All too often we designers can get caught up in a battle of egos with our clients. Raise your hand if you've ever said the following, "but the client hired US because WE'RE the experts! They should listen to us!" Yeah, me too.

But here's something we can stand to be reminded of: our clients are the experts in THEIR field, and part of our job should be using that to our mutual advantage. They know their audience better than we do, and while we shouldn't allow ourselves to be made into pixel-pushers, we often have to learn how to better collaborate.

Paul Boag, of Boagworld and Headscape, presented a fantastic session at SxSWi this year that I was fortunate enough to attend (you can listen to the whole talk if you've got a spare 40 minutes). While Paul's examples are website-based, I feel that any designer (or anyone that deals with clients, actually) can benefit from Boag's principles of collaboration.

• Ensure the client understands their role in the process. Their job is to find problems, and yours as the designer, is to find solutions.

When a client tries to give you a solution (for example, the infamous "make the logo bigger"), you must ask "Why?" to get to the root of the problem and reinforce the outlined roles. Once you know the "why", it's that much easier to react and provide a solution that accommodates their need and your design goals.

• Make sure they have ownership in the project by involving them in the process often and early.

• Educate them about the decisions you've made. Yep, give 'em Design 101. Explain the miracle of white space, explain what makes your font choices appropriate for the project, etc etc.

• Ask for specific types of feedback. Instead of leading with "What do you think?" (which can be fairly intimidating if a client doesn't know what they should be saying in order to be helpful), try asking how their audience will react or if it meets their project objectives.

• Avoid saying no. Instead of responding negatively when met with an unreasonable request, show them the consequences of their choice (the time required to implement such a choice, the impression it might leave their audience with, etc.). Let them be the one to say "no" instead.

If we can focus on working with the client instead of against them (because really, in the end don't we all want something that everyone can be happy with?) we can expect the following results: happy, confident clients (about the project, its process and about you as a designer), less frustration and by extension, less battles.

How do you deal with frustrating projects? What are your methods of coping with a client that just "doesn't get it."?

Hey design community! My name's Nicole and I'm a graphic designer based out of Edmonton, Alberta working for these dudes in Lacombe. I'll be blogging every so often on matters close to my heart: print design. Above all, I'd love to facilitate a conversation on design... so whether you agree or disagree with me, please just speak up!

It seems every other week, a web designer tells me the jig is up, my days as a print designer are numbered. Didn't you hear? About this thing called the internets? It's going to make print design obsolete. Some days, amid facebook and twitter and the increasing amount of time I spend online, I worry they're right.

But most days I smile smugly and let them talk, secure in knowing that my job is safe because one thing the digital world can't replicate is tangibility. They can't manufacture the emotional resonance that comes with turning pages or holding a well-designed business card in your hand.

More than that, print design is evolving. They said that television would kill radio. It didn't, it just serves a different purpose now. As print designers we need to focus on doing the things we do, and doing them better. With purpose. Let's not get hung up on what the internet is taking away from our livelihood and instead look at the needs it's creating, what it can't do. Some schools of thought in design say simplicity is the key: you must remove, remove, remove. If you don't need it, it shouldn't be there.

Let's remove the antiquated practice of mass mail-outs and create better promotional materials that our audience will want to hang onto instead of put out with the recycling. Let's remove the idea that the web and print have to compete, let them work in tandem. By removing the excess that web can obviously do better than print, we can all focus, redirect our clients' energy (and budget) and instead showcase print design's strengths.