, practicing designers by suggesting that their work can and should be given away for free. Despite your good intentions, contests such as this “open call” aren’t helpful or respectful towards trained professionals who feed their families by doing this kind of work, and doing it well.

There’s a sweet spot in the relationship between clients and designers that yields a final product everyone can be proud of, and we offer all of the above thoughts in the hope that CDOT can get to that place with this logo redesign — without the pitfalls and challenges of crowdsourcing.

Sincerely,
Tim Lapetino and Jason Adam
Partners at Hexanine

UPDATE:
We received the following response from CDOT via Twitter: “We addressed this 6/23 in Tweet to @aigachicago, others. We respect and appreciate the design community’s feeedback.”

That response linked to a page on the CDOT website which stated:

“Our intent with this process was to get feedback from our customers—the residents of Chicago. CDOT does a lot of things—from paving streets and building transit stations to installing bike lanes and neighborhood streetscapes—and we are looking for ideas that reflect that. We were hoping for feedback from all Chicagoans, not just designers.”

However, this seems very much at odds with their original concept, which read this way:

“CDOT would love to see your ideas for a new logo. Send us your ideas—as a .jpeg, a .tiff, a .gif, a .pdf, even a sketch on paper. We’re certain that your creativity will result in a new look that will represent CDOT as we move into a new era.”

Seems like a little bit of backpedalling, because of the uproar created by the design community. And as we said on Twitter, this still seems like a poor choice. After all, if CDOT were building a new L line, they wouldn’t be soliciting engineering feedback from customers. They’d hire professionals. Which brings us back to our original thought: Logo designs are at their best when created by designers with a foundation that’s firmly rooted in a strategic client brief and experience, not the suggestions of random Chicagoans.

Note: In our last installment we walked through the release of Pantone’s Goe system, and the lessons learned from that product’s lackluster launch. Those insights fed directly into changes to the Pantone Matching System (PMS) that culminated in this year’s launch of Pantone Plus. Now, we’ll dig into the details of the this brand new system, and what it means for designers, printers, and anyone else involved in laying ink on paper.

Plus One? The Pantone Plus System
After Pantone Goe failed to catch on with its core audience of graphic designers and printers, the braintrust at Pantone realized there was still an unmet need in those communities. Also, the storied color matching system, PMS (Pantone Matching System), was crying out for a refresh. So Pantone took the best parts of Goe and the foundation of PMS, fusing them together to form the new Pantone Plus System.

We got the inside scoop on Pantone from Giovanni Marra, Pantone’s Director of Corporate Marketing. To add a more diverse set of views, we also interviewed a select group of offset printers (Elk Grove Graphics, Darwill Press, Van Lanen and Lithographix) and ink manufacturers (Sinclair Ink Systems) to get their input.

Introduced in May of 2010, Pantone Plus fills in existing gaps in the PMS color spectrum by adding new hues, while simultaneously incorporating some of the advances of the Goe system. There’s more to the Plus development story than that, so here are some of the specifics:

Something Old, Something New
While Plus does replace the PMS system, Pantone made sure not to repeat the mistakes it made with its release of Goe. This new system includes all of the old PMS colors, including the original metallics and neons. Those original ink formulations have not changed, and Pantone has added 556 brand new colors to “fill in the holes”. While no color names have changed, the familiar swatchbook layout is significantly altered. Each swatchbook is now organized chromatically rather than numerically, changing the sequence of many of the colors. (There’s an index if you need to look up a color by its number, however.)

Marra gave us some info on how Plus has been received thus far. “At the HOW Conference,” he said, “people loved the new chromatic arrangement. If you’ve been using the book for a long time, it takes a little getting used to. But people like the new colors.”

