Graphic Designer’s nightmares
In my free
time I work as a graphic designer maybe as some of you. I would like you to
present some nightmares and problems that designers have to face while working
with clients.
I have a lot of experience with clients and I could present many examples of irritating ideas and behaviors, but I will mention only a few.
I have a lot of experience with clients and I could present many examples of irritating ideas and behaviors, but I will mention only a few.
- Office assistant who “designs” in Paint or Microsoft Word.
I’m not
joking. It has happened to me a few times that I have received a client’s
version of a project made in Paint. I understand that not everyone knows how to
use Photoshop or Illustrator, but these people think that it’s the best version
of a project and a designer is actually not necessary. Really? If you are an
expert, why do you hire me?
- Thousands of corrections
This one is
the most irritating. Clients very often receive a project and they don’t look
at all of my work – they send me some remarks which concentrate on one detail.
Then I send them the project for the second time (with corrections included)
and then they have more remarks which pertain to other details and so on… In
the end our cooperation lasts for a month instead of lasting for a week.
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| http://developersteve.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/36860742-300x300.jpg |
- Designer is to operate programs.
If you are
about to hire a designer, it means that a designer designs – not you. There are
a lot of clients who think that they know everything about modern design and
they are the best and (what is more important) they pay – so they want me to do
everything they say. It’s sad, because having a creative job, I want to be
creative – not just a tool to use graphic software.
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| http://suckmongif.com/gifs/daydreaming.gif |
- Why is it so expensive?
It happens
very often. A client thinks that if I’ve done a project in for example 2 hours
– it will be cheap, because it took me so much time. Let’s be honest – it took
me seven years of hard work to be able to finish such projects in 2 hours.
People don’t respect others’ work and experience nowadays.
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| http://blog.logodesignguru.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Why-do-I-have-to-pay-so-much-for-such-a-small-logo.jpg |
As you can
see – it’s very hard work. I’m not saying about creativity, ideas and designing
but about irritating clients that we are fed up with.
I hope that if were to work with some kind of designer – you won’t be this kind of client.
And on the other hand – if you are or are about to become a designer, you won’t be stuck with this type of people.
I hope that if were to work with some kind of designer – you won’t be this kind of client.
And on the other hand – if you are or are about to become a designer, you won’t be stuck with this type of people.
Summing up, I would like to hear some stories from you.
- If you’re a designer please tell some irritating story (I know that you have a lot of them)
- If you have ever been a client tell about your cooperation with a designer (Were you satisfied? Did you trust your designer and give him a free hand?)
- If you have neither been a client nor a designer – just tell me what you think about these problems (Are they serious for you? Maybe you don’t agree with me? Maybe you have similar ones in your job?)
Feel free to share your opinions and stories.
Comments
Imagine that you already created such interior design and sent it to your client. The client replies that the carpet on the floor should be under the sofa, and not in the middle of the room. Well, you move that carpet, then leave your computer for 10 hours(render time!), then you send result to client. "And could you put the sneakers on this carpet? And move it back, I changed my mind.". Another 10 hours of render, and every time you hope that this editing was the last one. Or maybe you just want to kill your client.
P.S. I'll just leave this here...
http://clientsfromhell.net/
I think the graphic designer profession should be more respected. This isn't just clicking the mouse. We need to have a lot of expertise both from design and knowledge about use a lot of software.
I'm working with designers and most of them are doing great job without any complaining - it's good to know what are their problems - maybe sometimes I will be able to make their lifes easier :)
I'm not a grafic designer, but I know these 'nightmares' very well. I have to say it at the beginning (I'm sorry, no offence) - graphic designers are always the most iritating and problematic people in a team. They think that their job is irreplaceable and the most important, but.. it's not. (still, no offence Sylwia - I don't know you personally and don't know your portfolio).
To be honest, the biggest nightmare of my job were.. (you know ;)) my graphical designers.
On the other hand, I can agree with your problems. Or maybe some of them. Clients are often very "demanding" and unfortunately graphics is the matter of taste. That's the biggest problem in my opinion. Everyone can see and then say if he likes it or not. It's never 0 or 1, black or white. What's more, in my opinion it's the main reason of corrections. So to this point - fully agree: lots of problems, irritating clients and so on.
You said: 'A client thinks that if I’ve done a project in for example 2 hours – it will be cheap, because it took me so much time. Let’s be honest – it took me seven years of hard work to be able to finish such projects in 2 hours.'
I can agree with your 7-years experience, but it's not graphical designer's nightmare. Everyone must learn and work to be perfect. A lot of jobs need experience (sometimes even much more than 5 or 7 years - what about lawyers or doctors who take responsibility for others lives?). Only graphic designers emphasize their importance and experience. I don't know why it is like that. Programmer can say e.g. 'oh, everything depends on my code so that's why it's so expensive' or project manager 'there's nothing without me' etc etc.
