Articles - Written by Gino on Friday, November 30, 2007 16:21 - 60 Comments
20 Horrible Habits of Clients
Below is a common list of issues designers have to deal with while working with clients on projects and how to avoid or solve those issues in a professional manner.
1. Wanting Great Designs for Cheap Prices
Because everyone seems to have Photoshop and know a designer nowadays, many clients tend to have a bad idea of what design is worth. While it can be ok to have low prices when you are starting out, when you are confident enough and your work is good enough you should come up with prices that make it worth your time.
This is when clients want to see a finished design before they pay. You should avoid doing this as much as possible, but in times of desperation it could be he only option. Be confident though and let clients choose you based on your portfolio and not on spec. Be especially careful of designing on spec for people on classifieds and forums because it’s a common scam in places like those where they really are not clients, but designers themselves looking to steal your work and use it for their own projects.
Some clients are notorious for paying slowly or not at all. The way I combat this is to ALWAYS require a down payment before I begin work. For smaller project I usually ask for all the money upfront and I never send the final files until I receive the last payments.
I find it extremely important to plan out a project as much as possible before starting work. Even if they have a tight deadline make it clear the project must be fully planned out before you begin. After all meetings and discussions are done write up an estimate listing all of the details of the project and your prices and terms.
This is probably one of the most common bad habits of clients. I try to stress several times that I require all copy and images before I begin and this usually gets them to give it to me on time. Although don’t be surprised if you end up having to design using dummy text and make annoying adjustments later to fit the actual copy.
This is usually due to the fact that clients do no understand the fine points of resolution or that they just do not have any high resolution images available. Try recommend using high resolution stock photography or illustrations instead, but if they really must use those images try to keep them as small as possible. If this happens make sure you write in your contract that the images provided were of low resolution and may not reproduce well when printed.
Many times clients will ask you to include pre-existing logos or other design elements within the project you are working on. You will have to judge when and when not to argue this if you feel it hurts the overall design. Learning how to negotiate and inform clients on what you believe is best can be considered an art form and takes practice!
This has always been on ongoing battle between designers and clients and has become a sort of inside joke for designers. Even Paula Scher commented on the issue by naming on of her books Make It Bigger.
This one can be pretty easily avoided by establishing a set amount of revision rounds and initial concepts before starting a project. Make sure you get this in writing or at least save your emails where they agree to your specifications. This is most commonly done in the logo and identity design area of graphic design.
This one can be good or bad. It’s bad when they spring additional work on you and don’t want to pay more, but it’s good if your agreement outlines the pricing for additional work.
Often clients can be extremely busy and working on multiple projects at once. As designers it’s important for us to be able to contact our clients to show them samples, revisions and ask important questions. This one is really up to you guys. You can either try and deal with it and get the project done or you can let the client know about the issue and try and resolve it or drop them.
Many designers handle printing for clients, but I try to stay away from this. I’ve seen way too many clients try and stick designers with outrageous printing bills because of an error in the final design. I basically say I can recommend printers to you and do an initial check of the files to make sure they are print ready, but it’s up to you and your printer to do a final prepress check and make sure the files are correct, because I will not be held responsible for any printing costs whatsoever.
This usually turns out bad if you try to spring additional costs on clients at the end of the project. Once again this problem can easily be avoided if you specify upfront what the additional costs are or might be. This can include stock photography, stock illustrations, printing costs and rush fees.
Whether you or a client decided to end a project you should be covered in some way. Using a contract again is a simple way to protect yourself. Simply state that if a project is canceled, you will invoice for work completed up until that point. Some designers give no refunds at all and some are happy to refund clients if they are the ones who drop the client because of issues.
I recently had a client from over two years ago contact me in desperation because he lost certain login information. Lucky for him I keep good records and I was easily able to look up his info. I’m not sure what would have happened if I didn’t have it, but having it in my records made it an easy problem to solve.
Similar to log in information clients often misplace files you send them. I always keep files on my computer, even from projects years ago and I make sure to back up my files on multiple external hard drives.
