The outside eye

You are usually hired to do a specific thing. Build the site, make the brand, produce the films. The brief is clear and the scope is set. But fifteen years in, we have found that the most valuable contribution is often slightly outside the lines of what was requested.

It has to be offered with care. Nobody wants unsolicited criticism dressed up as help. But an honest outside view, given because you want the work to be better and not because you want more of it, is the thing clients remember. It is also, more often than not, how the next project starts.