Client: I like the top of the page, but under that it's all just white. Can we change that? 

Me: Okay, do you want a different color or pattern under the text?

Client: I want photos everywhere so it all looks as good as the top.

Me: We can do that, but you have a lot of text. Putting it over photos might make it less legible.

Client: If the photo looks good, people won't mind spending more time reading the text. 

A client asked for sales page copy. They sent a very precise template from a marketing guru which I spent three hours dissecting and followed exactly. I used copywriting standards while maintaining the brand voice i.e. lead with benefit, focus on the customer, concise text, call to action, etc.

They didn't respond at all. Eventually, their business partner reached out and told me "that's not exactly what she wants. I'm having the previous copywriter send you a template."

Me: Great! Happy to take feedback

Those templates:  FOURTEEN PAGES  of drivel, mostly talking about the client.

I spent a couple hours basically just free-writing anything that came to mind and delivered four pages of "inspiration porn."

Client: I love it! Can you add in these 4 other things about me?

I'm getting paid but I will never include these in my portfolio.

I am working with some clients that asked for a logo and provided me samples for inspiration.

I handed a concept to them. They come back with my logo, but remade in PowerPoint with PowerPoint effects on it.

Client: Fix it. 

This was a few years ago now, but I still can't believe it happened.

Me: What do you think? 

Client: Hey, you're the expert! That's why I hired you! I think it's important to listen to the experts. 

Me: Okay, great.

Client: But what if we made the text orange, and the background teal? Go for that "Michael Bay" thing. 

Me: That would be visually overwhelming. 

Client: I know you're an expert, but so is Michael Bay. 

A client asked me to put together a short promotional video for their business. 

Client: I thought it would be nice to include a "credits" reel with all my employees.

Nice thought. Except the credits were twice as long as the actual video which was meant to be sent to other businesses. 

Client: I find this black text on a white background really hard on my eyes. How about green on blue? I think that's much more calming for people. 

I work for a small newspaper and this is my day , most days. 

Sales rep: Please use attached art to resize their ad.

They they upload a Word doc with an embedded jpeg.

Me: That's not usable. 

Sales Rep: (usually about 6 hours later) Well, that's all they sent me.

Me: OK, can you ask for just the logo? I will reset the type but the logo is too low resolution to print.

Sales Rep: Let me see what I can find on the internet. 

Me: Anything you find on the internet will probably too low resolution.

Sales Rep: Well, then use what they sent us.

Me: The art they sent is too low resolution.  Please ask the client for a higher resolution logo. A PDF, or at least 300dpi PNG. Please. We've been over this so many times, with so many clients. Just ask them for the right thing. 

Sales Rep: Well that's the best art they probably have.

And then I have have to contact the client directly and find the one person who knows that they have a PSD file with editable text. Every time. 

WHY. Why does everyone make this so hard?

A client hired me for a photo shoot of her and her family in the fall. She had to reschedule a number of times and we began to run out of time to shoot on season. Finally, we figured out a day that worked for her whole family and we shot it in the local park.

Client: The photos are great but I wish there were more leaves on the trees. I really wanted that warm autumn coloring.

Me:  I can definitely do a bit of re-touching to pump up the colors.

I went ahead and did that.

Client: Oh, great! I love them! So warm and beautiful.

A few days later, she added me on Facebook and I saw that she posted the pictures.

She put a blue Instagram filter on all of them.

Back when I started at my current job in construction, I never expected to use any of my graphic or design training, However, when our company started doing more charity type work eventually it got out that I was semi-competent with some design software and I became the guy who designed the posters/flyers/etc for client companies without assets. 

It was, and still is really enjoyable to use my skills to help, but one thing really sticks in my mind as a perfectly legal revenge story.

One of the first things I worked on was a mock-up poster for a local council. They were running an event for our charity partners. They sent over any resources they could find and it was a typical mash of some really low-res pictures with nonsensical text but I soldiered on.

After trashing my original artsy draft they settled on the mockup with pretty solid color choices and a nice clean layout (Which looking back I now much prefer). That was a good first step, but what you need to understand is that this was only a mockup to be finished later - the assets were unfinished, text was not aligned correctly, the works. 

As you can probably guess, they steamrolled ahead with the mockup anyway saying it would do, and it went to print. To this day, and with bitter glee, I still enjoy seeing they are using one of the assets I created for that mockup, the "high res" logo. See, it was actually a scan taken of an old newspaper, from back when they did a cover piece on the council.

I shrunk down a high res scan and used that as my placeholder for their logo (the original sent during the project was a 200kb jpg). But it still has the dots from the printing press visible, they rushed ahead before letting me vectorize it. 

And now, every letter they send out, any time they bill another company or provide a "high-res" logo copy, they send my 10-year-old newspaper scan. And, everytime I see those tiny dots I smile a little.

I could tell them. I could send the vectored one and tell people, I made that when I see it. But instead, I leave them using the crappy one and remind myself to use a watermark on any mockups. 

Client: There's too much white space on this postcard! I don't like it.

Me: Well, white space isn't a bad thing.

Client: I want it filled up with text. NO whitespace! 

Me: Well, on the edges there isn't enough room to have text.

Client: Well, drop it down to 5 pt. font and write vertically. I HATE whitespace.