No one likes this one, but it does happen so be prepared. Always save emails and paperwork in case you need to present them as evidence. Also make sure you find a lawyer that can help you if something comes up. Ask family and friends if they know any good lawyers who would be willing to represent you if a problem occurs.
Some clients are very over controlling and don’t allow for much creative freedom. When dealing with an over controlling client it’s important to let them know you are the designer without sounding to harsh or rude. Just give them your honest opinion on issues and suggest things when you can without being to pushy.
Sometimes clients want a website or some other project done, but they have absolutely no idea what’s going on. By this I mean they have done no research or planning before hand, but still want a complicated website that’s easy to update.
Similar to over controlling clients, some clients think they know everything there is to know about design and what your job entails. They tend to tell you exactly what to do with your designs and can be very pushy. Sometimes you have to just deal with this, but as mentioned before don’t be afraid to give your input. I mean they did hire you because you are a professional designer right?
Know Anymore Bad Habits?
If you know any bad habits we forgot to mention or you have a good client story please let us know in the comments!
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60 Comments
Anonymous
17. Legal Action
Check out Pre-paid Legal. The monthly fee is reasonable and you have a lawyer on-call 24-7.
Merrick
Wow.. I think you got about every one. I’d laugh if I wasn’t busy crying.
Nathan
“My friend the world famous designer said…”
They always have a “famous” designer friend, or their significant other who decides they don’t like an element in your design– so suddenly it must be changed. “My girlfriend doesn’t like the typeface. She wants it bigger and maybe blue.”
You’ll notice how the famous designer never actually appears to do the work, as they conveniently work as legal assists et al– but they’re famous!
William Chinn
Ongoing Tech Support via phone at all hours (since site visits will surely cost money). “The person who ran this was fired, and I need you to train the new person tomorrow.” “We stopped running backups due to time and then the fire destroyed the….” “We are being bought out and the new company has to have it talk to their system by Monday” “What do you mean it won’t run on the new Mac Operating system.Its only been 6 years.” And of course, “If I hire 2 people can it be done twice as fast?”
Mike
As a designer, I think the most annoying “horrible habit” is when people constantly give you small, low res. images and expect them to look good. I deal with one lady every few weeks that loves to send me logos/images pulled off the internet. 2″x2″ @ 72dpi or so then expects me to blow them up to 24×36 ish. Now matter how many times I tell her that 2×2 does NOT go up to 24×36 and that 72dpi blown up that far will look like crap, she still does it.
Awesome article! Loved it!
Very detailed and true too.
Many clients do this sort of things.
I design, and I have passed through many of this situations.
Really good article Gino!
I biggest pet peeves with clients are (#3 and #9 mentioned above) — slow payment and too many revisions.
Your list covers them all. Good work.
20 Horrible Habits of Clients - mike7.net | Design. Advertising. Photography.
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I used to do web design before this one client who still bugs me drove me up the wall insane. I agreed to design his web site because the last web designer didn’t finish it. Now I know why. Here’s the story in chronological order.
I agreed to design the web site, and immediately got to work on designing a template, color scheme and how things should look. He was satisfied and I went ahead and finished the template and started adding some meat to the site.
Of course after adding all the words and paragraphs together, it was ready to start adding all of the products he has to offer. He sold individual items, and from what I saw he had probably over 200 items that he wanted to be put on using the PayPal shopping cart since he did a lot of eBay as well. Everything would be integrated into one area.
Well it is now over 1 year since we reached that mark, and he has never gotten me a full list of the items he has in stock, so I can not add the products and finish this web site. And to top it off, he calls me 2 days ago (11/29) and say he wants me to redesign his website to look “Christmassy”. I’m so happy he gave me enough time to do plan out a Christmas design for his website. I’ll stick to only doing the products and let him know I didn’t have enough notice to finish a Christmas design.
Wanting to change the design after launch because their friend/mom/second cousin didn’t like it.
