seen from Mexico
seen from Malaysia
seen from Austria
seen from United States
seen from Maldives
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Maldives
seen from Germany
seen from Maldives
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Romania
seen from Romania
seen from France
Client: I need labels designed. I want them really bold and colorful. I want them to really stand out on the shelves. Really noticeable. I like colors. You can use your design skills from there. We are on shelves competing against hundreds of brands so it needs to stand out and be legible.
Me: Great! What colors would you like to use?
Client: Beige.
Client: Here’s my drawing for the logo, just make it professional.
I created a more eye-catching and logical take on his blurry drawing idea and sent it to him.
Client: That isn’t my sketch. Use what I sent you.
I pulled his actual .jpg into Illustrator and smoothed the lines, sent back his own drawing larger and cleaner.
Client: That still isn’t my sketch. Why are you making this harder than it has to be? I did all the work for you already. I sent it to you, it’s done.
Me: Can you tell me what I am allowed to change about this in order to make it better, then?
Client: Nothing! I just want that, professionalized!
In case any of you have the fortune of working with this man, “professionalizing” turned out to mean “slightly increasing the brightness and contrast of the actual blurry .jpg and emailing it back.”
My cousin asked me to make a business website for a machinery/fabrication start-up.
Me: Sure, I can make you a professional business site, give you a business e-mail and everything. I typically charge $500, but I’ll do it for $300 since you’re family.
Client: Oh, so you can’t make a free Yahoo website and use my Gmail address?
Me: You’re trying to jumpstart a business. You want to give a good impression to someone wanting to get your service. That kind of website doesn’t give that impression.
Client: Well, I used to make them. I’ll maybe do that as it’s easier. If I can’t, I’ll let you know.
Never heard back from him about it. This same cousin thinks it’s suitable to give someone $10 in gas money to drive 150 miles and give them a ride to an airport. This is also someone who will buy a $1 transistor to repair a motherboard off a 10-year-old computer because he doesn’t want to buy a new modern PC or a $100 replacement motherboard.
The worst part? He isn’t cheap. He drives a $50,000 Toyota Tundra around and makes more than I do at his engineering job.
If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be sobbing in the corner.
Client: I don't like your cool new design. Go back to the old crappy one and live in mediocrity.
Okay, I made this up. But it speaks to a DEEPER TRUTH.
I had a client ask me to design a visual identity for their website. They sent me a bunch of files including a 200x200 logo. It looked very simple and somewhat familiar - just stretched text with a gradient on it.
Me: Hey, I got your files, but can you ask your designer to send me a better version of your logo. The one you sent is really low quality.
Client: Oh, I made it myself. I am quite proud of it. But, yeah, give me a couple of minutes and you’ll have the original file.
The original design was a .doc file. They made it in WordArt.
Got a poster design job. The client worked for someone who was converting their nightclub to a restaurant.
Client: We need a poster done, and a double-sided flyer so we can pass out, and we need it tomorrow. We want it to be fashionable and trendy.
It was 9pm when I got the message.
Me: It’s not possible. I need more time than that.
Client: Ok, the latest we can do is the day after tomorrow.
Me: I will try my best. Please give me the info you want on there along with examples of designs you want.
Client: Here’s our logo, and here’s some text we might change. Make it scream fashion!
Me: Have you not finalized that? We don’t have much time.
Client: We’ll finalize it tomorrow.
Me: …
I made a design I really liked, sent it through the next day.
Client: This is not fashionable.
Makes another one, sent that night.
Client: Still not fashionable!
Me: Okay, can you give me an example of what’s “fashionable” so I have a better idea of what you mean?
The client sends me this tacky poster, I hated it, but I made something like that.
Client: My boss said no to this one. Here are the images he sent.
The Images that were sent were old posters when it was a club: lens flare, dancing girls, table service…
I did what I was asked.
Client: Ok, boss approved. Good job!
I got paid, but I died a little.
I work on a design as discussed. Client gives me a deadline of a few weeks from now. I complete some concepts and I’m just about to send them off when I get this email:
Client: We had a look online and have come up with a design which I think we are going to go for. I’m not great with computers but we had to get something quickly so we worked until 5am putting it together.
Client shows me their design, created using clip art and crazy fonts, likely created with a free website and google images.
Me: Um… ok. I do have some concepts here that I’ve already completed.
Client: Oh we don’t need them. We like what we made ourselves
I come across the printed version of the client’s design and it’s a combination of misaligned and poor quality bits and pieces, coupled with emojis within the text and about 8 different typefaces. There were also clearly bleed and margin issues as well.
There’s a reason we get paid to do this work.
I was doing an ad for a company. They wanted to show that they provide excellent customer service.
I chose a stock image of a smiling woman standing at a desk, in an office with a headset on. The image projected everything the client said they were looking for: open, friendly, approachable, helpful, etc. I did the ad with their tagline and logo. Easy job – or so I thought.
Client: We don’t like her in the office, can you have her outdoors? What about changing the color of her hair? Not crazy about blondes. Can she be by a car or van instead? Take off her headset, she doesn’t look professional. We don’t like her dress, can you put her in something more casual, like a tennis outfit? I think if she were more “mom-like,” our customers would connect with her better. Her eyes are too blue and she looks too sexy. Make her plainer and change her eye color.
It didn’t stop there.