Additions To the (Color) Family: Neons and Metallics
In addition to the new spot colors sprinkled throughout the spectrum, Pantone Plus introduces a slew of new swatches into the neon and metallics categories. This includes 42 new neons (previously there were only 14) for total of 56 neon colors. Also, 300 new “premium” metallic colors have been added to the already-existing 300. Just don’t toss away your current metallics swatchbook—these new metals stand alone in their own book, labeled “Premium Metallics”. The metals also have upgraded ink technology behind them. “The new metallics are a much higher luster and have a cleaner feel to them,” Marra said. “They are made with a higher metallic base than the old ink. These Premium Metallics are ‘non-leafing,’ meaning the metallic particles lay flat so they have greater brilliance and luster, especially when coated.” Also, the new neon colors have been moved, and are now located in the Pastels and Neons book.

Listening To Your Printers
Pantone has also responded to critical feedback from printers that came with the Goe system, and acted accordingly with Plus. This new system utilizes the 14 traditional PMS base ink colors that printers are accustomed to. Marra explained, “We changed the ink film thickness on all the new colors, but not the old colors. It’s easier for printers and designers to move from PMS to Plus, because there are no new ink bases needed. Printers can keep using the same ink bases they’ve been using for years.”

Adoption costs for printers are also less than they were with Goe. Todd Petzak, Pressroom Manager of Van Lanen, explained: “The advantages for us as a printer are basically having an easier system for mixing colors and finding colors within the Pantone Plus library.” Printers just need to purchase the new swatchbooks, since all PMS-ready printers already have the 14 needed ink bases. However, this transition is sometimes easier said than done in the current economic climate, as Todd Mason, of Elk Grove Graphics said. “We need a minimum of nine new guides plus additional formula guides for each press. These guides represent a significant investment in the new Pantone Plus system — well over $1,000 for our shop. On our end we will need to update our system settings, to proof the new colors accurately.”

To offset (no pun intended) some of the costs of purchasing new swatchbooks (and to update your faded swatchbooks), Pantone has initiated its Chip-In program, where you can get a $25 rebate for every swatchbook ($50 for chip books) you exchange when purchasing the new Plus system swatchbooks.

Mason sees a mixed bag with the changes: “The PMS system is the backbone of our industry. We are familiar with the colors and how to match them consistently. The problem is, Pantone needs to reinvent itself quite often to bring in new revenue. We really have too many choices when it comes to spot colors. So many colors are similar enough that when printed on different stocks they will appear to be the same color. It makes ink mixing difficult and overhead expenses higher as our inventory needs are increased.”

Our Review of the Plus Products
After a detailed look at the Plus system and swatchbooks, here is our take on it. [Full disclosure: Pantone provided Hexanine with a set of Pantone Plus swatchbooks for review.] Overall, we are very pleased with the new colors and changes that make up the new Plus line. Pantone seems to have taken the best parts of the existing PMS and moved them forward to provide more options for everyone—designers and printers alike. And what designer doesn’t want more color options?!

We applaud that Pantone has carried over its “Color Checker Light Indicator” from the Goe line, at the back of the swatchbooks. The checker is a set of two colors that look identical in corrected, neutral “daylight”, but color shift apart if viewed under poor lighting conditions that will affect color viewing. This is especially helpful for designers with color-sensitive clients who like to look at proofs and pieces in fluorescent or incandescent lighting conditions.

Our critiques of the Plus system are relatively minor. The new swatchbook color arrangement isn’t a big issue—after all, most designers will be searching visually (by color) anyways. But it would have been helpful to see which colors are newly-added, as a quick reference. As it stands, there is no easy way to know the difference, except to view the old PMS and new Plus swatchbooks side-by-side. Some sort of subtle notation within the Plus swatchbooks would be much-appreciated.

The new metallic colors are welcomed, and serve as a much-needed addition to that part of the Pantone line. We are excited to have so many new options in that arena. But on the flip side, referring to the neon additions as “new colors” seems like a bit of an exaggeration. The new colors are more like tints of the 14 original neon colors rather than completely new hues. Whether this was an ink technology hurdle or just a weak effort, it falls short. It would have been nice to have some truly different neons.

