Been There, Done That, and Been There Again Sometimes a difficult customer can make you feel depressed, angry or both. But as they say, it’s all part of the package when you work for clients.
Tak Robinson, a lead graphic designer, shares his story of a difficult client.
“One of our customers used us because we were known for fast service. He had to pay a premium but grudgingly did so to meet his tight deadlines.
“Then he started to drop off his work after our studio was officially closed for business. He knew we had a night crew and demanded that his projects be ready by the next day.
“This really disrupted our night shift’s schedule in taking care of other rush jobs for the following morning. Our excellent night team was not happy.”
What did Tak do? The rest of the story is at the end of this article. (As usual certain circumstances and names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty.)
Difficult Clients Most of the time, clients are reasonable. But there are always customers who stretch your patience to the max. . ………………. . As Jill the graphic designer indicated, you can’t really tell off a customer the way she did. But in rare cases where compromise or a mutual understanding isn’t working, it may be the better part of valor to diplomatically turn down the job.
Kristen Holden of SitePoint offers this advice:
“The easiest way to deal with problem clients is to not take them on board in the first place.
“Avoid feeling compelled to accept every piece of work you come across. Some clients are truly not worth the extra effort spent on managing them. Over time, you actually lose money.”
With that said make sure that you are doing the best you can to be professional and understanding in order to find a solution that will keep both you and your client relatively happy.
Graphic Design School and Customer Relations The first priority for going to a graphic design college is to get a strong education in design and art. The secondary purpose is to prepare you for career opportunities upon graduation.
How you relate to your fellow peers in graphic design school, how you handle the pressure of deadlines, and your ability to produce consistently good work under adverse circumstances helps you in providing good customer service.
Hard Decisions In a perfect world there should never be a circumstance where you need to turn down a client. But as we all know this isn’t a perfect world. Turning down a client must be done in a pragmatic and logical manner after all other avenues to work with the client have been closed.
In some cases a job may not be financially sound for your business. In extremely rare cases the client is unreasonable and unrealistic concerning expectations, deadlines or final costs.
Let’s find out the rest of the story concerning our graphic designer and the difficult client.
“His demands were becoming increasingly over the top for us and we had to make a decision to tell our night staff to charge him premium-rush-overtime to complete his work ahead of our other clients.
“The funny thing is he never complained about the extra charges. He started to drop off his work during the daytime again instead of at night. Eventually we figured out that he was always behind in his work and passed his hectic deadlines on to us.
“We wanted to drop him as a client but things worked themselves out for us. We think his company fired him because another graphic artist took his place.”
Next Time… We hope you’ve enjoyed this series about Graphic Designers vs. Clients. In the next few weeks we’ll take a look at the creative processes of graphic design and see how good ideas can sometimes backfire.
Urban Nature? Although the phrase sounds contradictory it describes how modern cities incorporate nature in the “concrete jungle.” City parks, rooftop gardens, tree-lined streets and patches of grass all add up to the concept of urban nature.
Mini Space is sponsoring its Urban Nature Remixed Competition and wants images that demonstrate the fusion of nature within city boundaries.
Mini Space states:
“We want to see urban and nature fused together: vibrant flowers growing through concrete, trees shadowing on steel structures, picnics held against city backdrops, and more.
Submit photographs, illustrations, or graphic designs showing Urban Nature Remixed.”
Contest Details You may upload your images to the official Mini Space Contest Site. Specification for images:
Minimum Size: 1280 x 800 pixels Format: JPG or GIF File Size Limits: 100KB for GIF and 4MB for JPEG.
If your image cannot be uploaded to the site try reducing its file size or dimensions.
To participate in this contest you need to open a free account at MiniSpace.com.
Prizes
Jury Prize 1 - NEW Apple MacBook Air (11-Inch) Jury Prize 2 - Apple iPad (16GB) Jury Prize 3 - Ricoh CX3 Digital Camera Popular Vote Prize - Apple iTunes Gift card for approximately 100 songs
Contest Links and Additional Information The deadline for this contest is January 14, 2011. Participation in this competition requires registration and a free account on MiniSpace. There is no entry fee required.