The clients computer:
It looks great on every computer, on every browser, EXCEPT for the clients; who has the largest font setting on the smallest, burnt out screen, running IE 4 on windows 3.1.
Aaron
In every business there is the one type of client that you should avoid at all costs. I estimate they represent about 10%-20% of all potential clients. They are the ones who expect the most, yet insist on paying the least and try to get as much as possible for free. These people also believe the know everything while in fact they know nothing. If you are for some reasons serving clients like that you are in trouble and you should change strategy for acquiring clients.
Wow this article really hits home, while the vast majority of my clients are great, I have still encountered nearly every issue on this list!
Here’s another one: any designers out there ever been held responsible for every web related issue out there and expected to fix it, even when it’s not your fault!? How about server trouble, when the site is hosted somewhere else!?
Very well said. Customers do have these nasty habits and it do has its own pros and cons.
Just did a dig on your post as well.
Thanks.
I designed a website for my client.
Client was a man with the reputation and money.
Anyway, when the website was finished and everything worked well, he started to demand things.
Things I wasn’t very much happy with.
1. He wanted to have entire control over the website, that included: use largest font sizes (36pt) you can imagine in headings (of course that kills the design); format text like in MS Word 
without having any clue in HTML and CSS; be able to make changes in page layout (to use 3 columns on one page and 5 on another) and graphics (set up with CSS).
It was a nightmare to make him understand that there are things that can be made by a person who knows HTML. Final result was that he did these changes and website became horrible. I had to remove it from my portfolio.
Good thing was he paid well 
Wow, you’ve pretty much covered every problem I had while being a freelance web-designer.. and then some.
I’d definitely think about these whenever I negotiate with a client again!
I totally agree with clients wanting great designs for cheep prices. Thats one thing that seriously irritates me about my freelance clients.
Gino
Thanks you all for the comments!
I hope this article helps you guys avoid many problems designers and clients have faced.
I also hope that clients can learn from this as well. I think there just needs to be better planning and communication between designers and clients so that both sides can minimize problems.
Hopefully this article will help both sides to experience more conflict free projects!
Good Luck Guys =)
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Very nice. I wrote a similar post from the point of view of the tech. I’m glad we aren’t the only ones who have problems with clients.
http://think-smarter.blogspot.com/2007/08/10-things-your-it-guy-wants-you-to-know.html
It’s all about communication!
I request clients and subcontractors be available by phone. Things overlooked or misunderstood in rounds of emails can get a little batty.
I also request logmein free be installed on their computers so I can connect remotely if need be for presentations and tech support.
And when I say “request,” I mean “require” (when possible).
They have to have a goal/mission statement (”what’s the point of doing this”) and a vision statement (”how do you picture this succeeding”) before I’ll start. That way instead of it being my opinion, it’s “That will screw up your goal, and here’s why …” I don’t like to work on things that will fail. It’s not about it being their fault but me being blamed .. I just don’t like failure!
I keep a site showing outstanding issues and what is being worked on currently. When something is misunderstood over overlooked I can say “That’s item #3 added 6 weeks ago, still waiting for your selection of which way to go.” That way they can’t avoid clarity (eventually).
You hit everything on the dot. Especially #1. I make in effort to manage expectations before I start any projects now so clients know what to expect from me, and what I expect from them to do my job correctly.
15 (logins) and 16 (files) I handle by treating them as giving good customer service. Being able to haul a client’s butt out of the fire for missing files or login information reminds them of why they liked working with you in the first place.
I’ve got a client right now that’s violating fully half of these - it may be time to drop-kick them (after the holidays, of course).
Heather’s Blog | 20 Horrible Habits of Clients
[…] is a repost from another blog found here. Loved it so much I had to share it. Unfortunately very true […]
Group Hub - 20 Horrible Habits of Clients
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Ensuring that the client provides the final copy and images before you start is essential. If this doesn’t happen, you end up ‘waiting’ not being able to make progress and having to make changes afterwards. If it’s unavoidable, be very clear with the client at the beginning of the project that it will take longer to complete and cost more.
