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Clients are idiots

Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
jtinker said:
You have no idea how many questions were brought up in the office. I was talking with the husband. He was cool with the design and he sends his wife and her sister over to confirm. She sits over my shoulder and makes it look like what she sent us, which was something she had actually created in Microsoft word. I thought it was just for reference. Nope!
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God, this happened to me a month ago. Real-estate lady sent over artwork for a sign. She tried to get around the art charge by sending me a PDF (which was actually a Publisher file saved as PDF) and the spacing and sizes were all over the place. I thought she was wanting me to use that as a base, so I took what she had and tuned the layout to look somewhat professional and sent it back to her. She reply back with a nasty, attitude e-mail saying she wants it EXACTLY how she had it and that I sent her something that didn't look like that at all. "Please produce exactly what I sent you."

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr......
 
Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
Also, at the bottom of my proofs states in big, bold red letters "Please review this proof carefully! Spelling and phone numbers are your responsibility"

I had to do 20+ signs for some golf tournament, each having its own logo (which about half were no good) and then this large sign that listed ALL the sponsors that we changed about 10 times. ONE of the sponsors on the top of the sign had the wrong word in it added during one of the revisions. The customer emails me this afternoon saying "WE HAVE A PROBLEM" in the subject line. "It's supposed to be XYZ company, not ABC company like how I had in the e-mail" and he proceeds to copy and paste that line for me to see my mistake.


Oh Yea a** f***? what about MY disclosure of PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY...that trumps YOURS d*** wad ass clown!!! (I did not say this)
 
Johnny Best

Johnny Best

Active Member
If you got paid for what you did then you should be happy. Idiot is a strong word to call someone.
Have some Peas Soup.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: Bly
Fuel Media

Fuel Media

New Member
At the end of the day the client is happy and you got payed so you can put pea soup on the table to feed your family ....
My bigest question is : Why is there shutterstock in the chef ?? hahaha
 

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DrCAS

DrCAS

New Member
You know why this bothered you so much? Because a lot of people take it way too personally. We all provide a service. Some of us are better at what do than others. Bottom line, we are in business to provide what our clients want. regard of our opinions.

Look... You make a design, a sign, whatever and then it goes out the door... You make never see it again. Your client, however, has to look at it every day... Week after week.

I agree that calling your client is an idiot is not cool... regardless of how you might perceive them.
 
I

ikarasu

Active Member
I had a real estate company want a vertical sign made. Its for Macdonald, so it has to be a certain layout... Not much white space to work with on them.

Realtor #1, realtor #2, phone #1, phone #2, email #1, email #2, website, and a photo of each.

I stared at the tiny space for ten minutes trying to figure out wtf to do. I'm not a graphics designer... I do help with simple proofs for real estate since we've been busy, so I was clueless.

I put all the info onto the artboard... Shrunk it down to see how small it'd be.. and it was tiny. I thought screw it... Did it anyways. Sent a note with the proof saying the text is pretty small, so I'm also doing a different version with just two pictures, the website, and their phone numbers.

They chose the one with all the information... Printed off the 10 copies... Then a week later all the signs are returned because the font is too small to read. Said they wanted all the information there, but they want the text bigger. I asked how they would like that done... There was almost no white space, the pictures were already tiny... I squished everything in with kerning as much as I could without making it look bad.. well, worst than it could.

They didn't know... They just wanted it done. I told them I would refer them to our senior graphics designer, and dumped it on his lap :) I never did reprint them.. so I'm guessing he got through to them somehow.

But either way... Customer wants what the customer wants. That's why we have proofs... So when they bring it to their store and realize its way too much information, and makes their shop look bad.... You can tell them they accepted the proof, even after the warning...
 
Rick

Rick

Certified Enneadecagon Designer
There are idiot clients... you're supposed to fire them.

This is NOT an idiot client. Your work on this particular project is marginal at best. When you show marginal work, you open up the idea that the client can do better than you. This is the result. Making the client happy is not part of the design process, selling a sign is.

Do better work... you will look like an expert, maybe then they will take your advice. If they don't - fire them or take the money and never have it in your portfolio.
 
B

bannertime

Active Member
Texas_Signmaker said:
God, this happened to me a month ago. Real-estate lady sent over artwork for a sign. She tried to get around the art charge by sending me a PDF (which was actually a Publisher file saved as PDF) and the spacing and sizes were all over the place. I thought she was wanting me to use that as a base, so I took what she had and tuned the layout to look somewhat professional and sent it back to her. She reply back with a nasty, attitude e-mail saying she wants it EXACTLY how she had it and that I sent her something that didn't look like that at all. "Please produce exactly what I sent you."

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr......
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I'm pretty sure I've worked with that same lady.
 
U

unclebun

Active Member
I'll just throw this out there. It may just be that the customer has been around for a while and knows that if the sign is done with photos and full color and the logo has 4CP artwork in it, every piece of marketing material, every piece of equipment or uniform or menus or menu boards has to be done at much higher cost. And it may be that the place is a tiny hole-in-the-wall that is portraying a certain older vibe. So the first design may not have fit them at all, and the second fits better. And can be reproduced cheaper.
 
neato

neato

New Member
unclebun said:
I'll just throw this out there. It may just be that the customer has been around for a while and knows that if the sign is done with photos and full color and the logo has 4CP artwork in it, every piece of marketing material, every piece of equipment or uniform or menus or menu boards has to be done at much higher cost.
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That has traditionally been the thought process in the industry, but with the low cost of full color printing, it's really not a factor anymore. Of course, the customer may need to be educated.
 
Texas_Signmaker

Texas_Signmaker

Very Active Signmaker
TimToad said:
We all have. The dilemma we face is gaining our client's trust, knowing when we have, knowing when we haven't and knowing when we never will.
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Luckily she wasn't really "my client". I used to hate the sponsor signs that involve many different company logos was too much of a pain to deal with. The sponsors usually send the organizers crap logos. I tell the organizer if they get bad logos to just give me their contact info and I'll reach out to each company to figure it out. I figured out that I can gain new customers this way, usually good customers that have a heart and $$ to donate to whatever cause they bought into. Gets my company name out there usually to the owner and now that I have their logo, it's easy for them to want to give me a shot at their sign work.

That real estate was not one that I enjoyed.
 
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