The Plus system also lets you download the color libraries for use in the Adobe Creative Suite apps and QuarkXPress with the Pantone Plus Digital Libraries software. The color libraries are simple to download and install, and you don’t even need to restart your design applications.

While these libraries are available for download on the Pantone site, we were dismayed to see a confusing message when registering our new swatchbooks. (You can now register your swatchbooks on the Pantone website.) The registration site and confirmation email gave us following error in red type: “We apologize that the installer for Adobe Creative Suite is not yet available. Please check back in a few days.” This inaccurate and unfortunate programming hiccup will probably confuse early adopters, since the color libraries are available elsewhere on the site. This problem could frustrate designers who register their swatchbooks, and could mistakenly slow use of the Plus system by designers.

Final Analysis
In the end, we believe that Pantone has respected the legacy workflows of PMS while injecting some needed energy into their color matching system with a bevy of new colors. Pantone Plus seems like a worthy successor to the PMS system, and unlike Goe, designers and printers can basically keep all their entrenched practices intact. Todd Petzak, of Van Lanen, summed up the future well: “As printers, we are open and ready to implement these colors. Designers are the ones that will drive the popularity.” We see no reason why designers and printers won’t adopt the new system wholeheartedly with their next upgrade of swatchbooks, and add a whole lot of color to our world.

Have you had experience with the new Pantone Plus system? Or have additional questions? Please weigh in with your comments below. Thanks!

What is Pantone?
If you’ve ever held color-printed piece in your hands, there’s a good chance you’ve been touched by Pantone. The self-described “authority on color”, Pantone has become an integral part of graphic design and printing, greatly influencing the color of our world. Since 1963, Pantone has been the force behind the printing industry’s color standard, the Pantone Matching System (PMS). PMS is a standardized color reproduction system whereby different manufacturers and printers can accurately reproduce the same set of colors without direct contact with one another. This is significant for brands, because of the importance that consistent color reproduction has on brand identity and packaging. Color plays such a crucial role in brand association that some companies even commission their own colors. (Tiffany’s, well-known for its signature teal blue, actually has its own custom, trademarked Pantone color, PMS 1837.)

In the last 40 years, Pantone has become the de-facto print color standard  by eclipsing its competitors and evolving into other arenas. But despite Pantone’s ubiquitous presence in the drawers of any self-respecting designer, and its use in all major design software, the company has recently made some significant product line changes—changes which are important to anyone who needs to select or print colors. We’re hoping to break down these changes and give designers, printers, and color aficionados some much-needed insight. In our first installment, we’ll discuss Pantone’s Goe ink system. And then, in part two, we’ll give you the latest on Pantone’s brand-new replacement for the PMS, called Pantone Plus.

We got the inside scoop from Pantone while talking with Giovanni Marra, Pantone’s Director of Corporate Marketing. To add a more diverse set of views, we also interviewed a select group of offset printers (Elk Grove Graphics, Darwill Press, Van Lanen and Lithographix) and ink manufacturers (Sinclair Ink Systems) to get their input.

Get Up And Goe Got Up And Went
After nearly 50 years, Pantone decided it was time for a change, and it did so with some fanfare, by launching a brand new color matching system, called Goe (and pronounced “go”). But what was the impetus for this launch?

Giovanni Marra said, “Over the years we have added colors, because designers always want more colors to choose from. The [swatch]books turned into a haphazard arrangement of colors, because we would always add new colors onto back of the book. It was easier because of mathematical numbering, but not intuitive. In 2007, were looking at how to upgrade the system, and integrate the features people were asking for. After a lot of research, we came out with Goe. It was laid out scientifically, in chromatic arrangement, with easy steps between colors, making it easy to find colors and work through the book,” Marra explained.

