Client Ditched My Work
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- ItTango0
Yep, let it go. Have a cocktail. Roll a blunt. Get laid. Repeat.
I posted something similar last year,
http://www.qbn.com/topics/638624…
- CanHasQBN0
ONE DAY YOU WILL DIE.
- sherm0
word to the wise. don't do anything for anyone especially a start up unless they pay you up front and you have a kill fee also.
chances are they don't know what they are talking about nor do they know what they want. and what you know they need as a seasoned pro doesn't mean crap to them.
- ********0
A friend did a logo. Got paid in stock.
4 years later, the company got bought out.
The stocks she got, valued at $12m.
Pretty good for 3 days of work.
They are not even using that logo anymore.
- what company??! !??! !!CanHasQBN
- ????11!!!!/ ??!!!! /!? ! !?!CanHasQBN
- some mobile ad company, i forget the name.********
- funny story, she completely forgot about it and a lawyer tracked her down and told her********
- holy amazing! 12 million??!?! that is completely nuts.CanHasQBN
- I know, she was making $40k a year as a jr designer and now she is rolling in cash.********
- I like the cut of her jib.mikotondria3
- mkay now Im gonna trade my logos for stocks :)dobre
- her folio is now worth less than her portfolioAmicus
- sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me.********
- ********0
the new stuff is boring and too 2001.
- BusterBoy0
JSK, did you read that story on snopes? Absolutely no way in Hades that is a true story.
- ********0
BusterBoy
Nope. A friend of mine. I didn't believe it either until she ask me and my other friend to review the offering document.
She apparently helped them when they had no funding. Paid her in 1,000,000 shares. It was just 5 guys who ran the shop. Apparently, they never thought that they would get bought out or get funding. They got few rounds of funding in recent years and got bought out by a company after that (most likely pressured to sell from the investors). The company sold for $98 m.
My question is, who in their right mind give someone 1m worth of shares? Not the brightest business guys. Also, the offering to her wasn't even an actual stock offering, it was just a form of promissory note with out determined value or date, which in essence was just an IOU with no value.
- apparently it was legally binding as it was stated in her invoice. so they couldnt get bought out until they bought her out.********
- sweetAmicus
- apparently it was legally binding as it was stated in her invoice. so they couldnt get bought out until they bought her out.
- ian0
Yes, d_rek its happened to me before, loads of people and it will keep happening. Sometimes the work after is awful (I've even used that car metaphor before) but sometimes its what works for them.
I think you may have summed it up in your original post:
Even if what I had come up with didn't communicate their intent I believe my solution was much better than their current choice.
Their intent may have changed, making them look at the identity in a new light, forcing them to change and perhaps when they did, they had to get something done fast.
It may be a reflection of your work, or it may well be a reflection of their opinion on design. Either way, you got paid for your services, you can still show the work in your folio and perhaps when the company has more time/money they will contract you again to do more work.
Its disheartening, I know from experience, but the nature of this industry is perpetual motion.
- ********0
"and perhaps when the company has more time/money they will contract you again to do more work."
doubtful. just move on.
- autoflavour0
you got paid..
end of thread
- ********0
A guy in my office just had the same thing happen. He spent 4 months going working with a company creating a new brand and refining it. They put it live for a few days then switched to an in-house 'developed' brand that essentially uses the ever-so-unique lowercase Helvetica Neue Bold with no treatment whatsoever, and what appears to be stock kerning.
He still got paid, but 4 months of work and the client's internal brand team decided 'fuck it we'll just type arc out in helevetica neue and put gloss on it'
- identity0
"Even if what I had come up with didn't communicate their intent"
A client needs to feel like they contributed to the experience. They need to feel like THEY were the geniuses behind this idea. It's hard - I KNOW - but taking our ego out of the equation is the only way you're going to be able to do great work and have the client accept, pay and produce it.
In this case, it sounds like you weren't very inclusive of the client in the process - even if this is THEIR fault, hound them with emails, set up calls, it may seem annoying but they'll appreciate your effort (just don't ask dumb questions). Also, by your own admission, your creation did not communicate what it is they do and YOU are not even happy with it. I would rather have no logo produced than something out there with my name attached to it that I'm not proud to show everyone from my Mom to Michael Beirut.
What the client got in the end is a mediocre product - but I bet he was micro-managing the shit out of it and he TRULY feels like it's his creation. You didn't give him that.
- So many assumptions. So little value.********
- mehidentity
- So many assumptions. So little value.
- identity0
^ just to add - my BEST work has been when very close collaboration WITH the client. It will produce an insight and understanding far greater than any amount of extraneous research you could do.
- d_rek0
@identity,
I would have to disagree with you on a few points.
First, I don't think I really pretended to have much of an ego about it. I understand that Business is Business and these things will happen.
I actually was in very close contact with the client the entire process. I did many rounds of sketching and shared with them before delivering any final solution. All in all I felt it was a pretty successful collaboration between myself and the client. And they were really good about feedback too.
And I guess I mispoke when I said it didn't "communicate their intent". What I was trying to say is that THEY did not have the goals and values of their company defined enough for me to successfully produce something that captured the intent and focus of the company.
I also did not say I was not happy the work because I was happy with it.
And I don't think they got a mediocre product by any stretch. I think they got a really solid, good identity for the money they paid. They even micromanaged to a degree. And i'm not so proud or naive as to think that I was solely responsible for the idea and output of the work. The client was every bit as responsible for the work they got as I was.
Again, it's not a matter of bruised ego. Like I stated before I feel like they traded up a Beamer for Pontiac. But I guess a Pontiac suited their needs better. Plain and simple.
- identity0
Hey D,
Wasn't trying to offend - more waxing poetically about some situations that sound similar that I've come up against and found some similarities with yours. I certainly don't know the whole situation. I'm not saying you have a giant designer-ego (infact, based on your additions to posts on here, I'd say the opposite) I was referring to the ego we ALL have of wanting to see our vision come through and, at times, the vision of the client's gets lost in that. Based on what you wrote you seemed to not be pleased with it - but it appears that's not the case. Again, no offense meant :-)
- instrmntl0
lets see the identity!
- vaxorcist0
Hmmmm....
I've done work for startups... usually they change direction a lot, apparently randomly, but you gotta remember that somebody's crunching business model numbers and target markets constantly, they're barely thinking about the branding, the "public face" of their business is often a last minute changing afterthought compared to the invisible business-model nonstop re-thinking....
I think it's because startups aim to get funded or bought, and those who buy or fund startups are NOT VISUAL PEOPLE....
- formed0
People have taste, opinions. Some suck (most suck), but that's life (as an architect, I feel nauseous everyday look at our built world).
Sometimes it is because of a new person having influence at a client's office, sometimes it is because someone gives a nephew of their wife the opportunity, sometimes they just want something difference, sometimes they get sold on someone else's bs line.
Doesn't really matter. Sometimes it is worth asking, giving the "in an effort to continually improve my services to my clients, would you mind telling me what your decision criteria was/why you selected so and so?". Most will answer, I think, if you approach it as a business question and not an ego question.
Sucks. That's life. That's business. Go steal someone else's job.
- hellrod0
The work you did is partially responsible for getting them to the point where they are now. Be proud.
The real question is why didn't they come back to you for rebranding?