Chris Do, Founder
After many iterations and hundreds of hours later, I’ve created what I believe to be the perfect recipe for how to build bulletproof Stylescapes™.
You’ve just landed your biggest design project to date. Your client gives you some key words to base your work off of: modern, clean, and simple. Surely, you know what those words mean and what they look like, and obviously the client does, too.
You both talked about it.
You break from the creative brief and get moving. For weeks, you pour your heart and soul into every little piece of this project. You’re confident that this is your best work yet. This is going to blow your client away.
Fast forward to presentation day, and you’re pumped up. You're ready to watch your client collect their jaw from the floor.
Then they utter the words that punch you right in the gut.
“This isn’t what I pictured at all. This is not what we talked about. What else do you have to show me?”
How is that possible? Why did they suddenly realize that what you’ve shown them isn’t what they want?
Your client didn’t just suddenly decide that—you were never aligned on the visual direction to begin with. All of a sudden, you start to feel it:
“This client is a nightmare. They don’t understand design. They don’t understand my process.”
Yes, some clients are tough. You might not always see eye to eye. But we can’t read their minds. (Even though that'd be pretty sweet.) We have to know how to speak the same language.
Your process is missing something vital.
You might know them as mood boards, style tiles, or tear sheets. A Stylescape is a curated collection of images, textures, typography, and colors that communicate a certain look and feel. It defines the visual direction and gives clients a crystal-clear picture of the deliverables ahead.
Stylescapes™ are designed to be shared with clients before the visual design phase to make sure everyone’s in agreement with the direction. When you and the client sign off on a modern, clean, and simple design, you have a visual reference tool to communicate exactly what that might look like.
"Our team used to spend hours upon hours working on detailed design ideas, only to be course-corrected by clients. Clients sometimes felt uncomfortable to comment on work because of how finished everything looked. And it was always at the 11th hour that clients changed their minds."
"Since incorporating Stylescapes™, we get buy-in early on or we don’t proceed. It’s a great gut check that helps our team and clients get aligned in days, not weeks. If clients want to change something, we can quickly adjust within 24 hours. And because Stylescapes are made so quickly, we can explore a broader range of styles and approaches we wouldn’t normally try. It's been liberating to maintain our creative freedom."— Chris Do, Founder and Executive Creative Director of Blind
Stylescapes™ yield seriously positive relationships. They allow you and your client to collaborate and exchange ideas to move the project forward smoothly. Clients feel like their input and involvement is valued, and trust you'll deliver something great.
“Someone took the idea that I’ve been going for, and here it is on a board. And I go, ‘oh, I like that.’ This was extremely helpful for us.”
—Josh Hamilton of Hamilton Family Brewery, a former client of Blind
You might be thinking, “OK...how is this different from what I’m doing now?”
Do you sometimes feel like you and your client are from different worlds, where you just don’t get each other? Or feel nervous every time you present your designs, and let them take over when they’re not happy with what you’ve made?
Instead of making progress, you start running in a hamster wheel of revisions. It’s soul-crushing as a designer to become your client’s—or boss’s—puppet. You can’t figure out what they want, so you rely on them to tell you.
You could ask clients loads of questions but never get clarity on their answers. What 'modern' means to you, could mean something completely different to them. You'd end each brief with a lot of unclear objectives.
And that won't end well. Each project then turns into a constant guessing game of trying to figure out what clients really mean.
Stylescapes™ help to close the imagination gap and get clients to see what you see. Both parties can get on the same page about the design direction from the get-go, and have something to reference throughout the project.
As designers, it’s easy for us to imagine what something will look like. Sometimes it’s hard to explain our ideas without going the extra mile. But with Stylescapes™, you’ll dodge unnecessary, added work and hit your client’s expectations on the mark.
If you're tired of designing with headaches and feeling trapped in an abyss of revisions, this is the course for you.
The structure of the course is really, really well designed. It takes so much pressure off, and also results in a more thoughtfully put together identity. Not only is Stylescapes™ great value for money in terms of impact on my business, using Stylescapes™ removes the anxiety that I had before when working with my clients.
Jump in, buy it! It feels like we've been able to hit the ground running, and present something of much more value to the client. We wish we were able to recommend this course to ourselves when we were starting out in the industry over 10 years ago, as it would have dramatically improved things for us.
Stylescapes™ is a part of my process now. It changes the way you communicate with the client and the way you approach them. If you are doing freelancing work, you have to take this course.
It's a great way of getting client buy in and involving them in the development process. Stylescapes™ has given me confidence in my pricing structure and what I deliver, as well as clarity on brand mood and direction.
If you want your client to be less frustrated and have a smooth working process, then buy the Stylescapes™ course. Trying to figure out what your client wants in words is tough, but with Stylescapes™ it feels like you're finally not trying to hit a moving target.
“Sometimes clients need to see something to react to it. That’s the whole purpose in presenting Stylescapes. We want to make sure that the client has something to respond to, so we can engage in a productive conversation about the direction of the project, and get commitment in the room.”
Ben Burns, Digital Director
“Using Stylescapes™, is an invitation for clients to be involved in the design process. We can get their input early on, and align on a clear direction moving forward. Clients love it, because they feel like they are designing and dreaming with us.”
Matthew Encina, Creative Director
Chris Do | Founder, The Futur
Chris Do is an Emmy award winning director, designer, strategist and educator. He’s the Chief Strategist and CEO of Blind, executive producer of The Skool, and the Founder of The Futur— an online education platform that teaches the business of design to creative thinkers.
Founded in 1995, Blind has been a pioneer in the motion design field and has made hundreds of award-winning commercials, music videos and broadcast promos that combine design, typography, animation, live action and visual effects for screens and clients of all sizes.
His firm’s work has been recognized by national and international organizations such as: the Emmy’s, Effie Gold, Effie, Huffington Post, Lynda.com, Webbie, Communication Arts, London International Awards, One Show, British D&AD, AICP 20, Pictoplasma, How, 72 dpi, L.A. Weekly, Boards, Res 10, Type Director’s Club, IDN, Addy Awards, BDA, Create, Stash, Creatie Augustus 2010, Motion Design, Asia Image, Brief, 365 AIGA Year In Design 26, Art Director’s Club, Motionographer, New York Festivals, B Brand, PPaper, I.D., and Print.
Mr. Do currently hosts The Process (a YouTube channel with over 583k+ subscribers) and lectures all over the world on the business of creativity.
This course is for designers who need a way to simplify the way they present their ideas to clients or stakeholders. If you need to communicate something visual, Stylescapes™ is your go-to. Whether you work with clients directly or present to stakeholders in-house, you can revamp and supercharge your design process.
The Stylescapes™ course will transform the way you work and the way you present your ideas to clients. Say goodbye to never-ending revisions or changing direction at the last minute.
Get Started| Get aligned | Speak the same language as your client and decide on the visual direction without friction. | |
| Revamp your process | Rapidly prototype your ideas and bring them to life in a way that gets client buy-in quickly. | |
| Present with confidence | Transform strategy into a visual language that creates more opportunities, and takes each project to its fullest potential. | |
| Save time | Reduce revisions, speed up your process, and avoid expensive headaches. |
Knowing how to design Stylescapes is just the start. Get everything you need to become the designer you want to be! This bundle is a $796 value — get it now and save over 10%!