A responsibility of the designer is to make sure the communicative process/dialog is never impeded or broken. As designers, we are the masters, or hope to be, of the communication process; whether it be through identity development, advertising or the making of publications. We set type, layout images, create copy, all in order to communicate the idea or message to the audience. It is our responsibility, or divine calling to maintain that communication, to create that communication.
However, it has become customary for designers lately, to forget or disregard the notion the we must maintain and facilitate the same amount, if not more, communication with our clients. They didn’t hire us so they could do all the talking nor did they hire us so they could communicate with the audience by themselves. They hired us for our ability to communicate a message. There is always information that we need from our client. Always something to think about that the client needs to say without dialog. We as designers have no idea what to do in order to finish the project, unless we can establish and maintain dialog with the client.
Also, we as designers, are the conduit through which all communication from the client and the audience travels. We are the interpreters, the ones who translate one language to another so the marriage between the client and audience or client and consumer will never be interrupted.
Like what was mentioned before, it is our divine calling, as designers, to facilitate and maintain that conduit between client and audience. Without it, all design would be chaotic and most communication would be chaotic. None of the messages would make sense.
Our job is communication. Our job is dialog and it’s our job to defend, create and maintain that dialog.