Dafabet Case: Professional Standard Approaches in the Workplace

Overview

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Designer A and Client A work at Dafabet, an online sports betting company. Designer A has Bachelor’s degree of Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines and has been practicing graphic design for the past fourteen years. Designer A is currently an Art Director whose task is to make marketing collaterals such as website, banners, and newsletters for Dafabet. He has been working for Dafabet for ten years and has done a number of designs for the company. Client A is a marketing executive at Dafabet for three years and his role is to conceptualize promotions for the brand.  He has a Bachelor’s degree in marketing management from the University of Santo Tomas. As marketing executive, he has conceptualized a promo called Be connected with Dafabet, share the passion of PyeongChang which was about the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. The objectives of the promo were to make their audiences, who are sports enthusiasts, bet in the said event. 

To increase the visibility of the promo, Client A requested for an online banner design to be posted on the Dafabet website. Client A supplied Designer A with a creative brief containing information about PyeongChang Winter Olympics such as objectives of the promotion, a mood board, and sample images of how Client A would like the design. 

As part of his request, Client A also mentioned not to use the official logo of PyeongChang as well as the Olympic logo to avoid copyright issues. As soon as Designer A received the creative brief, he noticed that the images or pegs provided by Client A were cartoonish type of design. Designer A personally did not like the idea of it because for him, cartoonish type of design is attractive for children, thus the promotion may fail to reach the attention of the target market. It was a frustrating dilemma for Designer A. Having received formal training in graphic design and 10 years of experience in the profession, he believes that a realistic design would be better for the project.

What Designer A did was to follow what Client A wanted but also did his own take on the project. He provided two studies: Study 1 where he followed and applied everything based on what was indicated on the creative brief and then Study 2 with his own version that he believes would be best for the project. Client A approved the Study 1. As a result, Designer A, whose preferred version was disapproved, felt sad and worried that the project would not attain its objective. Client A shares:
 

“We sometimes have different view on things. I do understand that designers are artists and need to express their thoughts freely, however, our views are sometimes different from what they think is more appropriate.”

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Analysis

The Dafabet case shows how a graphic designer applied professional standard approaches in negotiating with the client. Designer A educated the client by creating a study wherein he applied what he thinks would be best for the project, and had the initiative to align it with its desired impact. Designer A, frustrated and disappointed of not having his study approved, realized that such dynamics is part of the profession and had to be emotionally resilient, aware
that visual aesthetics is subjective and amenable to the final decision of the clients. The situation also presents a case of a corporate preset as can be attributed to the non-negotiable creative brief of Client A. Despite the effort of proposing an alternative design, which represented Designer A’s artistry and technical knowledge, the negotiation process was constrained by the institutional protocols set by Client A.