What Clients Mean When They Say "Make It Pop"

The phrase that makes every designer's stomach drop

"Can you make it pop?" might be the most-dreaded sentence in client feedback — vague enough to mean almost anything, specific enough to feel like a real note. Early in our studio's life, we treated it as a problem to deflect. These days, we treat it as a clue worth following all the way down.

Translating a feeling into an actual decision

On one project, "make it pop" turned out to mean the layout felt too evenly weighted — nothing told the eye where to land first. The fix wasn't louder colors or bigger type. It was establishing a clear point of entry: one element the whole composition could lead toward, with everything else quietly supporting it.

The client got the energy they were asking for. We got there without adding a single new color to the palette — just by giving the existing ones somewhere to point.

Vague feedback is often precise feedback in disguise

"Make it pop," "give it more punch," "it needs something" — these phrases aren't a failure of the client to articulate what they want. They're often an accurate description of a real gap, expressed in the only language that felt available in the moment. Our job isn't to ask for clearer notes. It's to get fluent enough in the work to hear what the unclear ones are actually pointing at.