Do you know what you want for lunch?

What do you want to eat for lunch today? Maybe you know what you want, but maybe you don't.  If you don't know what you want, then is your plan to just eliminate what you don't want?

Do you want pizza...no.  Do you want salad...no.  Do you want burgers...no. OK, then what DO you want?

So now, instead of lunch, substitute the decision for a creative web design or copy-writing project,. You know you need to have something, but you aren't sure what you want. All you can do is say what you do NOT like when you see it. Now keep in mind, this is a resource-intensive, timeline-specific, costly request and deliverable. This isn't shopping for shoes. And if it were, for every hour you spent shopping for shoes the price of the shoes you eventually choose would go up every hour. I'd hope you know what shoes you are looking for if that were the case. Doing this in the professional world is just as inefficient and costly. 

At least know what you are looking for. Provide some guidelines, parameters, etc..anything.

If you can't do that...then I worry that you might not know what to do with anything that you get....only after you realize that it might be want you want. 

Know what I mean? Don't agree? Don't like it? Then what's your suggestion?