Clients from Hell

After a particularly aggravating project was completed…

Client: Do you guys accept chocolate, flowers, coffee, or happy hour coupons?

Me: Uh, we prefer the price quoted on our invoice…

Client: Oh, I know! I just think I need to give you an extra treat for dealing with all this crap.

Editor’s Note: Didn’t see that coming.  

I have a client who wants a logo. 

He explained what he wanted, something along the theme of ‘light’.

I did a dozen designs along the theme of ‘light’. 

He didn’t like any of them. 

I did a dozen more. 

He didn’t like any of them.

He then changed the brief.

He now wanted something that signified ‘global’.

I did a dozen designs.

He didn’t like any of them.

I did a dozen more.

He didn’t like any of them.

Then he emailed me the logo of an internationally-known company, that consists of blue and grey lines, and said this is what he wants.

 I pressed him for more detail about what aspects of it he liked. 

“All of it” he said, “don’t change a thing, just use this as it is.”

 I explained that he couldn’t just steal some other company’s logo. There would be legal consequences.

 “Well, can we change enough of it to ensure we don’t get busted?”

 “Sure”, I say. “I’ll send you some variations on that theme.”

I did a dozen designs.

He didn’t like any of them.

I did a dozen more.

He didn’t like any of them. 

Finally, in desperation, I did some designs that got as close as possible to the logo he liked, without being exactly the same. The biggest difference was that my design was in red and yellow.

 He phoned me, and said he liked them. His absolute favorite was the one that was closest of all.

 “OK”, I said, by now utterly resigned to the inevitable.

 “But I don’t really like the colours”, he said. “Can we try some other colours?”

 “Sure”, I say. “You can have any colours you like, as long as it’s not blue and grey.”

“Can we have aqua and a light shade of black?”

 This has to be my most difficult client: he’s enthusiastic, friendly, and is paying me (handsomely) as we go along. He’s just an idiot. At least with angry clients who disagree with you, the scenario can end anytime with a slammed down phone. But this is the client who won’t go away, won’t listen to a word of advice, and I can’t afford to fire him. After the logo, he wants a website. At least if he gives me an aneurysm, I’ll be able to afford it. 

A client requested I design a calendar. She wanted some of her favourite quotes from philosophers on each page. She asked me to credit the quotes she couldn’t remember the speaker for. Eleven of the months were all philosophy luminaries. March was Optimus Prime. 

I ask clients to send me five websites that they like or otherwise inspire them. My most recent client has a big construction company in the city. When I received the five sites he liked, they where all porn. Very hardcore porn.

Me: What aspect of the site do you like here?

Client: The women.

Me: I don’t think it would be appropriate for your work site.

Client: God no. None of these sites have anything you could use for my work site.

Me: Then why did you send them?

Client: I thought we were getting to know one another.

First-class client

On the phone with a client.

Me: If you could send me some digital photographs of the property, that would be great.

Client: Okay, I’ll send them tomorrow first class!

Me: First class?

Client: Yeah, I’ll put them on a memory stick tonight and put it in the post first thing tomorrow

Honest Marketing or Low Self-Esteem?

Working on the marketing campaign for a new hospitality-related business:

Client: The writeup looks great, but maybe you can dial it back a little. Don’t put too much emphasis on the quality. For example, don’t use words like “excellent”, just say “good”. 

Me: Okay, I can make the changes to the text. What about the images?

Client: Oh yes, the guy looks too happy. Can you make his expression more neutral? We don’t want people to have too much expectations.

Me: Alright, but that’s the only image you provided. 

Client: I don’t mind if you Photoshop it. Just less happiness in general.

Improbable, but not impossible

As my company’s graphic designer, I took the time to standardize our email signatures. I included our logo as a base64 encoded gif. This method automatically generated a random 8-character name viewable by non-HTML email clients as a downloadable attachment. It was brought to my attention that, in a company-wide email blast and out of 209-billion possible file names, the file was called: ‘fagbadge.gif’.

I quickly followed up with another company-wide email stating it was not of my or anyone else’s doing.

Luckily the email didn’t go to any clients. That would have been hell…

I was meeting with a client for a logo design and I made some quick pencil sketches as he described what he wanted. I showed him my thumbnails to see if it was going in the right direction.

Client: I love it! So how do we make this a logo to start putting on things? Take a high-res picture and save it as an RTF or something?

I had

a client

who typed

every

single

e-mail

like

this.