How to Run a Briefing Conversation That Gets Past "Make It Pop"¶
Every graphic designer has sat across from a client who says "make it pop" and then goes quiet, as if they've just handed over a complete specification. It isn't laziness, and it isn't a client who doesn't respect the work. Most clients genuinely don't have the vocabulary to describe a visual outcome - they have a feeling they're chasing, and "pop" is the closest word they own for it. The mistake is treating that as a brief that needs more detail. It's actually a brief that needs different questions.
Why "Make It Pop" Is Information, Not a Non-Answer¶
When a client can't articulate what they want in design terms, they'll usually describe it in outcome terms instead: they want it to grab attention, to feel more premium, to not get lost next to a competitor's shelf or feed post. "Pop" is a stand-in for one of those outcomes, and your job in the briefing conversation is figuring out which one - because "pop" that means stand out from competitors gets solved with completely different design moves than "pop" that means feel more expensive or "pop" that means look less boring than our last version.
Ask About the Reaction, Not the Aesthetic¶
Instead of asking "what do you mean by pop," ask about the situation the design will live in: where will someone see this, what else will be near it, and what do you want them to feel in the three seconds before they consciously register anything about the design itself. Clients can answer this even when they can't describe a visual style, because it's a question about their business and their audience, not about design language they don't speak. "I want people to stop scrolling" and "I want it to look like we're not a startup anymore" point to entirely different creative directions, and neither one required the client to know a single design term.
Get Concrete Examples of What They Already Like¶
Ask for three things they've seen - a competitor, a brand outside their category, anything - that already has whatever quality they're chasing, and ask what specifically draws them to each one. This does two things a direct question about style never does: it surfaces their actual taste, which is often more specific than their vocabulary for it, and it gives you something concrete to reference back later when a revision round threatens to drift ("this feels closer to the boldness you liked in Example B than the mood boards we started with"). Clients are far better at reacting to real things than describing hypothetical ones.
Translate the Feeling Into Design Levers Before You Sketch¶
Once you've got the real outcome behind "pop" - more attention-grabbing, more premium, more current - name the actual design levers that produce it before you start concepting: attention usually comes from contrast and scale, not more color; premium usually comes from restraint and material cues (paper stock, negative space, typography weight) more often than boldness; current usually means matching a visual grammar the client hasn't consciously named yet but recognizes when they see it. Writing this translation down, even informally, means your first concepts are answering the actual brief instead of your own guess at "pop."
FAQ¶
What if the client genuinely can't give more than "make it pop" even after these questions?
That's a signal to bring options instead of more questions. Present two or three concept directions that interpret "pop" differently - one leaning into contrast, one into premium restraint, one into current visual trends - and let their reaction to real work do what their vocabulary couldn't. Their preference will usually be immediate and specific, even if their original request wasn't.
Doesn't asking all these questions slow the project down?
It adds maybe fifteen minutes to a kickoff call and typically saves an entire revision round, because the first concept is far more likely to land. A revision round driven by "that's still not quite it" costs far more time than a longer briefing conversation up front.
How do I ask these questions without sounding like I'm interrogating the client?
Frame it as helping you do better work, not as pointing out that their brief was incomplete: "so I bring back something closer to what you're picturing on the first pass, can I ask a few questions about how this will actually be used" reads as diligence, not criticism.