RFPs are broken for buying design (and how to fix them)

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A thought from me

If you want to buy design work from a studio, designer, or agency, RFPs are the wrong tool for the job.

They come with three problems.

I.

Firstly, RFPs describe the symptom perfectly, and prescribe the solution. 

Once you’ve prescribed a solution, you’re no longer looking for the best proposal or the best pitch. You’ve flattened all other comparison points, since the solution is already in place, and all you have left to compare is price. (Not necessarily the cheapest price, but the best for you.) 

But good design isn’t purely about aesthetics. Good designers are endlessly curious. They ask questions. They interrogate the problem. Good designers uncover questions the RFP never thought to ask.

Most of the time, the people who write the RFP don’t understand the problem fully. If you want to make more sales online, you can write the RFP detailing your organization, describing the ​“problem” (you don’t make enough money online), and requesting a solution (a ​“better” e‑commerce shop). 

Nowhere in that RFP is the reason why you don’t make enough money online.

Are your existing customers online shoppers? If not, why not? Is there another group of customers you could be reaching? If you wanted to reach those customers, do you need a whole new website, or do you actually need a new marketing strategy? Is it possible that your current branding doesn’t connect with the people you’re trying to reach? Is ​“the way you’ve always done things” holding you back from reaching those customers?

And that’s just a handful of questions that a designer might start with. There are a million others.

An RFP can’t answer these questions because a designer didn’t write it. A designer knows to ask these questions, because (as Steve Jobs put it) design isn’t how it looks. It’s how it works.

Any agency or studio that fills in an RFP is going to take a wild guess at what the actual problem is, since there’s no way they could know without asking a million questions. They’ll take a wild guess at the price too, because they don’t know what the problem is actually worth to you. How can they know your best price if they don’t know what your projected YoY earnings are from this new e‑commerce store?

II.

Secondly, proposals are the wrong format for the work. They’re templated, and often fill-in-the-blank. They make it too easy for agencies and studios to give you bad information in the wrong format. If you need a new brand identity, a report in 12pt Times New Roman is probably the worst way to learn about the people you’re buying from.

An RFP asks a design agency to demonstrate skill in an unrelated area of expertise (writing proposals), and to display their work in a non-optimal way, in formatting requirements provided by the client. It asks for guesses.

And it asks for a speculative pitch. You don’t need a speculative pitch; you need somebody who understands you.

When agencies were the middlemen between television channels, magazines, and advertisers, speculative pitching made sense. The problem statement was obvious: you wanted an ad, but didn’t have the talent, equipment, or connections to film one and get it on the air or in print. The pitch was obvious: the agencies had those connections, the talent, and the equipment. What they lived and died on was the idea. So they gave out free ideas.

Today, the work is far more complicated. The agencies aren’t middlemen anymore. They are solving highly specific problems, and usually with a highly specific set of skills. So a small brief requesting a pitch won’t let them show their best work, and it undermines the very thing you’re after.

III.

Thirdly, the best agencies and studios are in high demand, and have identified RFPs as time wasters. So they’ll skip them. I don’t respond to RFPs, and neither do many of the studios I would refer you to. In my experience, many agencies and studios that respond to RFPs are second-rate, desperate, or inexperienced. That’s not a great combination.

Once an RFP procures a vendor, even if you find a great partner, you have a new set of problems. The agency or studio will realize they made some incorrect assumptions. The price will change. If the price doesn’t change, the level of service might change instead. Deadlines get missed. Project scopes grow. The project spirals out of control. It doesn’t get completed on time, or it goes over budget, or it never gets finished at all. 

Stop me if this feels familiar.

Instead of asking for pitches, you need to ask for a diagnosis. 

The worst possible way to have a custom suit tailored is to describe your proportions to the tailor and vaguely suggest it’s for a gala. The tailor would be better off meeting you, taking your measurements, hearing what the event is for, and getting visual examples of your vision for the outfit. Then they could provide you a quote, share their process, and show similar work they’ve made before.

That is exactly the same approach you should take when buying design:

1. Find a few practitioners whose work you like, and who have operated in your space before. 
2. Meet with them privately. Have them ask their questions.
3. If you must, get them to write a proposal from there. But it’s a proposal outlining the scope, the price, and the process. It shouldn’t be a pitch, because a pitch is speculative until discovery is complete, and like a good lawyer, good designers begin a project with in-depth discovery.

But what if RFPs are mandatory in your line of work? If this is the case, your RFP needs to be less specific and more open-ended. 

Here is how you can make RFPs work better for you:

1. It should leave room for questions. Most RFPs leave an email for follow-up questions, but they should go a step further and encourage a virtual call. This is a great way for both you and the vendor to get a feel for one another, too. If somebody is inexperienced or desperate, that will come across in the call. If somebody is excellent, that will also be obvious.
2. It should encourage a paid discovery phase. Let vendors suggest how they want to do this and price it. You will encounter a wide range of methodologies and pricing strategies, and it will be much easier to align yourself with the right studio or agency to do the work.
3. If you can, reach out to specific agencies or studios and tell them about your RFP. Some processes don’t allow this, but for those who do, telling people you’d like to work with about your opportunity to work together will be appreciated.
4. Some design studios and agencies will sell discovery as a stand-alone deliverable. You could put out an RFP asking exclusively for a discovery phase. That might end with writing another RFP seeking help on the whole project. (This can work, but it does come with the large risk that the people you bring in for phase two and beyond will often want to do their own discovery, mostly as a ​“trust, but verify” precaution. So fair warning.)

Your project is more likely to be successful if you seek the best work in private consultation, rather than ask the public for an RFP. But if you have no other option except an RFP, use these tips to find a great team instead of a great proposal.

Things worth sharing

1. Icon designer Louie Mantia writes about Apple’s app icon shape for macOS. His conclusion reminded me of Frank Chimero’s essay on the grain of the web: design shouldn’t fight the container it’s in.
2. Great new branding from other agencies: How & How made a vintage, space-inspired brand for Meteoric. DutchScot designed a clever, simple, and memorable identity for Fjord. CODO shares what they’ve learned from branding 100 breweries.

A question to ponder

I don’t often ask this, but I will have time in September to take on a new client. Do you, or somebody you know, need help with a brand identity or website problem?

Until next week,

Nathan

What you should do next…

1. For more insights like this, subscribe to the weekly Kindling newsletter.
2. To see people walk the talk, explore my case studies.
3. Schedule a free call to review your brand and website. Get a one hour consultation where we discuss your brand, your current marketing problems, and potential next steps. If you’re not ready to work with me, I won’t attempt to sell you, but I’ll point you to the right next step.