Let's face facts. It can be pretty difficult to deal with us creative types. We get even more obstreperous when we happen to own a business. At times the external constrains are just too much when added to the internal conflicts. We must be both artist and geek, both maker and manager. Add on a client who won't give you the creative freedom you desire nor the professional courtesy you demand and you've got a recipe for disaster! So what do you do when it seems that you and your designer will never see eye to eye? Well, I don't really know ... I'm a designer.
Truth be told, I don't know the right way to handle things. That's why I tell people to get a marketer!
Just for fun, here are some tips on how to deal with your designer.
#1 Trust Your Designer
There have only been a few websites I've made that I don't like. Each and everyone of them has resulted from not having the trust of the client. It baffles me that I am not shown the same courtesy that any professional artist out there would expect from their clients. Photographers don't want want to take pictures of your family wearing white shirts and khakis. Painters don't want to do caricatures of you swinging from a vine. Actors don't want to do pantomime to a Michael W Smith song.
Designers don't want to build bland sites.
That might mean that the final product isn't what you were expecting or even what you've seen before. It might not even be what you would want, but you should trust your designer to give you what you need.
#2 Don't Power Trip
There are a lot of designers out there, but there are WAY more clients. You are, in all likelihood, not who is putting food on your designer's table. If you are, then he probably doesn't have the gumption to challenge you at all. If your designer is standing firm on an issue, it's because it's important to him. He knows good and well that you are paying him for his service, but he also knows the value of his services. If you don't pay him, someone else will.
If you don't like something, say so. Don't use your disapproval as a reminder of who's the boss.
Don't make up things to not like.
#3 Open Your Mind, Don't Change It
I am baffled by how many times client will request a change and then complain about the problems that it causes. It is then (not after your urging) they will change their minds ... a lot. They will want to see something else and then something else. Often they end in the same spot, but just had to "see for themselves." This, of course, plays back into trusting your designer.
When you designer argues with you, listen to him.
He has the experience and foresight to avoid a lot of the problems with his first draft that you end up experiencing on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. It's really not an issue of "problem clients" being stubborn. That's not it at all. Their minds change constantly. The issue is that they are open only to changing their own minds. They are not open to the advice, experience or wisdom of others.
#4 Speak Up
I don't, at all, want to give the idea that your input is not wanted. It is invaluable. I'm sure I run that risk of obscuring that fact in such a post. So, let me be very clear:
A good designer wants and values your input.
A good designer takes your input and in return gives you the right design for the job. A bad designer takes your input and regurgitates it onto the screen. I, for one, am not a bad designer.