The Goe system yielded 2,058 colors, a system that could work alongside the original PMS, as well as features intended as benefits for printers. The Goe system uses 10 base inks instead of PMS’ traditional 14, which was less total inks, but still a completely new set of inks for printers to purchase. These new base inks allow for an expanded color gamut, and Marra explained Pantone’s intentions in using the new base inks: “With Goe we tried to make the system more easily printed,” he said, “because some colors can shift if they are coated certain ways. Most printers know how to get around these issues, but we wanted to fix them. We had to change some of the ink bases to deal with these coating issues.” For both designers and printers, employing the Goe system meant adapting to an entirely new numbering system as well, a huge change from the nearly-sacred numbering system of the traditional PMS. This change wasn’t received very well.

Why Goe Didn’t Take Off
Goe was launched with good intentions, but didn’t yield the results Pantone hoped for. “It never took off the way we thought it would,” Marra mentioned, “because people are very comfortable using the PMS system, and in general were very resistant to changing.” Right off the bat, the Pantone marketing was confusing. From the designers’ side, it wasn’t clear how Goe would relate to its older brother, the storied PMS. Was Goe meant to replace PMS? Or could the two be used in conjunction? The new numbering system and similar-but-not-identical colors just raised more questions. This put off many designers who were either annoyed or confused. Why mess with a tried-and-true system that seemed to work fine?

Printers were also not thrilled with elements of the system. Todd Mason, from Elk Grove Graphics, explained, “To date I am not aware of any jobs at our shop that specified using a Goe Pantone color. It really has been a flop because it requires printers to stock ten additional mixing colors. These colors are only slightly different in color to the original PMS system.” Marra is well aware of such sentiments: “There was resistance from printers because they had to inventory new ink bases, and they would sometimes be resistant to changing their workflows even when designers spec’ed the new Goe colors.”

Also, Marra said that international branding projects suffered too. Because of a lack of awareness of Goe overseas, design firms were hesitant to specify Goe colors that would need to be printed outside of the US and Canada, for fear that they would be sacrificing crucial color matching needed for important branding projects. In short, if your designs don’t include legacy PMS brand colors and your final products are printed stateside, you can use Goe spot colors comfortably and exclusively. And there are some colors unique to the Goe system, which can be a competitive branding advantage—though it’s not easy to figure out which colors those are.

Packaged To Goe
Despite all of these strikes against the Goe system, this isn’t the occasion for a eulogy. Pantone continues to support the product line, thanks in part to the packaging industry. This design niche has embraced Goe moreso than others—mainly because all the Goe colors can be coated without color shifting. “The packaging industry picked up Goe very well because if the similarity to flexo, being easier to reproduce because all colors are the same ink thickness, making it easy to run the jobs,” Marra said.

Our Review of The Goe Products
In the rear view mirror, it’s obvious that Goe wasn’t the success that Pantone hoped for. It might not be an ideal tool for specifying color, but you might still find the system useful in some ways. Here’s what we thought of the Goe swatchbooks and system overall. [Full disclosure: Pantone provided Hexanine with a set of Goe swatchbooks for review.]

With the Goe swatchbooks themselves, the new color arrangement isn’t a big problem, but it would have been more helpful to see which colors are similar to existing PMS colors. As it stands, there is no easy way to compare similar PMS & Plus colors to Goe, except to view the books side-by-side. Some kind of subtle notation, conversion tool, or documentation would make it much easier to use. However, Goe has made one excellent technical contribution to the line, in the form of the “Color Checker Light Indicator” at the back of the swatchbooks. The checker is a set of 2 colors that look identical in corrected, neutral “daylight”, but color shift apart if viewed under poor lighting conditions that will affect color viewing. This is especially helpful for designers with color-sensitive clients who like to look at proofs and pieces in fluorescent or incandescent lighting conditions.

The Goe system also lets you download the color libraries and myPANTONE palettes for use in the Adobe Creative Suite apps and QuarkXPress. Installation of the libraries is simple enough, just requiring a self-installing download that adds the new Goe palettes to your design apps, without even needing to restart the applications.

