I've never met Mathew Browne but I think we are twin souls.
I have just discovered his blog and could spend the rest of the year reading it, given the time - which I don't have, of course.
Mathew (yes, one 't', not a typo) is a London designer and I have just read his article about nightmare clients. Oh boy.
Mathew's list is below in italics; the comments after each item are from me, the grumpy old woman.
#10 - “I have an idea for a website which could by the next eBay and I need a web design partner…”
Oh yes, I've heard this one on several occasions. The word partner means "I'm not going to pay you but your company will be my partner in this venture, with a 10% share of the revenue". And of course, it's a mad idea in the first place and we all know what 10% of zero is. Bye bye, take your daft idea somewhere else, please
#9 - “I want you to use this photo. I want it to be in landscape, but changed so that the height is bigger than the width”
Eh? Well, I've not heard that one exactly in those words but I have heard some very similar stuff. The latest fun and games with images was this - "you choose the images for my website" said the client, sensibly (in writing, of course). So we did and he didn't like them. So we sent him off to several stock photography sites to choose his own and every image was landscape. Yes, of course, every image on his site was portrait...
#8 - “Black on white is boring. How about hot pink on lime green? And can we make the logo spin? And Ariel is boring, let’s use Comic Sans.”
Oh, I've ranted about Comic Sans several times. My soulmate Mathew says "However, it does irritate me when my advice is ignored completely." If he gets irritated, imagine what it's like for the grumpy old woman. Clients come to designers because they are not designers themselves. Simple. Then they try to tell the designer how to design. People go to doctors because they are not doctors themselves. Do they tell the doctor how to treat them? They do not. One day, I might understand this but there again...
#7 - “Use these photos, I got them from Google Images”
Grrrrrr .. another familiar one. Or, the client supplies photographs which are obviously someone else's copyright because they have dirty great watermarks all over them. Of course, like Mathew's, our terms and conditions state very clearly that all content must be the client's copyright, otherwise we need written permission for use from the copyright holder. Oh, but let me tell you about another one we frequently get. "Please use this image on the front cover of my brochure". The brochure is 12" square, the cover photograph has to cover the entire area and the image supplied by the client is not also stolen from the web, also it is the size of a postage stamp and 72 dpi.
#6 - “It sucks.”
Ah yes, that positive feedback. Or in America "I'm not loving it". Of course, and I've ranted about this before, this usually happens when the client has not filled out the creative brief that we sent them or has refused to attend our in-house production meeting. They are a brand new client and we know nothing about them, we haven't even seen a business card. And yet we are supposed to know all about them and know exactly what they want. As I've said before, we're still working on achieving our telepathy qualifications. Furthermore, nothing we do "sucks". And remember, I am the grumpy old woman and one of the advantages of age is all that experience. If a client uses a word like sucks he is probably a lot younger than me and I'm not having some young whippersnapper telling me how to do my job. So there.
#5 - “Why is your quote so expensive? My nephew can do [a 5 page website] for £50″
There's only one answer to this isn't there? Get your bloody nephew to do it then. Why are you wasting my valuable time?
#4 - “I paid for my domain name by credit card. My credit card billing address is in Oxford. So why doesn’t my site come up in Google when I type in ‘Oxford’?”
Yes, I've heard things as potty as this, if not a lot more potty. "Why doesn't my site come up when I search for Miami?" Probably because a) there are 173,000,000 results for that word (genuine figure, I just tried it) and b) that word is not on your website. Actually, this is something I could easily write a book about.
#3 - “I want to be number one in Google for the term ‘consultant’. My budget is £200.”
I had to explain to a client just today that search engine friendliness and positioning is not due to just one factor. It's like baking a cake. All the ingredients have to be right, in the correct proprtions, mixed together in the correct way, baked at the correct temperature and so on and so on. And that's just a simple cake, a website is a lot more complex than a Victoria sponge. This is why we build sites with search engines in mind from day one. And by the way, miami just beats consultant, which has 127,000,000 results. As for these ridiculously deflated budgets, which world are they living in? You know, next time I buy a case of wine, I'm going to go to the counter and say "I want this case of wine please. My budget is $5". Or, the next time we're out to dinner and presented with a $100 guest check "Ah, that's all very well, but my budget is $5". Do these people with their damned budgets do that? I'll bet they don't, so why do they do it with us?
#2 - “Just one more small change…”
Ah, yes. Clients think we have a magic button, don't they? "Oh yes, I know that I told you that the ad is a full page, black and white ad. But it's actually a half page (horizontal) and it's full color. If you could just make that change ... and remember that the publication's deadline is in half an hour". OK, fine. I'll just press the magic button, shall I? And further to this, there's an explosion when they get the invoice which reads
Creation of full page B/W ad $xxx
Creation of half page horizontal full color ad $xxx
What??? We're charging them for two ads? "I'm not paying that, it was the same ad". No it wasn't, it was two distinctly separate ads. Difference sizes, different color specs ... try explaining this to an idiot.
#1 - “We can’t afford to pay you but we’ll let you have a link back to your site.”
Haha, yes, we've had this. Although only in our early years, they don't dare mess with us in that way now. The first point is, of course, that after "We can't afford to pay you..." I'm not there any more. Or at least, not listening. These people aren't clients and aren't going to become clients. Again, I'll try it in the wine shop, shall I? "I can't afford to pay you but ..." They'd call the cops, I imagine. And as for this links business, whether there is a link on your site to mine - well, I don't really care. We have several sites, one of which has been in existence for over ten years, and the link popularity is great for all of them. Why should I want a link on your site? And anyway, it's not up to you, it's up to me. If we create a great site, and the majority are of course, then there will be a designed by link on the site. If the client micro-managed the site, then I don't want our link on it. And that link is a badge of honor, a matter of pride. Look at the way people wear clothes with obvious designer labels or logos. They are sending a message to the outside world. Having Designed by TSDG on your site is also saying something to the world.
Right, back to read more at Mathew's blog now....
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