ColourMod :: Dynamic (DHTML) Color Picker

Typically, I would not bash clients that I deal with considering it is bad business practice, but seeing as I will not use names, I feel that I must.

When I first started designing websites professionally (actually getting paid to do what I enjoyed), I thought I had stepped into the job of paradise. Visions of amazing designs danced through my head and my first year of designing was bliss.

But inevitably, along came the clients that knew how to suck the design life-force right out of my body. I knew I was in trouble when I heard the words over the phone, “I like your design and all but I was thinking…” Not that this is bad, I can take constructive criticism from a client, but the words that followed clinched it for me, “could you make the design look more like our ad in the phonebook.”

I think I heard the sadistic bad design demons cackeling in the background. Stunned, all I could say was, “Sure, I’m not sure how it is going to look, but I will give it a shot.” Once again the whims of the client prevailed because I knew they were the ones who were ultimately responsible for my paycheck.

Unfortunately, this change was the fifth request since the original design, and by now it was already looking very ugly. Nowhere close to the original design.

This is not an isolated event. This occurs time and time again. