What clients mean when they say "make it pop"

It's not a bad brief — it's an unexpressed feeling. Learning to translate vague client language into precise design decisions is the real skill nobody teaches you.

"Make it pop." "It needs more energy." "Can we make it feel more premium?" Every designer has heard these phrases and felt a quiet internal frustration — not because the feedback is wrong, but because it's impossible to action directly.

The mistake is treating these as bad feedback. They're not. They're accurate descriptions of an emotional response — the client is telling you exactly how they feel about what they're seeing. The problem is that feelings don't translate directly into design decisions. That's the designer's job.

Decoding the language

"Make it pop" almost always means one of three things. The contrast isn't strong enough — there's no clear focal point pulling the eye. The hierarchy is flat — everything is competing at the same visual weight. Or the color palette is too safe — nothing is doing the work of creating visual tension.

"More energy" usually means the layout is too static. Too much symmetry. Too little movement. The eye needs to travel across the page, and right now it has nowhere to go.

"More premium" is the most interesting one. Premium almost never means more decoration — it almost always means more restraint. More whitespace. Fewer elements. Better typography. Higher contrast. Premium is the confidence to leave things out.

The real skill

Once you understand that vague feedback is actually precise emotional data, the conversation changes completely. Instead of feeling defensive about "make it pop," you can ask "where do you want the eye to go first?" That question gives you an actionable answer and demonstrates that you understand design at a strategic level — not just an aesthetic one.

The designers who are best at client relationships aren't the ones who never get vague feedback. They're the ones who know how to translate it.