I just worked with the least decisive client I’ve ever had, an attorney who wanted me to design an ad campaign for them to be used on Facebook and social media. 

They wanted “edgy and very memorable” so I gave them that. 

Me: Here’s the mockups for the series of 8 ads.

Client: Oh dear lord no, none of these are acceptable.

Me: You said edgy, and I gave you edgy but still tasteful.

Client: I meant change the font.

So, I toned it down, resubmitted to them, and waited. A few days go by and then I’m suddenly bombarded with revisions, which is something they’ve never ever done anything close to before. And then there are revisions on the revisions before I can even get around to doing the 1st set….

Next thing I know, another client clued me in on a secret Facebook group the attorney created and invited literally dozens of lawyers to suggest revisions. The attorney threw the raw designs open to the group and was literally sending me every revision suggestion they made.

Me: So, about the revisions. I won’t do design by committee, especially a committee of dozens of lawyers.

Client: But I thought you’d appreciate it. I open-sourced the design. 

I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I’m still dumbfounded.

I was working on a website redesign for a client, staying within their existing themes and plugins, after various delays back and forth from both sides during design phase, I managed to push through the bulk of the dev work and get the site near-ready inside of 5 days. All it needed was the copy from the client (as had been requested multiple times) and it was good to go.

Me: Here are the links to the preview pages as per the agreed design, it’s almost ready to go live, if someone can send me the copy for the pages I can get these live this evening.

Client: (three days later) this has taken too long, it’s now way past deadline, I’m very disappointed, I’m canceling the project.

I followed up with an email explaining that all that was needed was the copy and I could have live that same day, but respected their decision and wished them all the best if they still wanted to cancel. No reply, left it there.

Two weeks later, I see their site had a basic “site under construction” page in place (something my work avoided). Three months later their new site launched with a basic overused theme, inconsistent font sizes and styles, spelling errors, poorly laid out content with 12pt text sprawling edge to edge of the screen, nav menus that run over into 2 lines, etc. I think (and hope) it was a DIY job, if not, they got ripped off.

For a week now I have been designing food label templates for the local bakeries. I've put in a lot of effort for them to look professional; I made stylish illustrations, used professional fonts like Lobster and Bernier, and, and carefully balanced elements like calorie information with the main selling points. 

Last Friday: 

Client: Get rid of the pics and put it all in Comic Sans.

I lost my faith in humanity that day.

Client: Let’s put all of the sponsors on the home page instead of on a "sponsors" page, so they know they’re important when they see our website.

He wanted those logos to be large, hyperlinked images. At the top of the home page.

He didn’t want any anchor links, either, so the only way to access the other content was by scrolling down manually. 

I want to kill myself.

I'm the teacher that puts all the basketball sponsors on the scoreboard during games at the high school. The gymnasium scoreboard isn't exactly high-res, so image size is usually not a problem. 

Except when a local car dealership (owned by a student's parent) sent us .gif that was 60 x 31 pixels.

Me: Hi! Could you send me a higher resolution version of your ad for the scoreboard? This one is too small and will show up blurry.

Client: That's okay, just use that one.

Three days later after the first home basketball game...

Client: My son told me that the logo is so blurry that you can't even read the name! I WANT THIS CORRECTED IMMEDIATELY.

Angry responses come like clockwork.

I took on a rebranding project for a IT software company. After initial meetings and a 'brief' (if it can be called that) I provided 16 initial logo concepts.

Client: I don't like them. I don't want an icon, just letters.

Me: Okay. How about I send you a feedback questionnaire so you can let me know exactly what you're looking for?

I regret my choice:

Look at the top logos - what don't you like about it? *

Yes, 2 favourites of a bad lot.

It looks embarrassed for itself. Small, please don’t look at me. Possibly something to do with a child’s toy/ learning aid. It’s barely there, barely a logo. It’s odd the way the r and the b are the same colours and the a different.
Score: -1 out of 10

I’m bored, seen it before in the 1990s eg bmi airlines, Bira. It has no life, no excitement, zero creativity. In the first chapter of Creating Logos Manual, printed in 1990.
Can’t be bothered to talk about it or think about it.
Score: 0 out of 10

Do you prefer upper case text or lower case? *

All these logos are very poor indeed so I don’t care if they are in lower or upper case.
Nothing coming through to me here.

Are there any elements of the above 8 logos you would like to see incorporated into the first 2 logos above? *

No.
You need to be more creative, sympathetic to the company you are designing for.
A logo liked and recognised by customers is a very hard won thing. Why change to something worse?
The current logo has nice colours, clearly states the name of the company, has an interesting, eye catching symbol that has been used in marketing brochures, posters etc. Now we would like something fresh, something 2020, something exciting.
I have written a brief of the company and sent it to Jon. Hope that is useful for you.

Bear in mind that the client's company name was 3 letters, we provided 16 logos in total and received no constructive feedback. And, yes, their current logo looks like it was designed in paint. 

At this point I decided it was best we terminated our working relationship. Thank god I got a deposit. 

The client sent me animated gifs to be used at the end of a broadcast sponsor banner spot. That's bad enough, but the gif didn't fit the template. I tweaked it to fit.

Client: We don't like it. Please do it closer to this proof.

The proof had the gif going outside the template.

Me: It has to be tweaked to fit.

Client: No, don't tweak it at all.

Me: ...Tell you what. here are the dimensions they gave me. If you can fit something in there, great.

Suddenly my original proof was perfectly fine and approved.

Actually a very, very good experience, but still made me speechless ...

Me: So here are designs for your new website. I'm open to your comments and ideas if there are any.

Client: No corrections needed, we're happy with design since it "looks like a website".

... and that was the only feedback on quite a big web project. Paid in whole, without any revisions. To be honest with you, I'm still waiting for someone to scream "Hidden camera!".

I'm a designer, and I did a wedding invitation design for free for a family member. I was even going to pay for the printing as a gift. It was beautiful, hand-lettered, custom art inspired by their wedding flowers and colors...and then after not hearing from them for a few days after submitting the draft I get this:

Client: It's really pretty, but it's missing the character that this one has!

They sent me a picture of an invite clearly made from some online generator by two people who have no idea how to design invitations, in dimensions my printer can't readily print.

Client: I guess the fonts are just really hard to do...

The font they loved so much from the generator was a Google font.

Don't work for family.