Every designer and their moms have a “client from hell” story to share with the world. In fact, there is an entire website, aptly named clientsfromhell.com, where designers can share such stories and vent out anonymously.
Here’s the deal:
The grievances of such impossible clients ranges right from the font style (“Comic Sans would have looked better”), to the color pattern (“Don’t use such bright colors, fill all the white space”) to the placement of business logo design (“The logo does not look prominent here, change it. I have paid quite high for the service”).
Well, we’re sure you have heard many such stories about “clients from hell” and we definitely wouldn’t BORE with another such story. Instead, today we have something that will make you see the other side of the coin.
Here comes the shocker:
Though not many choose to speak about it, there are a lot of instances when designers give hard time to their clients or do not follow work ethics. They tend to become over suggestive or simply careless towards the work in hand.
Why?
Because all the designers look at the same project from a different perspective as all of them have their own working styles, mannerism and point of views.
So, let’s take the plunge and get acquainted to a few types of designers you should avoid working with whenever you have a big design project on your palate. If you’re are a designer and are thinking that this post would do nothing but rip apart the reputation of designers, let us bust the bubble for you. Our intention is to save design seekers from jeopardizing their efforts and money and to help designers understand why a client wouldn’t want to work with them.
Yeah! You don’t need to rely on your Spidey sense to know that it’s going to interesting!
So, enjoy!
- The King of Kings – These are the Designers who feel that they have supreme powers and they are better than others in the community. They believe that they know about anything and everything, all new designs and techniques, all color contrasts, etc. They consider themselves “Mr. Know It All”. They get upset when others find a fault in their work and aren’t ready to accept their mistakes.
No matter how little experience they have in the industry, they treat themselves as the veterans. They have a strong point of view on different subjects and are often adamant to force their opinions on others. They are always ready with an answer simply to show that they are the best. They are usually arrogant and it’s rare that they listen to others or others’ suggestions, even if it’s the client who is paying hard earned money. Clients generally avoid such designers as they are not ready to listen even if they are wrong.
- The Shady Ones- These are the designers who aren’t reliable. They may turn the table around or completely abandon your project midway. They may even run away with clients’ money. Such designers are lazy and don’t believe in hard work. They look for shortcuts to make money, no matter if they need to dupe a client for this. When others are busy conceptualizing and brainstorming unique concepts, they are busy stealing designs of others. Clients generally avoid working with such designers as they aren’t reliable and trustworthy. Instead, they prefer working with designers who are reliable and deliver the project according to their requirements.
- The Idealist – Here we are referring to the designers who are obsessed with the projects they are working on. They aim to achieve perfection in whatever they do, ignoring if they are leaving out on an aspect. Though they are quite organized when it comes to their projects or the workplace, working with them isn’t that easy. Clients often step back in working with them as they too tend to avoid instructions and work according to their own will. As they think whatever they create is perfect, they sometimes see themselves above others. Even if clients provide feedback, they work according to their style.
- The Nervous Nerds– These are the “nervous” designers who lack self-confidence. They believe that whatever they will create will be disliked by the client. They are wet behind the ears when it comes to presenting new ideas to their clients, no matter how innovative their idea is. They somehow don’t feel positive, happy or take pride in the work they have done. They hide under their shells, just like turtles. The most surprising part is that they often refuse to take credit for a well-delivered project also. They are just happy amongst themselves, content with working “back-stage.” Clients avoid working with such designers as they are too insecure of their capabilities and may not give their 100% in a project due to this lack of self-esteem. Being humble is good but there is a time and place for it. Your professional world is not a space to get nervous.
- The Money-Grubber – These are designers that don’t miss a single opportunity to grab a project even if they have a tight schedule, packed with multiple projects. They don’t have any work balance and end up collecting all the projects whether they are through freelancing or personal at the same time. What happens in the end is that a chaos is created at the time of the delivery of the projects since all clients expect the project within a limited time frame. While collecting projects, one thing such designers miss out on is time management. Clients obviously do not work with designers like these as they tend to delay the projects. Moreover, the doing multiple projects at the same time also affects the creativity a project wants. Having such a designer will only be a waste of time and money.
- The Copy Cats – Well, this category needs no introduction. These designers don’t use their creativity but copy designs of other designers from the internet, make a few changes and give it to the clients. As Albert Einstein once said “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources,” they follow the same principle. If you give considerable amount of time to the profile/designs of these designers, you will notice that there is nothing new in those designs and probably you have seen them before many times. Clients will, without any doubt, avoid working with such designers as they have no creativity of their own and end up having a plagiarism issue.
- The Exaggerist – Designers of this type pretend too much. They are basically nothing but show-offs. They keep on bragging about the qualities in them and their work that actually they don’t possess. They can boast about doing a particular design project easily and in no time. However, in reality they are not able to produce what they have promised with regard to quality as well as time. It’s all “talk” and no or less action on ground. Clients avoid working with them because they don’t know if they are trust worthy or not. There is no need to show off as it’s a professional portfolio and clients seek to have a look at their real work.
- The Snoozy – Such designers are the ones who are always sluggish in doing their wok and therefore are not able to complete their projects on time. They are not at all concerned with the deadlines or delivering a project ahead of time to make a good impression due to their laziness. Though it is actually okay to be lazy as long as you produce good quality work, instead of hurrying up on the project and sacrificing the quality. However, clients tend to avoid working with these designers because of the delay in projects. Clients have strict deadlines and designers disregarding those deadlines can disturb the schedule of the entire project.
- The Self Centered – Such designers can’t work in a collaborative project. Even if they are working with 10 designers more, they have this confidence (over confidence actually) that their work is certainly better than the rest. They ignore suggestions and do no good in attracting the clients. Clients avoid such designers due to the over confidence in such designers and their habit of not listening to anyone. Though we often focus on the individual while mulling over productivity, by working as much as you can with teams can actually take projects to the next level.
- The Street Smart– These designers those who deliver their work on time, even sometimes before the deadline. They are fast workers, exact opposite to “the slug” designers. Though they deliver the projects on time, the quality does not match the standards you are expecting. Therefore, clients often decline such designers too because there are chances that they produce low standard work in meeting the deadlines.
So, here you have it! “10 Types of Designers You Want to Avoid”. Each of these designers have their own set of negative and positive traits. If you are a client, you can take note of such designers and their traits and be vigilant to avoid such designers before handing out your project brief. If you’re a designer, take a good look and make sure you don’t have any of these traits to become the number #1 choice of your clients.
Shruti Gupta works as a Sr.Digital marketing Expert for Designhill.com, world’s fastest-growing crowdsourcing platform for custom logo design, website designs, banner, social media designs and a host of other graphic designs. With profound professional, technical and people management skills, she has spent 8 years of extensive experience in SEO, affiliate marketing digital marketing, blogging, and content marketing. Connect with him on Twitter here: @ shruti_gupta01
