There's a version of the client relationship where the designer disappears for two weeks and comes back with something finished. It's efficient, in theory. In practice it means the designer made a hundred small decisions without you – about tone, about emphasis, about what to say when the layout doesn't have room for everything. Those decisions shape the outcome as much as the big ones. The clients I do my best work with are the ones who stay close to the process, not the ones who hand over a brief and wait.

This isn't about micromanagement. A good designer doesn't need – or want – to be told what colour every button should be. But there are decisions that genuinely belong to you, and handing them over by default means they get made on assumptions rather than knowledge.

What are those decisions? Things like: what the most important action on this page is. What you want someone to feel when they first see this. Whether the tone is right for the people you're actually trying to reach. Whether a piece of copy says what you mean, or just what sounds good. These aren't aesthetic questions. They're strategic ones. And you're better placed to answer them than any designer, however experienced.

The best design relationships I've had work like a conversation – one where both people bring something the other doesn't have. You bring the knowledge of your business, your customers, your instincts about what's right. I bring the design thinking, the structure, the craft. Neither is sufficient on its own.

The output is better when you're in it. Not directing every pixel, but present – engaged, responsive, willing to react to what you see and say what you actually think. Take a look at the work to see what that kind of collaboration produces.