In my experience, the copy provided can be unacceptably poor. Explain at the start that if the quality of the copy provided isn’t reasonable, either you won’t accept it or you’ll have to charge extra to fix it. If you don’t, the client will just turn round at the end and say the website is full of mistakes, even though they made them. Make the client aware that you charge extra for manipulating stock images and buying fonts.
If you’re quick at photoshop or psp, I usually make a mockup of the entire site and a create a working prototype. Each page is a jpg and all the links work. It really doesn’t take to long to do and being able to walk through the structure with the client saves a heap of work later. I work on the principle that the client doesn’t really know what they want until they’ve seen what they don’t want. Don’t do a project for a middleman. You’ll end up signing things off for the middleman that then get rejected by the real client.
Good list. I don’t usually add comments but I see you have none and someone who does this much work deserves some kudos. I design and can relate to your comments. I’ve also forwarded your page to my daughter and her design firm.
here’s one i got a lot when i used to do design for a church:
“the design is great…..could you maybe add some more color? like some purple or orange? just to jazz it up a little bit.”
Javbw
To me - the one to avoid the most is the “burned” client. Someone who is now needing work form a designer / tech / etc after the last one robbed / stole/ neglected them.
They will never give you passwords, always want assurances, demand to know where everything you use comes from, and what you are doing right that second.
And usually, they got burned because they were too lazy / busy / inept to pay attention to detail the first time.
Klaue
To number 8:
video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=qgcX0y1Nzhs
http://makemylogobiggercream.com/ (video on website is not working for me)
you probably allready knew it, but if not.. enjoy
Re solutions for slow payment: At WestCoastWeb.com, we always take a 70% deposit on all design packages for the web, with an established number of hours that they get for a set price for a web design. This does for about 90% of clients, and they are told ahead of time that if they are “fiddlers” ask their neighbors or aunt’s involvement, or have trouble making up their own minds, they may go over, and what the hourly rate is for that.
When they finish their package, they are emailed a time authorization telling them they need to authorize X time at X rate as per the development agreement, to finish the estimated remaining work. As well, we don’t work without having a credit card on file, and the client signs in the contract that we are authorized to bill their card every two weeks for work authorized by them (via email time approvals) and performed in the period.
Final payment for the web design package is when the design hours of the package are used up, or 8 weeks after we’ve sent the first layout to them. This takes care of those people that start a project, go to another country for three months, and don’t finish their project till six months later. Hope that helps!
Cheers,
Britta
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[…] 20 Horrible Habits of Clients Blog by omega Blogging in Design, Satan Below is a common list of issues designers have to deal with while working with clients on projects and how to avoid or solve those issues in a professional manner. Source : You the designer […]
Steve
Here in the UK, we have to give 28 days notice on payment, and most don’t even respect that. I’m still chasing up invoices from 5 months ago, and am completely skint, and having to pay while my bank fines me ridiculous amounts of money for being overdrawn . I speak to the clients, and they go through the usual, “oh the cheque has been sent out - has it been lost in the post?” or “we’ve only just seen your invoice! obviously it wasn’t given to us in the first place.” or “oh yes! our accounts department are terrible. We’ll chase it up!”… one week later exactly the same response, and so on for weeks and weeks and weeks.. I’m at my wits end.
I’m dealing with a dreadful client at the moment who has absolutely no idea what they want, they have a deadline they haven’t prepared for, and have got me in to save the day, extremely last minute. And they only deal with me via ichat or email. Add to that there being 3 of them, all constantly contradicting each other.
Working freelance is like extracting teeth.
Yup, it happens almost everytime!
As a client, I found your list very useful and illuminating. I wish that my web designer had given me this list so I had a better perspective on his needs and pet peeves. While most of the ideas seem very obvious and predictable, others will not.
Good job!
Nice compilation. Most of the topics u’ve discussed are very familiar.
