The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started
Back to feedPost
150 products delivered. Here are the 3 lessons I keep learning over and over.
7 years. 150+ digital products. SaaS tools, AI platforms, fintech apps, brand identities.
And somehow the same three things keep showing up on every single project.
Clients don't know what they want until they see what they don't want.
The first concept is never the final one. That's not failure. That's the process working. The faster you accept this, the better your collaboration gets.
Clarity always wins over creativity.
A beautiful screen that confuses the user is a broken screen. The best designs I've shipped are the ones where the user never noticed the design at all. They just got things done.
The relationship matters more than the deliverable.
Clients come back not because of how good the file looked. They come back because working with you felt easy. Communication, honesty, and speed of response will outlast any design trend.
150 products in and these still catch me off guard sometimes.
What's the one lesson your work keeps teaching you?
#uiux #productdesign #designlessons #saasdesign #uxdesign #freelancedesigner #figma #aidesign #uidesigner #designthinking
The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started
Challenges
View all
Related posts
Client’s choice vs. Designer’s choice 👀
I’m currently working on a branding project for Massage & Mocktails — a concept built around couples learning massage together in a relaxed, social atmosphere.
These are two early, black & white directions from Stage 2 of my branding process, before moving into color, typography, and the full visual system.
The interesting part?
My client chose Concept 1. I chose Concept 2.
Now I’m curious what other creatives think.
Which direction would you choose — 1 or 2? And why?
Sometimes the most interesting part of branding is seeing how differently a client and a designer respond to the same brief.
21 voted
44%
27 voted
56%
48 votes
Closed
Concept 2 for me. That interlocking figure mark reads as two people meeting, which is the actual brief here, so it gives you more to build a system on. Concept 1 is the safer, more literal pick, which is usually why clients reach for it.
Explored two different visual directions for the same SaaS landing page.
The structure stays consistent, while the imagery, mood and art direction shift the overall brand feel.
Interested to know which direction feels stronger.
11 voted
73%
4 voted
27%
15 votes
Closed
Woww... What a precious design priyansh bro.😍 💯 🔥 🎉
A client shouldn’t have to learn Webflow just to publish their next case study.
On a recent build, I spent a lot of time on the CMS: setting up reusable blocks and the logic that lets the team update content without rebuilding pages.
The tricky part is deciding how much control to give them. Too little, and every update becomes a request. Too much, and they’re suddenly responsible for the layout.
I want them to open the CMS, know what to do, and get on with their day. There’s a fair amount of work behind making that feel simple.
The CMS thinking here is spot on: the best handoff is the one that gives a client confidence without exposing all the complexity underneath.