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If you are like me, when designing I am actually 'walking' around the space and seeing potential problems as the design is growing, see the planting as mature and the colours, textures, light and shade it will produce. You can't force that, you really have to feel it. I know that sounds very pretentious, but we are providing a 'dream' garden for our clients, they have to live and tend it long after we have finished, and they are paying. We have to get it right.
That's where the music comes in, helping to fuel the mood!
It's not uncommon for me to sit for hours without ever putting pencil to paper. But if I don't have anything after a while I do just knuckle down to it, grab some layout paper and take the black felts to it, sketching widly until something comes up.
It's hardly a process you can rush, so I never give definitive dates for turn-arounds on designs, so it certainly isn't just you. But I find once I can visualise the shapes, features and hard-landscaping in a rough form, the rest of the design follows.
I am glad to hear that it isn't only I who gets into these pickles!!
In cases where clients aren't being very enthusiastic or giving good information for the brief, then take what little information you do have, spend half an hour or so looking at inspiration material, and do a rough concept to look like anything. If the clients hate the concept you show them, then you can get them to explain why and that usually gives more to work from. If they like it, well that's win win.
If they don't know what they want in a garden, then just show them what is possible, usually works for me.
Also if you do design and build, how enthusiastic are you going to be about building a garden when your not happy with the design?
I find in that situation a malaise creeps in, the job takes longer than it should to get done, nobody's happy.
I tried this when I first went on alone in business. I found that this method didn't allow any lee-way if I didn't have the final production by the deadline and this left the customer feeling instantly disatisfied even before they had seen anything. I do find that giving a rough guide of 2-3 weeks or something along those lines allows enough lee-way to ensure a piece I am happy with and that the client will be happier with. Being a little vague also indicates to the client that this isn't something that can just be rattled off like any old drawing and they seem to respect this.
My problem is - as a hardened procrastinator - that I can't get the inspiration to work until i am under the grill a bit. I know this isn't a healthy business behaviour but try as I might I cannot change it myself - and I have been trying since at school; I always started essays, projects or art pieces the night before they were due and I always attained excellent grades. Thus having told clients I shall return in 2-3 weeks, unless I take something away from the survey which I can put down straight away and build upon, I generally don't start work until the final week.
And I agree with James:
"Also if you do design and build, how enthusiastic are you going to be about building a garden when your not happy with the design?
I find in that situation a malaise creeps in, the job takes longer than it should to get done, nobody's happy."
This is very true - so perhaps it is worth waiting to get the thing as it deserves to be?
I would be interested to see if any of you guys have a similar affliction of behaviour when it comes to initiating a design?
at the site meeting I will tell a client to expect their first drawing in a month, but that the time it takes will vary for all the reasons you have stated above and that I will ring them when it it ready to be viewed.
Once I am happy with it I ring them and arrange for them to come to my office to go through it. This is often done on a Sunday, when they are more relaxed and have the time to come in as a couple. I never send a design through the post.
(Actually, I now work from France so I am having to send designs through the post to UK clients)
Colin
www.garden-design.co.uk
www.gardendesignfrance