The devil is in the details.

What do you think of when you say, “this design doesn't feel premium”?

I've heard this kind of feedback from clients countless times. You know that “premium” can mean different things depending on the person, the product, and what they are comparing it against.

Recently, though, I found myself on the other side of a very similar conversation.

We've been developing a brand identity for one of our own projects, and I caught myself giving exactly the kind of feedback I've spent years receiving from clients.

“This doesn't feel right.”

“This isn't quite what I had in mind.”

There was a very specific image in my head. I just didn't have a neat explanation for it.

I was comparing what I was seeing against a pre-existing perception of what the brand should be. The gap was obvious to me because I could see both things at once: the design in front of me and the image in my head.

And that made me think back to all those conversations about making something feel more like “premium”,  or trustworthy, sophisticated, playful, serious, whatever the brief happens to call for.

A client may have a very specific perception in mind that doesn't necessarily match what a designer would know to associate with that quality. They may be comparing the design against something the designer can't see yet.

The designer is checking against something too: years of seeing how visual choices, combinations and conventions tend to communicate, plus the context of the product, audience and brand.

The client is checking against the idea in their head. They may not always be able to articulate it, but they can still tell when what they're seeing doesn't match it.

So what are you actually checking against when you decide a design feels premium?

To me this would mean one thing - there was no strategic work done before touching visuals. Hence it's shooting in the dark and trying to magically match the client taste. Strategy makes decisions informed, and put both parties on the same page way before the design work starts.