“Can you make it pop?”
Every designer has heard it.
And for years, I took it literally. Brighter colours. Bigger buttons. More animation.
It rarely fixed anything.
Because what clients say and what they mean are often two different things.
Here’s what I’ve learned to hear instead:
💬 “Can you make it pop?”
→ “It doesn’t feel like us yet.”
💬 “Make the logo bigger.”
→ “I’m not sure people will remember who we are.”
💬 “It looks a bit empty.”
→ “I’m not confident the message is strong enough.”
💬 “Can we add one more section?”
→ “I’m worried visitors won’t understand what we do.”
💬 “Can it look like [competitor]?”
→ “I want to look as credible as they do.”
💬 “Just one quick change…”
→ “I’ve been thinking about this all week.”
None of these are bad requests.
They’re feelings that don’t have design words yet.
The job isn’t to follow the instruction. It’s to find the worry behind it, and solve that.
Once I started asking “What makes you feel that way?”, revisions got shorter and clients got happier.
Designers and developers: what’s one you’d add to this list? 👇
Business owners: be honest, which one have you said? 😄
