Clients from Hell is a collection of anonymously contributed client horror stories from designers. I reckon I could submit one or two, though perhaps nothing quite as great as this:
I’m a freelance illustrator and I was hired to do a couple of illustrations for a story about people who are asexual (they do relationships, but not IT). I sent off my sketches to the art director and received an email back that wrote (and I quote, “These look great, but could you possibly add some whimsical looking dildos?”
Whimsical looking dildos? I think that’s actually the sort of ridiculous request I’d probably welcome – it’s got to beat the standard fare. Of which there are also great examples:
…what’s up with the little black marks in the corners? I don’t get it. Why did you add them to the design? Please remove them and send me another proof.
Been there.
He: I’ve a website that I want to get up asap: [x].com is the domain name. Just a home page and an about page. Very classy.
I: Any design ideas/direction on this new site?He: Just classy. It’s a talent agency that will represent me and just a few other people. There should be a contact link, and just an about page. I know, you don’t have any pictures. I don’t think there will be any. (for examples of “classy” he sends me links to three other talent agencies – all varying wildly from each other in design and color scheme)
I: Is there a logo?
He: Not for [x].com
I: Any info at all beyond the name?He: Perhaps a phone number, an address, and an e-mail contact.
This one’s great because it usually starts here and quickly escalates into a complete site. But with no further information than the above. And of course the classic favourite colour situation:
I was designing a logo for a rather corporate, conservative company. Keeping that in mind, I kept things very safe and chose a “secure” deep blue which reflected the spirit of their financial business. I was told that the colour was not right. So I asked what they had in mind. I was informed that they wanted pink instead. After asking why they wanted to change to pink, reply was: “Because it is my favourite colour!”
But I can safely say this has yet to happen to me:
Everything went smoothly up until the end he asked if I could somehow superimpose an image of a vagina onto the mailer..
