“It doesn’t diminish its value”

Creative Career Conundrums is a weekly advice column from If You Could Jobs. Each week their selected panel of professionals from the creative industry answers your burning career questions to help you navigate the creative journey.

This week’s question:

At my workplace, we present several options for the client, no matter the kind of job – from book covers to complete visual identities – it’s usually at least three for the client to choose. I do amazing work that I am really proud of, but sometimes the client chooses something another designer took the lead on. So, what can I do with work I put so much effort into? Should I add to my portfolio while signalling it’s been unused or rejected?

What can I do with unused work?

Katie Cadwell, co-founder of branding studio Lucky Dip and The NDA Podcast:

At the risk of being broad brush, just because the client doesn’t pick your route, that doesn’t diminish its value. Sometimes clients will err on the safe side. We talk about concepts from evolutionary to revolutionary in my studio. Especially if you have three routes, often there’s one safer, one middle ground, and one that really challenges them. You can bet that most clients choose that middle ground (it’s why we often only show two, or one if we’re feeling brave).

As for sharing that work, yes you absolutely can include it in your portfolio. Simply labelling it ‘unused concept’ will suffice. We’ve all got hard drives full of ideas that didn’t make it, it’s just the nature of the beast. You might be able to share it online too, just double check your contract for anything around posting work (technically, that creative belongs to the client), but so long as the project has already been launched, and your creative director is okay with it, you could make up some fun social posts. Alternatively, you can delete anything that points to the client if you like to make it more general. For example, call it “unused work for a burger joint” and come up with a cool new brand name to turn it into conceptual work.

Additionally, I appreciate it must be frustrating not to be able to carry on the project. There’s lots to be learnt from moving into those next rounds – answering feedback, interrogating all the brand choices, making sure it’s fit for handover and rollout. Missing out on that experience is a shame. Perhaps you can talk to your creative director about managing that next phase of the project, even if it isn’t your route they chose.

Or on the plus side, you get to jump into the next brief while someone else manages the tricky bit. So maybe that’s a good thing!

In answering your creative career conundrums we realise that some issues need expert support, so we’ve collated a list of additional resources that can support you across things that might arise at work.

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