Before They Showed Up The use of personal computers and cell phones is very common today and it’s hard to imagine not having these devices in today’s high-tech world.
We wonder, “What will the next generations of electronic marvels hold for us?”
The Fujitsu Design Award is about the future and how high-tech devices will influence us years from now. In the words of the sponsor:
“The Fujitsu Design Award is held to make the future lifestyles of people richer and even more fun, and to give concrete shape to the future…
As Fujitsu sees it, by more frequently using ICT (information and communication technologies) that is becoming increasingly diverse, and dramatically expanding the possibilities of our services.”
Contest Details This competition is about submitting your best vision of the future and how new computing technology will be used.
Fujitsu is asking designers to formulate designs and concepts for the devices of the future and what they will do for people in relationship to networking with others, daily routines, entertainment, and fulfilling Fujitsu service design concepts.
Fujitsu describes a service concept as:
“…a type of service utilizing ICT is provided to enrich peoples’ ….lives, and can be described in these terms:
* What type of person, and what type of service will it provide? * What will that service be used for, where and when? * What convenience, experience, excitement or other new value ….can be gained by using the service?
There is no need to interpret the service content based on a business model (income and expenditure).”
There are two different design divisions for this contest:
* Lifebook Category: What PCs will be like in 2013; the near future. * Lifedesign Category: What next-generation computing devices will be like (including service ….concept) ten years from now in 2020.
Submission Guidelines Entries may be images or video clips. The following are the recommended specifications for each type of file:
Images:
* 72dpi gif or jpeg files in RGB color mode * Dimensions should be 600 pixels wide x 800 pixels high * File size not to be larger than 150kb.
Video Clips
* Only flv or swf files will be accepted * File size: 640 pixels x 480 pixels * file size: 10MB or less
For full details see the official rules and guidelines.
Prizes The following cash awards will be given to the winners:
One Grand Prize: €30,000 (42,390 USD) for 1 work Two Runner-Up Prizes: €10,000 (14,130 USD) for 2 works (1 from each category) Seven Judges’ Special Awards: €1,000 (1412 USD) for 7 works
Contest Links and Other Information This contest will close on January 31, 2011. The winners will be announced sometime in April 2011. There are no entry fees for this contest.
Follow these links for important information regarding this competition:
Water is Life Are you a student currently studying the fine arts, design, communication design or architecture? If you have already graduated, has it been less than a year since you received your degree? If you can answer ‘yes’ to either question you are eligible for this contest.
The International Student Poster Competition’s theme is “Water Is Life.” ZVSHK (German Sanitation, Heating and Air Conditioning Association), the sponsor of this contest states:
“In the year 2000, the United Nations set itself the goal of halving the number of people without access to clean drinking water by 2015.”
“It is recommended that you conduct thorough research as the topic [Water is Life] is wide-ranging in scope, touching not just on biological aspects of life but also on political and economic issues.
Contest Guidelines All posters must be submitted digitally. The rules state that entries must follow these parameters:
Format: DIN A4 (21.0 cm x 29.7 cm, portrait or landscape format) Resolution: 400 - 600 dpi Color mode: RGB File format: JPEG (Quality factor: 10 - 12) Maximum file size: 15 MB File name: Example: ‘Doe_John_USA_2010-11-08_No.01′ Poster Info: Brief description of the poster concept Mandatory Text: All submissions must include the phrase: ‘Wasser ist Leben’ (German) or “Water is Life” (English)
Prizes The judging panel will select the best 100 poster designs. These entries will be published in a catalog in addition to being displayed in a traveling exhibition. All winners will receive a free copy of the display edition.
There will be three prize winners selected from the top 100.
First Place: 5000 Euros (7,018 USD) Second Place: 3000 Euros (4,211 USD) Third Place: 2000 Euros (2,807 USD)
The prize winners may be offered the opportunity to sell their posters to the event organizers.
Contest Links and Other Details This contest is free to enter. The deadline for submissions is February 11, 2011. Follow these links for more contest information:
Design for the Future The Roca International Design Contest: Jump the Gap, is seeking design entries which depict futuristic concepts and inventive designs related to bathroom products, new use of interior spaces and/or functions.
