Designers often wish they could simply present one idea to their clients. Some do.

On the other hand, there was Bob Gill—the influential NY designer and teacher.

Over the years, there have been many versions of a story that Bob presented 1,000 ideas that didn't sell. When I was a design student in England, I read about a professional English designer who watched Bob Gill flip through slide after slide of rejected concepts. That designer decided to leave the design profession, feeling that every one of Bob Gill's rejected ideas was significantly better than any he could have ever come up with.

While the story may have evolved into legend over time, Bob Gill was onto something fundamental.

For 4 simple reasons:

1) Quantity is the most predictable path to quality because quantity forces you to expand your range of thinking. Many designers fail to create original and compelling ideas because they generate so few ideas and then obsess about refining those few to "perfection."

2) By showing a broad range of possibilities, you can prime your audience for creativity—setting them up to focus on what's possible rather than critiquing and narrowing the focus.

3) With choice, we eliminate ideas that don't fit or work. Creativity flourishes when there is criticism. Dissenting options help people choose with confidence.

4) By showing process, you inherently interweave familiar and comfortable ideas with divergent or challenging opinions. Starting with something unexpected and adding something familiar increases the likelihood of groups choosing more creative and original ideas.

Designers who show their process and share many ideas easily let go of individual solutions because they are confident in the process rather than a specific answer.

As Bob Gill once said, "No matter how many times your amazing, absolutely brilliant work is rejected by the client for whatever dopey, arbitrary reason, there is often another amazing, absolutely brilliant solution possible... Sometimes it's even better."