The myPANTONE palettes creator is a standalone app for generating color palettes. This application is clearly meant to be a value-add for the Pantone set, but it seems like an unnecessary inclusion. Almost any creative professional worth their salt already has a way of creating palettes that typically revolves around their current applications. Why would you need another application to complicate your workflow? There are also other, more-useful applications like Adobe’s Kuler which has now worked itself into the native Creative Suite applications. Overall, Goe has some interesting characteristics, but nothing that would cause us to abandon PMS and years of experience using the old Pantone system. In that respect, Goe was a failure, though it might have some life in it as a niche product. Pantone seems to think so, and time will tell.

The Future Of Goe
Goe isn’t going anywhere right now, Marra explained. “Goe is still gaining in popularity, and combining the systems, you have a greater range of colors,” he said. “Our experience is that once people get over the hump of trying it, they generally like it. We are still supporting Goe, even though it’s not going to be significant in the market. But there are people who like it, and so we are still supporting it.” To that end, Pantone has also lowered the prices to help speed adoption. “Designers and printers were comfortable with the Pantone Matching System,” he said, reiterating reasons for the birth of Goe. “But we knew we needed to add more colors into the range that people would use. Designers were still wanting more colors.” These insights led directly into the creation of the brand-new Pantone Plus system, which we’ll discuss in our next installment. Stay tuned!

We’d love to here from those of you who’ve had experiences with the Pantone Goe system, so please tell us your stories in the comments below. Thanks!

While it’s impossible to hard-wire the possibility for resurrection into a brand or product, there are lessons to be learned from the best Undead Brands. So, let’s do a brand autopsy of Atari to discover the signs that might have led to its second and third lives. These characteristics are also good checklists for new, growing companies, as well as those looking for some supernatural longevity.

Better beats first. Atari wasn’t the first home video game maker (it was TV maker Magnavox’s Odyssey) but it was the one that grabbed hold of the public consciousness. Atari became synonymous with home video games, bursting through the gates of success. Similarly, Apple’s iPod wasn’t the first portable mp3 player. But does anyone remember which product was first? In the face of the game-changing Apple product, it almost doesn’t matter. In a world of sequels, spinoffs and competitors, being the first to climb the mountain doesn’t guarantee a deep and lasting impression. Timing and quality will always be the stronger hand. (Though being both first and best certainly won’t hurt.)

The brand doesn’t abandon its roots, but grows from them. Like a sentimental Dr. Frankenstein, Atari released several other products after its fabled 2600 game system, but continued to support the system until its last official game release came thirteen years later. Though it would have been simpler to dispose of the old system and focus exclusively on newer projects, Atari kept the obsolete system around–even letting later systems provide backwards-compatibility for its games. The business rationale for this was to squeeze out more profit from the old system–but the unintended effect allowed time for the product to grow and improve. Technology and perspective allowed the 2600 to grow and change, and Atari unintentionally cultivated a deep loyalty to the long-lasting 2600. A smart company could do this purposefully.

Evolution is embedded in its DNA. In an age where products are discontinued, discarded, landfilled and replaced, it is refreshing to consider that an offering might grow to acquire new features and uses the original makers never intended. The Atari 2600 was built with very limited graphical and memory capabilities, but these constraints gave birth to all kinds of programming tricks that eager developers creatively used to do more with less. Also, allowing an open marketplace for peripherals gave rise to hardware additions of many kinds. In fact, the crazy and innovative add-ons for the Atari 2600–keyboard attachments, memory modules, cassette tape games and new controllers gave the 2600 a significant competitive advantage and a longer life. This innovation was mostly done by third party companies, but this kind of unplanned evolution (like the organic way Twitter users have helped shape the service) will keep a product relevant and memorable long beyond its original goals. Once a product or service is released to the world, customers are its stewards and often have better plans for it. Today’s companies ignore these developments at their peril.

