2005-06-25 - 3:12 p.m.
Instant logo, just add flower
I am frustrated beyond belief right now by a logo job that has been a textbook case of what goes wrong with a client relationship when working on a job.
**Speaking of design, I really got to get my tush in gear and change the way this page looks, I'm just up to my eyeballs in work, both paid and pro bono. I pretty much don't have any weekend to myself, much less to do things like my laundry.**
Anyway, this logo job has been a cliche it's so obvious. Let's just say that we've gone through everything from questioning price (after giving the client a detailed, agreed upon contract to avoid such a problem) to trying to get other design services from me on the same job to telling me to add a goddamned flower. Yes, it's that bad.
I used my best co-conspiratorial, least condescending voice to make the client feel that I was letting him in on a design secret and explained how a logo is best created as a simple mark that is instantly identifiable and not busy and full of symbolism.
I let him know that I wanted him to have a great logo and here are the little secrets to obtain just that. I refrained from letting him know that under no circumstances would I allow my work to resemble crap because I pretty much pride myself at being able to sway people on stuff like this. Plus, it's true.
His response: "I deal with marketing all the time with my job, so I know what good design is supposed to look like."
Everyone's a designer. That's cool.
No, really, everyone's a designer. Everytime we work out a design, he shows it around to a dozen or so people who are not, by profession, designers, and he comes back with changes to a logo with which he left me perfectly pleased.
I talked him out of the flower by telling him it was too religious looking, since its four petals made it appear as a cruciform shape and there's some popular contemporary lore about dogwoods and the crucifixion floating around out there in popular culture.
We settled on a final design. I thought he was happy. Guess what? New email:
"... please add a dogwood flower to the background ... if you can see how that would work I'd appreciate it. �No one felt that the dogwood was too religious a symbol to use, especially since it is an official State symbol."
Now I'm stuck with the age-old question of giving the customer what he wants to the best of my design ability, or educating him about how shmaltzy it is. Damn, it was looking pretty good too, despite the fact that it has been a fairly un-inspiring job.
I'd like to uphold the whole "only put out good work and make the client understand thing," but after awhile I just get too tired of it to give a damn and just want to get the crap off of my desktop.
Ugh, I'm not AIGA idealist material, to say the least, but I tire from society's unoriginality.
I suffer from the general public's lack of irony and people not realizing what bullshit they appreciate.
And I'm not just talking about the common man here, sometimes I have to prevent myself from laughing (nay, SNORTING) at the suggestions coming from Creative Directors. Not the ones I respect, mind you, but some people who get paid a hell of a lot of money because they supposedly have good ideas.
Whatever. I've got to go add a freakin' daisy chain to this horseshit and get back to some work for the theater that is actually rewarding.
And then I need to get out of this godforsaken template with the scripty font and crap. Help. It's been ages since I've done HTML.