To sum up, I know in graphic designer's job there are a lot of "nightmares", but cannot understand why they behave like they would be alone in whole process. I know such problems very well and cannot agree at all, because this job is not more important than many others.
One of the most common problems is the one when someone is calling or writing him a message that they want him to make something, but wait, what money? Don't you want to get an experience?
You made whole project? Is it ready to print? Great! Let's change something!
Wow, it looks nice! Let's make those letters bigger, colors should be darker... and it doesn't look good. Why would you do that?
By listening to him I realised that it is just client - undecided, changing his mind and vision. Sometimes yoy just have to hide your taste and do what he wants, because not all of them will appreciate your work, because his idea is more important than the effect. Not always, but there, were there are funny or annoying stories ;)
Once, they wanted me to change their power point animation format into the one appropriate for web ;) Finally I was expected to create similar animation in AE based on this power point thing, moreover, as it occured, this was beyond their capability to understand that I need more time to animate it in Ae than in power point and that some built-in plugins in PP does not exist/work/are possible in AE.
I have to admit that I'm also interested in 3D modelling. In fact I have chosen this specialization while studying. I was very interested in interior design in 3D, but now I don't know if it's my dream job. Thanks Denys :/
;)
Then it turns out that I have nothing to say while 'designing' and after all I am embarrassed of this project...
On the other hand I had bad experience with clients:) I'm in the same boat, sometimes I hate working with clients directly - when you're a freelance developer or designer you have to do this, in large teams there's a manager responsible for resolving these issues and explaining why designing in Paint is a bad idea, while you just code/design and rest.
1. Can I get you to do something really quick?
2. Can you put it in a format that we can edit?
3. Can you do lots of different versions?
4. Can you Photoshop it?
5. Can I make just one more change?
6. Can you have this done by tomorrow?
7. I know someone who works for half that. Could you lower your rate to match?
If you use one of the phrases mentioned before, you work with designer will be a true nightmare.
On the other hand I have heard most of them from my clients, so it's not well known fact that they are tabu...
I can only imagine how annoying can it be when you work with client, and to be honest I can also understand them. If you want a specific logo you can see it perfectly in your head and if a designer makes it even slightly different, you are unsatisfied.
It’s really complicated relation for both sides.
Thanks for a nice read.
Interestingly, I’ve heard from my colleagues, who studied in Denmark, that lots of their academic projects were carried out in similar way - course instructors intentionally redefined their requirements during the project and helped the students deal with such difficulties. The students claimed that after these classes it was a lot easier for them to manage their real-life projects.
As to my impressions of graphic designers, I haven’t had any experience working with the results of their work. However, I’ve coordinated the cooperation between them, the clients and frontend developers in several projects. On the basis of these projects, personally, I regard graphic designers as very helpful and open-minded people.
If the client left whole process to us - there were two simulations made but two different designers. Both sent to client and few days later meeting was made with one designer that won - he was leading the whole process afterwards. Sometimes meeting face to face for an hour did the job of exchanging 50 mails and saved a lot of time and stress.
And do not worry - in every job dealing with clients and discussing their visions of something is a hard piece of work.
http://www.cda.pl/video/14683366
I'm not a graphic designer, I am a paint god. Seriously. Still don't believe me? That's bad. But being serious my drawing and graphic skills are so bad and I would probably want to not show them to anyone. Talking about problems at work and not being truly appreciated by clients it's kinda normal for all it specialists. People who have no idea about programming or graphic design think that it's so easy and it takes so little time that you are ripping off them so much. They don't know how much skill and knowledge it requires to do. But we can't change what people think about that and we should just simply ignore their whining and do our job.
To be honest, I didn't even know that there was a problem with the designer's pay. In the end, labor should always be paid, especially if it is done qualitatively and quickly.
What I don't like the most - that a lot of people don't respect the work which is done. For some people designing means the moving of pixels on the screen. I heard a lot that graphic design is a really easy job. Also, I heard something like "Oh, my profession is so complicated, maybe I should become a graphic designer. What do I need to know? I guess my paint skills will be enough". I love this job for the creativity and self-growth. It's totally true that you have to spend 10 years studying to be able create a logo for 10 minutes. Hope, clients will appreciate design work more because everything what we see is designed by someone.
Even though I'm not a graphic designer I like to watch some funny content about them dealing with clients. It must be really annoying - trying to do your job as good as you can while being interrupted all the time.
I never been a client, but if I were one, I would trust the designer.
Mostly because he will be the specialist in graphics, not me. If he won't be necessary, I wouldn't hire him.
As I'm not a designer but as a programmer I can tell that in my job exists similar problems. You write such a great code for some tasks and then analyst comes. And then he is speaking the magical words: "The requirements has changed. You have to write that again". It's pretty awful when it happens week by week and you are doing the same job few times.
Most annoying thing is when everything is done, requirement gathering step is done, development is done, you send "product" to be approved then you had many remarks. Of course We are redeveloping product but they have to pay for our extra time.