The brand image has the ability to transcend its products and current market space. This is a great reminder for designers and marketers to consider the broadest spectrum when creating/redesigning a corporate identity. The qualities of the brand must be large enough to absorb a shift in markets, strategy change, or natural evolution. CEOs depart and markets collapse, but brand equity doesn’t have to die when these seismic shifts occur. Atari’s image will always be tied to video games and nostalgia, which is why the current leadership has struggled to evolve beyond the 80s image and properties that made it successful. Its history and products have left little flexibility to evolve the overall message. However, some of Atari’s contemporaries have been more successful: IBM stopped making physical International Business Machines and eventually focused its efforts on software-based business solutions and consulting.

Lovers of the brand refuse to let it go. This might be the most crucial (and elusive) element, because it really gets at the beating heart of how any brand performs—through the opinions and perception others have of it. Owners of organizations and marketers truly have little control over this aspect, except to say that creating a high-quality service or product is the first step in building a deep and lasting relationship with your brand’s audience. Awareness and cultivation of what your brand is doing “out in the wild” in now a necessary element, if there’s any hope your brand will live again.

Shepherd your ideas through the approval process

Originally, I had titled this post “Protect your ideas through the approval process”. And with that, I unintentionally revealed a tension designers and marketers face when working alongside clients. Underneath the talk of strategic partnerships and client service, many of us still harbor an “us versus them” mentality. We walk into presentations skeptically trying to figure out how the client will mess with our babies, our beautiful designs and airtight concepts.

Sure, that happens. But in our experience at Hexanine, most client requests to “make the logo bigger” are not simpleton directions from meddlesome non-designers. Instead, the fallout from such feedback really reveals that we as marketers haven’t done our job in communicating our concepts and shepherding our ideas through the process. There are ways we can help guide the process to eliminate distracting feedback and lead to the best outcome: excellent, on-target work that surprises, delights and over-delivers for our client’s organizational needs. So, here are some ways we’ve found to smooth out the path from great idea to finish line.

Turn your ideas into our ideas. If a concept only belongs to you, it will be hard to find other champions throughout the process. Creative people rarely love mechanically executing the ideas of others. So, it’s important to find meaningful ways to allow others to seize ownership of a concept. That means being open to feedback—and not just listening to it, but implementing the best parts, regardless of where they come from. This is your chance to prove the value of your “flat hierarchy” and give everyone a voice. Copywriters have good color ideas. Account managers come up with great headlines. The hardest part is cultivating an environment where everyone feels freedom to contribute in avenues that don’t necessarily line up strictly with their job descriptions. This requires a humble set of people, and as a project leader you can set the tone with good facilitation of the brainstorming process. The bottom line is this: Others will go to battle for great ideas if they have a personal stake in them, if they feel ownership of what is being presented. Throughout this journey, spreading the deserved credit around to all involved parties also lets everyone know they are a valuable member of a great team.

This also applies to your client partners. It’s crucial to see them as they are: wellsprings of information and knowledge to tap–and treat them as such. Explain that their expert input is important at specific points in the process. When they can see nuggets of their feedback in the final presentation, they will feel like valuable parts of your team. You’ll have gained another powerful ally as your concepts step up to the plate.

Seek out and include the Top Dog. This is likely the single most important thing you can do to smooth the way for your excellent campaign, brand concepts or creative effort. Everything we do as marketers stands or falls on this person’s approval. Sure, any marketer worth their salt probably has stories about how a project got butchered because the boss’s husband didn’t like the color orange. But pet peeves aside, the reality is that direct, unfettered access to the final decision-making person (or body) is the best way to save time, money, revisions and headaches. Who wants to muck around with the superfluous feedback of gatekeepers whose opinions won’t seal the deal? Of course, it’s important to get sign off on a project all the way up the food chain–but at the end of the day, if the CEO or President doesn’t get on board with what you’ve presented, it’s back to the early stages. It costs everyone time and money. So, instead of wearing out our shoes on the approval treadmill, it’s important to go to the source right at the outset.

