Client: I want this product to have a quality assurance badge.

Me: Do you have approval from a quality control agency?

Client: No. We want you to make a fictional one.

Me: Okay… do you have an idea of what you want it to look like?

They send me their existing website. There is already a made-up “SEAL OF QUALITY” on their products.

Client: Basically I just want you to change the color on what we already have.

Me: Look, I’m not totally sure this is legal.

Client: THIS BADGE IS THE CORNERSTONE OF OUR BUSINESS. IT WILL MAKE EVERYONE ZERO IN ON OUR PRODUCT AND BUY IT.

Client: Could you change the cover image on our Facebook page to one that shows off our new product?

Me: Sure, no problem. It’s done.

Client: I hate it! It doesn’t show the detail properly.

Me: OK. Well, I don’t have any other original images of that product. If you really hate it, I can change it back to the previous picture for now and arrange for a photographer to come and take some shots in store next week.

Client: Oh, I can’t be bothered with that. Can’t you just Google the product and take a photo off the internet? Who’s going to know? It’s only one picture.

I was particularly surprised at her response as this client had just sent her lawyer after one of her competitors who had ripped off the cover design of her brochure. Litigious AND negligent of copyright – a winning competition.

I put decals and vinyl on cars. A client got me to cover his car in graphics that would make the Scooby-Doo gang blush  — just absolutely covered.

A week later he came back. 

Client: Yeah, these aren’t working for me anymore. Take ‘em off. And I don’t think i need to tell you I’m not paying for it. 

I negotiated with him a bit and took them off for a much lower price than I normally would.

A week later he was involved in a hit and run. After robbing a store. 

So yeah, I can see why maybe he didn’t want distinguishing marks on there.

A client wanted me to illustrate a children’s book. We met a few times in person in public places and she seemed to be a reasonable person. SEEMED.

Client: Would you mind working at my house for a day? I have office space you could use and that way I can give you feedback right away.

Me: Um… okay. I don’t see why not.

After driving an hour and a half to her home she set me up in an office space. She worked on some things in the same space, and I drew, and it was actually fine. The only thing was she didn’t actually give any feedback, which was ostensibly the reason for me to work there.

When her kids came back from school, she left me alone to keep working. I kept at it, and when I finished something I was working on I went to the door, only to discover that I was LOCKED IN. It was a glass door and I could see the keys dangling from the other side, which told me this was intentional. The office was two storeys up, and there was no way out.

I banged on the door until she came back.

Client: I’m sorry! I locked the door so my kids wouldn’t bother you.

Me: You left the keys in the door. They could get in, but I couldn’t get out.

Client: …Well at least these drawings look great!

Client: Make sure I’m able to access all my site’s users passwords.

Me: That’s not ethical, or a good idea. Also, the passwords are hashed and stored in a database somewhere, so we really can’t see them. 

Client:  I need to see how they’re using the site, so I need their passwords to login to their account to roam around in their account area.

Me: I really can’t recommend that, and their are other ways to access their use patterns without breaking their trust.

Client: Look, I’m paying you to do this. Get those passwords. 

I took on a client who said that he needed a “Vintage” illustrative style for a t-shirt design company he wanted to launch. We discussed the concept being a boy being rescued by two firefighters in an homage to the Chicago Fire Dept.

Client: I want you do to a “vintage” illustration style for my t-shirt company.

Me: Great!

Client: So, for this first design, I want a young boy being rescued by two firefighters, as an homage to the Chicago Fire Dept.

Me: (after doing a draft) Something like this?

Client: That’s great! But try to make the firefighters sexy, you know?

Me: Okay!

Client: And maybe they shouldn’t be wearing shirts.

Me: Okay.

Client: And one of them should be really old and hairy.

Me: …Okay?

Client: And try to make it so that the child looks terrified and vulnerable.

Me: ….

For the record, judging by the reference photos he sent, “terrified and vulnerable” meant “practically naked.” I’m not proud of this, but I needed the money. I did the design, creating his pseudo-CP fetish shirt design.

Then he decided it “wasn’t viable” and refused to pay me. I’m equal parts mortified and broke, and I have tons of images on my hard drive that are questionable at best. UGH.

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Me: I wanted to talk to you about the images you want on your site – they’re the first google image results, and they’re not royalty-free. Do you have permission to use these images? 

Client: Not all of them. Okay, I don’t want to end up in hot water. Use the ones you can and leave the ones that are off limits to us. 

Me: The onus remains on the client to provide correct images before I start building the website. It is not my job to sift through 100s of photos to decide which ones are copyright infringement and which ones you have permission to use. Only YOU would know that.

I run a small cyber security firm. I was doing some work for a client who asked me to do some compliance work. After waiting about a week and a half for my contact within the organization to email me some important documents so I could get started in the first place, I got this email:

Client: Hey, before we get started, could you give us a “seal of approval” saying we comply with these standards?  I want to be able to send them to some of our customers.

Me: Well, I can’t give you that until I’ve actually done that work. Telling people that you’re compliant to a certain standard, and then accepting information that is protected under that standard before you actually are is illegal. And, frankly, unethical.

After some back and forth:

Client: I don’t think this relationship is going to work, I’m sorry.

Not an optimal conclusion, but at least that was that. Or so I thought.  

Two weeks later I got an email from a different company asking about this client’s compliance standards. I informed them that I had not actually done any work for this client and so could not comment.

That’s when they told me I was lying, because this client had an image on their site that declared “Secured by” ME. I checked, and sure enough, there it was. That’s when I decided to get back in touch.

Me: Immediately take down the image saying that I say you meet security compliance standards. I did not do that work, I do not stand by your compliance, and your false attribution could hurt my business.

Client: We made the image, it’s ours to do with as we like.

Me: …Are you serious?

Client: Yes.

I’ve contacted my lawyer.

A potential client from a huge corporate meat plant called me.

Client: I need you to design tickets for an event. 

Me: Great! What’s the event?

Client: I want to sell tickets to a football game, but this game is only in our minds, it’s pretend. You know how Mickey Mouse is only pretend?

Me: Yeah, I underst-

Client: (cuts me off) It’s like that, it won’t actually happen. It’s a game between the “University of [meat plant]” and [actual NFL team].

Me: Do you have permission to use that-

Client: (cuts me off) The event will be on August 32nd, everyone will buy tickets to the game, buy t-shirts, the works! Since it’s an impossible date, the other team won’t show up, which means they will forfeit AND WE’LL WIN!

Me: No.

Client: Why not?

Me: It’s literally a scam, you don’t have permission for all of this, and you cut me off every time I sp-

Client: Please?

I fix computers occasionally.

Client: Do you look at my data?

Me: Not usually, unless it’s part of the issue I’m working on.

Client: But, there’s client confidentiality, right? You wouldn’t find something and tell the cops, right?

I didn’t take the job.