Client revisions?
Out of context: Reply #15
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- mikotondria30
It sounds bad initially, I've got to say..
I had an eerily similar experience recently, and I have a suspicion you may have been the next designer this particular client went to...
They had no logo, nothing ever printed or designed for their brand, which consisted of a the company name, which they had invented because it was a 'foreign' word for some generally quite cool left-field principles.
So all we had to run on was their name, what that meant, and the type of work they did. Similarly this could have opened a lot of doors for us, but that means absolutely nothing to the process of trying to design something for them. Sure, we could knock out 'artistic' visions that communicated our idea of what we'd want IF it was our company, but of course the client's vision of how they want to brand themselves is entirely different, and stuck only in their head, in a shifting formless cloud of ideas that they gradually reveal more of by process of elimination when they see the 10th idea that you present them with. By this time of course, they've used up all of the money you've got so far, but you've gone over and above the amount of work that would make this a reasonable business proposition..sound familiar ?
By the end, and by 'end' I mean the 15th idea, which you KNOW is a sound concept given everything they've decided to tell you about the latest idea they've told you they think their company is about, but which they knock back, leaving you in a financial hole, facing some serious self-doubt about your ability to conceptualise and produce. Client ends relationship with sour feeling that you weren't the right person for the job, and that they've wasted the money they paid you to produce something they didn't want, so the doors you envisioned opening for you quietly close again, which is worse than them not having been opened, and feel like a turd.
There's only so far you can go without knowing what it is the customer wants, if they don't know then it's not your job to decide for them, and they won't appreciate it if you do, even if your ideas are better than theirs.