I find that I do my best work when I’m learning and growing professionally. Yet working as an interface designer for over three years left me feeling just a bit burned-out on solving very similar problems — the 316th pixel-perfect, drop-shadowed “Sign Up” button is a lot less interesting to design than the first. Opening up to a broader set of client work, with my design studio, has already exposed me to a much larger set of new, challenging problems.

One thing I’ve found most surprising, so far, is the amount of consulting I do. And, I’m not really comfortable with that term — I’ve never really understood exactly what consultants provide in terms of a deliverable (specs, documentation, a product?). Yet, taking the term to mean “a person who provides expert advice, professionally,” is a pretty good description of a huge part of my work. I feel that, in many ways, my advice and project leadership is the most valuable part of what I offer.

Great at Saying No

Broadly speaking, I help my clients best understand how to communicate their services or products on the web. Specifically, I lead them to the simplest, most cost-effective solution possible. I “say no” to as many technical and organizational requirements as I can — I shape big ideas into small, focused projects that launch quickly and on a modest budget. What’s interesting is that it’s a service that I feel the web in general needs quite a bit more of.

As users, we’re barraged daily by needlessly complex websites and applications — sites that try to do too much and please far too many. Tighter focus in the planning stages, I think, can get many of these projects started with the right goals, and lead to great sites that are much more enjoyable to use and better solutions for both the clients and their users.

Can I sell this?

I find consulting incredibly rewarding and exciting work. I like it so much that I’m going to offer “project consulting,” very soon, as a core service to clients — those who I may not even end up working with on the design or production aspects of their project. Right now, I have no idea if there’s a client base I can reach with this service, but I’m going to try.

My feeling is this — there are thousands of businesses out there, large and small, that don’t know exactly where to start on the web, or have a difficult time releasing high quality, focused websites and applications. I’d love to find those clients, and offer my help, even if I’m not able to work directly on the design and implementation.

I’m currently re-working my studio’s site, re-hauling my pitch, and refining my service offerings. I’ll be adding this service to the new site, so check back in a few weeks.

In the meantime, anyone reading this blog think there’s a market for this service?