Helping Committees Approve Good Design

Committees come in many forms and have many purposes. At some point, every committee find itself responsible for approving designs for logos, websites, advertising, signage and perhaps graphics for a dozen other things.

Having been a part of such committees myself (and being a designer), I am prepared to tell you why members of committees often struggle when asked to make design decisions.

Wrangling with the personalities and individual preferences within a committee is often something we have to do as brand designers. One of the ways we help committees choose the best ideas is by showing them fully-fledged ideas. We never show a logo on a plain white sheet of paper. All that does is force a committee to use their imagination to envision how something might appear in the real world. It’s important to take the time to show high-quality examples of actual applications. Doing premium mockups of products, signs, homepages and basic packaging is routine today — and committees deserve it.