graphicpush

That’s funny stuff.

I really like how they say, “are you using the Adobe?”

Adobe what? Adobe what?!?

Oh and everyone knows that Word is such an advanced program and now I’m really wishing I hadn’t wasted all that time in college learning Photoshop only to find out that I could be using WordART instead! What a rip!

If only I knew how to make my stuff pulse like nuclear waste!

OK, as a general disclaimer for past, present and future clients that may be reading: This is conversation is fictional. Just in case. :)

the Adobe. nice. now quit eavesdropping on my conversations!

Makes me glad I don’t deal too much with what color things are. However, I do deal with layout. Including requests to have ads on the top left side of the page. ‘Because people click there the most’

Thank you for making me laugh this morning.

I realize that this conversation may not have actually happened with you, but this is anything but a made up conversation.

Thanks for the “fictional” conversation. It sure made my day (especially references to two things I despise the most – Comic Sans and WordArt).

I see you’ve met some of my clients.

Thanks!

You’ve made what I have been dealing with seem trivial ;)

Haha, so funny because it’s so true!

Thanks for the laugh!

I would like to say fire the client. I really would, besides they might be happier getting a student or someone with a similar “aesthetic”.

As an in-house designer most of what I do now and many of my projects in the past are design by committee. Perhaps not as scary but they can get plenty boring. That’s why I do pro bono work – I work with the client’s needs but since I’m not getting paid and they tend to be grateful they often actually take advice.

Funny and so true!!

this is so funny. I actually had a client want a flash splash page and then once it was over it would load another one. This was to invoke the feeling that they were super awesome. She also got a bootleg version of photshop and made red writing at 12 point font on 2500px wide pics for her 400px wide gallery. then wanted to know why you couldnt read it. what are your guys horror stories?

Brilliant. Reminds me of the time I made a website for a farm that produced free range eggs and the client insisted of a trail of bouncing eggs following the mouse around the screen.

Although tbh I was still in school at the time and thought it was a worthy enhancement. Now I know better.

Interesting… I hear things like this all the time… which is why I like sticking to development… it is not so visual and clients (Management) tend to leave it alone…
I expect you will get a lot of responses for this one… it is a common problem for designers…

You know that moment when you’re laughing really hard and then you kinda choke on your laughter as it dawns on you that this could very well be happening to you? Just had that moment.

<GROAN> This is too familiar. I think the worst one I got was a desire for “confetti” in the background of the ENTIRE site – the whole page. It was an ecommerce site and you could barely see the products for all the confetti. They didn’t even sell anything related to confetti, like party supplies – it was just supposed to be “fun”.

For anyone who thinks headaches are fun, I guess.

Uncanny! I work in-house and I have that conversation several times a month. Especially the “Adobe” portion. I used to try and explain that Adobe is the name of the company that produces many different applications but after countless blank stares I have given up. Thanks for reminding me I am not alone in this!

That’s awesome… It’s exactly like working with some of my clients. “I don’t know d*ck about design, but I’ll tell you what to do” – why don’t they just make it themselves then…

This post just won yourself another subscriber.

You might want to take a look at the tabbing order of your site though. In this comment form, pushing tab to go from the url field to the actual comment field jumped me up to the logo graphic for some reason.

Thank you so much for this. I was having a downer day here in design world with clients and requestors. This was just… perfect. Scarily accurate too I’m afraid. ;)

Scarily enough, I had that conversation, nearly verbatim, just a couple weeks back. Right down to the nuclear waste green, and the super fantastico “design” created in PowerPoint. I even had to throw in the speech about how making everything blink would be cough not perhaps so good for epileptics and migraineurs.

It’s so disheartening when an otherwise smart businessperson is insisting that you drag their site back into the stone age of 1995.

But how could you have forgotten the best part of these conversations?

“Where’s the click counter?? Everybody knows you’ve GOT to have a click counter on the bottom to be really professional and slick. I don’t know why I’m paying so much money to someone who has obviously never done a web [sic] before. I’ll just have my 12 year old nephew do it. He knows all the computer stuff.”

Yep! When it comes right down to it, sometimes you just have to throw the rules and education out. After all, they are signing the check.

Don’t forget it happens to the copywriters, too. ‘You might want to use the words ‘leverage’ and ‘cutting edge’ a little more to make it really stand out!’

This underlines a very specific point…it is not about the subjective suggestions the client makes, but how you as a creator choose to engage with the client. I found the fiction entertaining, yet the reality is that you too, creator, have made a mistake by engaging with this type of person. Lets all do our homework and scrub through difficult clients and choose better ones.

I know this is fiction – but tone it down just a bit and I think I’ve made a logo for this guy before …

Very funny and too true!

Sometimes clients don’t want a voice of experience – they just want you to create EXACTLY what they say they want. The best you can do is try to give them your best advice and if they don’t take it you should not feel guilty creating what they want instead. (You just might not add it to your portfolio!)

ha, ha, ha….I wondered who my client went to for that project. I guess I can stop working on trying to make my neon green show a pulse.