Some Design Blog has really gotten this one right.  Here is a blog about how Designers feel when their clients ask for something ridiculous. Sometimes it really feels like the design business would be amazing if it wasn’t for all those clients.

Unfortunately, we usually have to bite our tongues when a client makes a stupid request that’s going to make our lives harder. Here’s a little catharsis for you.

“I can’t really explain what I’m looking for, but I’ll know it when I see it.” That’s OK, because I’m also a part-time psychic, so guessing what you want based on no information shouldn’t be a problem. Oh, wait I’m getting a premonition… I see this project costing you huge amounts of money.

“My wife/daughter/nephew/friend has an eye for this kind of thing. Maybe they can help you design it.” Perfect. I’ll just add my babysitting charge onto the quote I provided you, then we’ll be ready to get started! Just so you know, my babysitting rate is actually 3 times what I charge for design.

“Can you give me the design as a Word document so I can make changes myself?” You know, you’ll never believe it but not one of my design programs has a function to export to Word. It must be some kind of conspiracy because Word is clearly the best tool for the job. Oh, that reminds me: I ran into your mechanic. He wants you to call him because he has some questions about your request that he rebuild your engine out of Lego so you can do your own repairs.

“I started doing this myself, but ran into problems, so it shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes to polish up what I’ve done.” I always say the most rewarding part of my job is trying to salvage someone else’s mess. Just give me a moment here, I need to phone my electrician to tell him how easy it’s going to be for him to fix my home wiring job. Oh, that reminds me… I need to call the fire department too.

“I’ve been meaning to call you for weeks now. The deadline is tomorrow.” Oh, good. It’s so handy that the universe works in such strange ways that a project magically takes less time if you leave it until the last minute. I also had a feeling that you might call, so I told all my other clients to take a hike so I could drop everything to do your project.

“I’m not an artist, but here’s how I would do it.” Thank you so much. It’s really a pain for me when I have to use my skills and professional judgement on a project. In fact, I find that the most effective way to get anything done is to hire a professional, then tell them how to do their job. Later today I’m going to tell my doctor how to perform my colonoscopy.

“I can’t afford a logo design right now. Can you just design me a business card and come up with some sort of logo while you’re at it.” No problem. I’ll get on it right after I order my lunch. I can’t afford a hamburger, so I’m going to order a pickle, then ask them to just throw a hamburger underneath it while they’re at it.

“I don’t have a copy of our logo, but you can get it off our website” No worries. I don’t bother keeping track of things that are important to my business either. That 100 pixel wide gif from your website will look awesome in the billboard I’m designing for you.

“Sure, I supplied the text and signed off on the proof, but you really should have noticed that obvious typo. I really think you should pay for the 100,000 copies of the brochure that are already printed.” You must have noticed our free scape-goat service where we accept responsibility for all our clients’ mistakes. It’s very popular and has made us the top charitable organization in the country. On the downside, we’re $50 million in debt.

“We haven’t actually got the content for the brochure done yet. Can you just go ahead and design it, then we’ll give you the content afterwards?” That’s a great idea. I’ll just block out some space in random sizes, then if you give me too much I’ll just remove random words and images until it fits, and if you give me too little I’ll just fill the space with pictures of my butt and a collection of my favorite curse words. We love this.  Sometimes, this is exactly what we want to say to clients that have these crazy requests.

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