N.C. Winters is always drawing. When he isn't making comics, doodling or working as a freelance graphic artist, he spends his time painting pretty pictures for galleries from his home studio in sunny southern California.
As a web designer, many times clients believe they don’t know what they want, until they actually see something. It is very important that you try to gather as much information as possible before beginning your project. It will be worth the extra effort to tactfully seem a little pushy in getting some likes/dislikes.
Oh and this same thing even happens with family. Think about when you are going out to eat and trying to pick a place. “Where would you like to eat?” is asked. “Anywhere is fine.” — all sounds good, until a place is suggested and the common response is, “no, not there.” Too funny!
I lettered a comic for a client once and after asking all kinds of questions and making sure deadlines were set right and expectations about delivery were settled I asked what font they used. I had a cache of stuff I used regularly but would always make a purchase if they had something specific. They did so I went and got it. They saw the lettered page and said, “This isn’t the font we wanted.” Oh, well, good thing I spent $20 on it. They ended up going with a free font I suggested earlier.
I am going to open a restaurant and call if the “Freelance Cafe” — then when people come into eat we are going to serve them “creative culinary dishes” that we really like — so our client patrons just need to eat what we serve them like it or not because all that matters is if we like it. They just have to pay us and also tip us for our service. So what if they are Vegetarian — damn it, they will eat our creatively prepared beef dish and pay us for the privilege! And if they are Jewish, they’ll eat pork if we feel that is the creative plate we need to serve them. Fish on Fridays for Catholics, no way — that is a cliche, they’ll eat our chicken masterpiece and go to hell. Diabetics… too bad, “sugar” is a creatively better, so they can eat our sugar apple pie and die. People allergic to nuts, hey as long as they pay before they might wheeze to death, they can learn to suffer for our culinary art. So what would you like for lunch? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Don’t make me laugh — that shows how simple minded you are when it comes to culinary art. You will have our fried eel and walrus testicle Pièce de résistance de jour. Bona petittie.
So true, the amount of clients that have done this to me is unbeliveable.
I did one once, they said, just do whatever you want. So did. Then they came back to me and said “Its a bit simplistic”.
Clients, who needs them?
Yep, all too familiar. I have a former client who did this exact same thing to me. He was short of blaming me for his pre-existing logo!
I really like the Freelance Freedom comics, please keep up the good work! Thanks
Awful. I hate this. Always brings me right to the edge of killing my customer with a stapler.
Absolutely true!
As a web designer, many times clients believe they don’t know what they want, until they actually see something. It is very important that you try to gather as much information as possible before beginning your project. It will be worth the extra effort to tactfully seem a little pushy in getting some likes/dislikes.
Oh and this same thing even happens with family. Think about when you are going out to eat and trying to pick a place. “Where would you like to eat?” is asked. “Anywhere is fine.” — all sounds good, until a place is suggested and the common response is, “no, not there.” Too funny!
Moral: Gather information wherever possible.
I lettered a comic for a client once and after asking all kinds of questions and making sure deadlines were set right and expectations about delivery were settled I asked what font they used. I had a cache of stuff I used regularly but would always make a purchase if they had something specific. They did so I went and got it. They saw the lettered page and said, “This isn’t the font we wanted.” Oh, well, good thing I spent $20 on it. They ended up going with a free font I suggested earlier.
One reason why I refuse to work on projects that don’t have any direction.
Clients who let you have freedom only seem like good clients until you present the work to them…
The three morals of this story are feedback, feedback and feedback!
Manage your client so that they can regularly see progress and provide input from as early on in the design process as reasonable.
Its these types of people that are the worst imo…
so true!
I am going to open a restaurant and call if the “Freelance Cafe” — then when people come into eat we are going to serve them “creative culinary dishes” that we really like — so our client patrons just need to eat what we serve them like it or not because all that matters is if we like it. They just have to pay us and also tip us for our service. So what if they are Vegetarian — damn it, they will eat our creatively prepared beef dish and pay us for the privilege! And if they are Jewish, they’ll eat pork if we feel that is the creative plate we need to serve them. Fish on Fridays for Catholics, no way — that is a cliche, they’ll eat our chicken masterpiece and go to hell. Diabetics… too bad, “sugar” is a creatively better, so they can eat our sugar apple pie and die. People allergic to nuts, hey as long as they pay before they might wheeze to death, they can learn to suffer for our culinary art. So what would you like for lunch? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Don’t make me laugh — that shows how simple minded you are when it comes to culinary art. You will have our fried eel and walrus testicle Pièce de résistance de jour. Bona petittie.