How can you do this? Find out who has the final say on your project. It’s important to do this without going over the head of your assigned mid-level staff person, as well. It can be as simple as asking a question: “Who else needs to be involved in this process?” or “After you and I have passed the initial stages, can we meet with the to discuss their needs on this project?” Pull that person into the meeting. Pay special attention to their desires and and goals for this project. Keeping those Top Dog desires in mind can also give you ammunition when dealing with middle managers looking to put their own personal stamp on a project at the expense of quality. If you run into a roadblock with these people, it’s easier to reference the Top Dog’s feedback as confirmation you’re heading in the right direction.

Make the mid-level people look good for their bosses. In some projects, it might be impossible to get access to the true decision-makers. In those less-than-ideal circumstances, you’ll be working with managers, assistants and others. Sometimes these mid-level staffers are more concerned with safeguarding their jobs, and delivering what is best for a project falls to a distant second.

To some clients, judging and evaluating creative work can seem like a nebulous, subjective black box that makes them uncomfortable. You need to help your associate feel good about what you’re presenting, by allowing them to embrace your ideas as theirs own (though not taking credit for them!). A great way to create this shared buy-in is to provide your would-be advocate the tools (and words) to sell your ideas/concepts up the chain. This could be a ready-made presentation, bullet points, or explanations that are written in the language of their role and company. Your best bet at “remote success” in this arena is to frame the communications in ways that will help your advocate look good for their superiors. After all, isn’t this what everyone wants? With that in mind, your goals (getting the best work approved) and theirs (coming out smelling like roses) can easily overlap with some thoughtful planning.

When faced with questionable feedback, dig down to its roots. Instead of just agreeing to a piece of input (“Can you make the logo bigger?”) make sure to ask some clarifying questions about where your client is coming from. Why do they want to do this or that? Is the desire to change colors a question of hierarchy or emphasis? Is it part of a new focus on the corporate tagline? Get at the underlying concerns, then help answer these legitimate issues with better solutions.

Learn to do the committee dance. Sometimes you have to learn how to dance, because playing well with others really isn’t an option. So when responsibility for a project is spread around, you might find yourself in the midst of the dreaded committee. If you can, at the outset, be clear on what nature of input the group should provide. In larger group meetings you can set the tone (and create a more productive time) if you spell out what sort of feedback you’re looking for, and at what steps in the process their input will be crucial. This last part is important, because you need to let people be valued partners in your shared journey, or you risk making apathetic partners, or at worst, saboteurs.

How do you minimize the negative behavior of group members? Be proactive by soliciting their input during the discovery phase as to the business goals for the project—who is the market? How will success be measured? What efforts have come before, and how did they fare? Are there known pitfalls to avoid? Getting concrete answers to these questions at the beginning will help elevate the discussion above personal taste and the whims of group members. As long as you can show and explain how your work meets business goals (the ones that members themselves have provided!) you will find it’s a much smoother path to the promised land of final approval.

What have we missed? What other ways have you been able to carry your concepts safely through the approval process?

My favorites:

6. Don’t Pretend to Understand
If you miss something your client said on the phone, or you don’t really understand what they are saying, don’t pretend that you do. If you get lost, say “Sorry, I didn’t get that. What are you saying?” Pretending that you understand when you don’t will usually only lead to greater confusion, and it will be more embarrassing to admit it down the track.

13. Set Out Your Email Replies Like a Conversation
When replying to a long email, or an email that addresses various points, set out your reply like a conversation. Quote each of the writer’s points one by one, with your own response after each point. This makes your reply easier to follow, and your answers to different issues won’t be confused. Don’t quote irrelevant parts of the original email, just the issues you are responding to.

So, what are your experiences in working remotely?