For years, I spent my best hours on the parts of a project my clients never even noticed. The perfect gradient, the neatly named layers, the clever AutoLayout that took a whole afternoon. I really believed all that effort would impress them, that they would open the file and see how much I cared.
They didn't. They opened it, skipped every detail, and went straight to the one thing they were paying for. Would this bring them more customers?
It took me a long time to see why. Clients don't hire you for your Photoshop skills or how trendy your gradients are. They hire you because they have a problem, and the only question they're really asking is whether your work solves it.
So this letter is about the work clients actually pay for, and how I learned to stop spending my time on everything else. If you've ever lost a whole evening to a gradient nobody noticed, you'll see yourself in a lot of it.
When I started out, I thought more steps meant better work. More revisions, more research, more everything. If a project felt hard, I added another round of mood boards or another layer of detail, because all that extra effort made me feel like I was doing a good job. All of it led to more hours spent, but not more money earned, and for a long time I didn't understand why.
Looking back, I lost my time in the same few places on almost every project. Maybe you'll see yourself in some of them, because I saw myself in all of them.
- Obsessing over perfection, like hours on a gradient no one notices.
- Overcomplicating layouts, like fancy AutoLayouts the client can't edit, so every new request means more work for you.
- Using fake content, which makes a design look perfect until the real content shows up and breaks everything.
- Chasing trends, because stock photos and flashy fonts don't sell products.
- Not charging for extras, even though animations and big design systems take real time.
Underneath those, there were three simpler problems. I gave clients too many revision rounds, I did tasks the client should have handled, and I had no clear way of working from the first call to the final file. Each of those habits looked helpful. But each one quietly ate the hours I could have spent on the work that mattered.
What finally changed it was one small moment. One client opened a file I had spent days polishing, scrolled past every detail I was proud of, and asked me one question.
Will this get me leads?
I didn't have an answer, because I had never asked myself that. I had been designing for me, for how the work would look in my portfolio, not for the person paying for it. That question has stayed with me ever since, and it changed how I run every project.
Here's what I eventually understood. Working in a simpler way doesn't make your work worse. It just means you put your energy where it really matters, and you stop spreading it everywhere else.
How I work now
I start with real content. I don't touch a pixel until I have the client's words, the headlines, the bios and the offers, all of it upfront. It's messier at the start, but it forces me to solve the real problem instead of making fake text look pretty. Fake text makes everything look perfect, right up until the real content arrives and breaks the layout.
I keep my files simple, for me and for the client. I use AutoLayout for buttons, navbars and basic stacks, and nothing more. I learned that the hard way, after I built a big, complicated system I thought would save time. The client couldn't edit it, and I had to redo everything.
I also stopped starting from scratch. I pick one typeface (I use Inter), set a colour palette, and keep a Figma library of buttons, headers, footers and sections I use across projects. That library alone cuts my design time in half, and everything I make fits together better.
Every so often, I write down every step I take, from the moment a client reaches out to the moment I send the final files. It's a boring exercise, but it shows you exactly where the time goes. The first time I did it, I found I was spending 3 hours on mood boards no client ever looked at, so I stopped making them.
Before a project starts, I tell the client how many revisions are included, what's part of the job and what isn't, and when I'm available. Saying this upfront saves weeks of back and forth later. I also batch my week. Monday is for client calls, Tuesday and Wednesday for deep design work, Thursday for revisions, and Friday for admin and invoices. When I'm not jumping between tasks, I get into flow faster and the work is better.
And when a client wants more, I charge for it. Some projects need custom animations, layered prototypes or a full design system, and that's fine, but it isn't free. I quote extra for design systems now, and on one project last month that alone added $2K to the price. Higher prices also change who you work with, because the clients who pay more tend to be the ones who respect your time.
There's one more lesson, and it's the trap I see most designers fall into. Your client isn't really your audience. Their customers are. I once built a sleek website full of trendy animations, and the client hated it, because it was too slow for the people actually buying from them. Since then, I design for the people buying, not for the people judging how it looks.
None of this makes every project easy. Some clients will still ask for the fancy version, and when they do, I don't fight them on it. I just make sure it's in the quote.
I used to design for Dribbble likes. I spent hours on details nobody paid for, and I called it craft. The day I started designing for the client's customers instead, I made more money and worked less.
That question from my client is still the test I use on every decision. Will this get them leads? If something doesn't help with that, I take it out.
Clients pay for solutions, not art.
Are you designing for you, or for your clients?
See you in another one!
Let's grow together 🙌
P.S. If you want to show a client exactly what they're paying for, it's all in the Proposal Kit.
