Waiting on the client

“Waiting on the client”.

It’s the most cursed project status of them all.

Not not just because it’s the reason most projects fall behind schedule — but because it delays the next project(s) in the queue, kills momentum, and eats into profits much worse than we realize.

Over the years, I’ve tried everything short of threads and bribes to keep projects moving on time (I’m still not ruling either of those out 😅). I’m still on the hunt for the silver bullet that solves everything, but in the meantime I have found several small process tweaks that have made a huge difference.

One of those is the way I present designs — which came up in a recent call.

Instead of jumping straight into full-blown Home page mockups — where you send the client 2 or 3 different fully-designed options that take hours of design time — I start with something I call the “Typography & Colors” proof.

It’s purposefully simple: I’ll mock up the headline and body fonts, the color palette, buttons, and put it all into a simple “section” layout so the client can see how it all looks together in context.

It’s more of a “vision” or “look and feel” than it is a design — but it’s enough for the client to react to.

It’s low-effort (only takes 30 minutes or so to put together) and it gets the client involved early without overwhelming them with too many options. We can be looking at the same thing when we talk about tone, feel, and brand before we sink hours into something production-ready.

Once we’re all in agreement, I’ll mock up the Home page (and sometimes another key page) based on the Typography & Colors we’ve agreed to. Those typically have some revisions too, but they are small layout changes — not complete overhauls that take hours — since we’ve already agreed on the direction.

At that point, the rest of the site becomes “paint by numbers”.

This one tweak to my process has cut my design time in half. It’s reduced revision rounds, kept projects moving, and built momentum early.

And that momentum is underrated.

The more “yesses” you get early, the less likely clients are to make wild pivots later. They feel involved. Invested. Bought-in.

As a bonus, we can start the Typography & Colors while content is still being written — so progress can be happening simultaneously on two fronts.

I’m starting to see “waiting on the client” as less of a status and more of a symptom of a process that could use another look.