So guess what she did in the end. She heeding to her superior’s request (the person we met) to bring us some printed documents, she walked over – threw the document on our meeting table, looked at me with a fierce stare and said “I AM YOUR CUSTOMER, YOU KNOW THAT?” (not verbatim but that was what it meant).

It was funny, I was shocked and her superior was embarassed and apologized.

I never followed-up on the project though, neither did they came back to us. Didn’t have a good FEEL about working with them, especially when there’s a possible troll lurking around.

As a designer, I always to my part to educate my clients or potential clients, after all I’m not only a designer but a techie and programmer.

Some clients are just a P.I.T.A while others are such pleasure to work with. Some love us so much, they brought business to us. A sure sign of good service provided!

goldfries – Wow. That’s a rather shocking reaction! I’m not sure what I’d do if that happened to me face-to-face!

milo – That’s usually true, though it won’t work on designers/clients who are full of promises, but few deliverables…

Robert – That’s very true. It’s easy to think of the horror stories of clients not paying, but it is just as easy for the designer to get sneaky as well. You’re right about what you said though. They will get found out in the end, and a damaged reputation for them will be more hurt than the risk is worth!

goldfries (the 2nd ) – That’s a good point. It also goes to show that a good company doesn’t mind paying more for their web site, when they know that they are getting a great service in return. Not all freelancers can offer that.

Slevi – Very true. It’s one reason that setting out some sort of conditions/contract at the start can work wonders. If the client thinks that unlimited edits are a part of the deal, then you’re going to have a headache…

Starfeeder – lol – I know the feeling.

Heather – Likewise. Some good, clear emails (In particular, at the start of the project!) are simply invaluable later on. That’s one reason that I prefer email to phone. If I ask a lot of questions in one email, and get the sort of reply you mentioned, I can refer to it constantly throughout the job.

And the only reason I hate freelance…

For me and the people I did it with that simply was the reason to stop as well, since what’s more annoying than those clients which ask you to do the job but simply don’t have a single clue on what they want? Each time they kept on coming with changes, the most ridiculous at times like pages 5000 pixels wide and suggesting that horizontal scrollbars aren’t in favor for many people just weren’t taken into regards.

Not to mention completely scripted pages which had to be revised totally numerous amounts of times with a terrible communication sometimes having to wait up to a week before getting a response.

Let stand the designing part which came along with the coding, also on that changes kept having to be made and eventually time on a single project could take up 5 times as much time as needed at first simply because they didn’t have any clue on what they were actually looking for.

So if you’re a client which wants work done, for the sake of your designer and developer plan it out at front and be responsive, it works a lot better from both sides.

They know that by going with a company, they’re assured proper service and no sudden stuff like “Oh hey gtg kthxbye.”

There’s another company who rang us up a few days ago – they had no control over the domain and neither their webhost and had no idea how to go about it! The person who handled their site went AWOL and avoid contact.

What a predicament eh?

I didn’t accept that because the previous customer had a copy of the design on their website. What a mess.

The second designer, he was rather young, but asked me to trust him (worse mistake). We went over the details, plus the deadline. He said “no problem!”. I paid him of half, and a few days later he showed me half of the design that he was working on. Which was great. Then he said he had to go on vacation with his parents and that he won’t be back for 3 weeks. I needed the design in 2 weeks. That was a bigger mess.

So, just to conclude. As a designer, do not take on as many projects as you can, and do not try to undermine your customers by giving them a design you already created and trying to pass it off as a custom design. You may get away with it, but eventually it will come back on you.

As a designer myself, I can echo all of these points. It’s very important that the designer and client have a good working relationship and exchange of ideas. If they don’t, nobody will end up with exactly what they want.

Good communication makes it easier for everybody.

– Mason