Embracing the challenge of designing in a way appropriate to the specifics and distinctions of the unique context that every project confronts you with is the real test of a designer.

As designers we should have the courage to admit that sometimes we are just not the audience something was intended for.

Is there a role for self expression in design and should every project you take on give you the opportunity to produce something moving and amazing? Yes and No. Perhaps it is learning how to maintain the perfect tension between all of the moving parts of the business. Although we love to serve our inner muses, it's just not about us.

Good design execution comes with responsibility to an audience and the audience develops from our clients needs.

We have heard the term target audience a thousand times. Some of us hate it. We don't want to feel stereotyped or that our decisions aren't driven by emotions that are unique and valuable to us. This is an age old argument. No one likes to be minimized or excluded but it is crucial for a designer to consider excluding others to make good work.

Without a target audience it would be easy to become consumed with practicing design for designs sake and actually diminishing the client's point of view. We often forget that we are charged with making content the real issue. The content we are supplied with should not deter us from producing something beautiful.

It is natural and beneficial to impose limits on the scope of an audience. Audiences allow for choices and designing for content takes real courage and constraint. Many outside factors force us to use repeatable methods because we have spent so much time perfecting the attributes of our style that we fail to learn about what our work says and means. Paying attention to our audience and our clients needs can help us focus on designing from the inside out. The client, audience, design ratio can be maintained properly with a little bit of thoughtfulness and a lot of listening. Guest Post by Staci Janik

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