Alot of these annoying things that clients do can be eased by being firm with them and having clear project terms outlined from the outset.
I make reasonable requests to clients, such as wanting copy and images before I start work,and I expect them to understand these very reasonable requests.
I would never start designing without the final copy first and my terms and conditions state that if they give me copy that then changes later on “this is likely to incurr further charges at my hourly rate”
I find this statement tends to ensure that you get the final/correct copy before you start 
Most issues can be avoided by good terms and conditions..I think it’s really important to be very clear about what you are offering for xx price and what will happen and what the costs will be if the want more above that, or want to start changing anything.
Once you have a good awareness of the types of things that will crop up you can build them into your terms and so this blog is very useful in that respect!
I also hate controlling clients - controlling clients end up with my worst work because they won’t be me be properly free to be creative and so all they end up with is the boundaries of their own limited creativity.
Saying that, they still go away happy so job done I guess.
I certainly wouldn’t let them go away with any appalling design that would be a detriment to their business however, even though it might not be to my taste. With any truly bad ideas from clients; I work hard to diplomatically steer them in a better direction.
Pretty hilarious if it wasn’t so serious. It reminds me of an episode back in the late Traissic. A secretary for a problem client called wanting to know where they could get additional type set for an identity project. I thought I’d put them on mute, turning to my partner saying “can you believe these cheap a**holes?” When I clicked back on, the secretary said in a tired voice “I heard what you said, and I understand completely”, then hung up.
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marc
I feel cleansed now, I know it’s not just me that gets the all…
Seth Brundle
Most of these are not ‘horrible designer client habits’ but instead simply realities of contracting.
Make no doubt about it - making your hourly pricing, overtime, printing costs, payment schedule, deliverable definition, resource delivery schedule, etc well defined in your contract is entirely *your* responsibility to think of and define with the client beforehand.
If you dont, its *your* bad habit as a contractor.
The “Never-Ending Client”:
Businesses will change Constantly, they have to in order to survive. But when they expect me to revise their website every time they have a new photo or sale, or new marketing tactic it gets annoying.
Clients like this should immediately be directed to a website developer that includes a CMS system so they can update any text on their site themselves.
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Hi,
A very diggable post (thats where I found it). Will post this on my site, it’s great
Jacob
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Wonderful post!!! Thank you for this.
Shelly
Two of my favorites:
1) having an army of people emailing you to tell you what they think should be changed, and ALL of them say different things (which is why I *always* require one contact point)
2) thinking that you’re on call 24/7, and demanding things from you on Christmas Day (or at midnight on a Sunday) and wondering why you haven’t done it 5 seconds after they sent you the email on it, and threaten to fire you if you don’t do it NOW (even though you won’t see the email until days later)
I agree with you with all points and hope that “we” in the profession learn from the pointers you have given. You have, in some sense helped to make our jobs “easier”
Roger
One of my client who was with me for the last few years, I designed a medium-sized Website for him then. But just recently, he decided to take everything down, and give it a re-design himself. Yes, himself. Whom only knew how to use abit of Photoshop and ProntPage.
I took down his site completely as he asked for, then he decided to put it all back on the next day, then decided not to few hours later. AND, thinking maybe I can be a good use later on so he might just well contact me when he got the design problems or something.
By the way, as far as I knowledged that we’ve already ended our Website relationships fully as he asked for in the first place before we took down everything. Now, he’s expecting me to be as a supporting person to his own design problems, without paying too much or free of charge.
He also has tones of #10 and #16 problems (on top of the article), and generally comes back once in a long while to update/change stuff with little pays or no payings at all.
Here’s a good article which related to above problems I found lately, some of you might be interested: http://www.builderau.com.au/strategy/businessmanagement/soa/Dealing-with-nightmare-clients/0,339028271,339129591,00.htm
I’m sure some of you might have this kind of issues too. And I’m still seeking a good soluation to deal with this kind of clients.
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Amen, brother.