Your concept may not be possible to produce now, but the ideas may be presented in a manner that assumes technology and product manufacturing will catch up to your future design.
The design principles learned in graphic design school can definitely help in coming up with new and fresh ideas related to interior design, space utilization, and product development.
The sponsor of the contest states:
“Jump the gap is a creative contest proposal that brings new and innovative concepts to the bathroom, understanding innovation as the anticipation of users’ new desires and needs, as well as (why not?) the transformation of dreams and desires into reality.
“…a tomorrow when the limitations of today will not apply and when new needs, architecture, technologies and products will emerge which will help us to improve people’s lives by bringing them more well-being, hygiene and comfort.”
Basic Contest Guidelines The contest is open to any resident of any country who is 34 years of age or younger. Applicants may be designers, architects or students enrolled in these fields.
Submitted entries may be from individuals or a group of two people. Entries are limited to one entry per person or group (two people).
Artwork must not contain any details or information that can identify the authors of the project such as signatures, names, logos, etc. All texts that accompany the designs must be in the English language.
* You may submit up to 4 files in jpg format. * Maximum file size is 1500kb. Minimum file size is 500kb. * High resolution images may be requested if your entry wins. * A description of your project must be included with your ….artwork. (3,000 characters max.) * Optional videos/animations demonstrating your project are …. should be in FLV format. File size should be ….no bigger than 10MB. * Finalists will be required to verify their professional or ….student status by sending in a copy of their degree, diploma or proof of the school’s certification.
Prizes One grand prize winner will be awarded €5,000 (6,655 USD). The winner or winners will be offered the opportunity to collaborate with the Roca Design Department in manufacturing a possible full-sized model for presentation at the 100% Design 2011 London event.
An exclusive rights purchase offer will be made available to the winner of the contest.
Contest Links and Additional Information Specific contest information can be found by following these links:
Design a Better Future The skills and career training you receive at agraphic design school not only help you to be a better graphic designer, they can also be used to express your ideas for a better future for people.
“…an opportunity for graphic artists to express, manifest, symbolize and imagine solutions for a better city capable of improving the lifestyle of its inhabitants.
“The primary objective of this project is to promote a debate around the basic theme of life in the community and how improvements can be made.
“Felicity aims at providing a contribution to reflection beginning from an anthropological vision and arriving at modern times, in the expectation of a future where the city can be a better place for self-improvement.”
What Your Designs Can Show The contest seeks themes related to:
* Integration of different cultures and religions * Citizen needs: Youth, Disabled, Children, the Aged, ….and Outcasts * Technological innovations * The Community as protagonist * Interaction between urban areas and nature * Safety
General Guidelines and Information The official contest rules state:
* Art can be created with any technique, but the final image sent must be in digital form. * The best works of technical and conceptual importance will be selected. * Use graphics to interpret and narrate the concept of a city to the size of man. * Show how your concept improves the quality of the city and its quality of life. * Only one submission per entrant is allowed. * The dimensions of your entry must be 70×100cm or 100×70cm. * Art must be sent in JPG (72 DPI) or PDF format. * An image in high resolution (used for printing purposes) will be needed from contest winners.
While city concepts are usually the domain of urban planners and architects, this competition is especially geared towards graphic designers to see their alternative views in city planning
Students enrolled in graphic design colleges may be especially interested in entering this contest to gain experience in developing ideas for a project that is normally outside the normal scope of graphic design.
For full details and guidelines download the PDF document.
Awards Winners will be sent a catalog of the public exhibition to be held in Venice, Italy in October 2010. This venue will offer international exposure to those who are selected for the event.
The decisions of the jury are final.
Certain works will be chosen by the judging panel for publication on the Felicity website (www.felicityproject.it) and the program exhibition catalog.
Other Contest Details Send any questions about this contest to info [at] felicityproject.it. The deadline for entries is July 31, 2010.
Sometimes a difficult customer can make you feel depressed, angry or both. But as they say, it’s all part of the package when you work for clients.
Hard Decisions
Water is Life
Contest Guidelines
Contest Links and Other Details
Design for the Future
students enrolled in these fields.
Prizes
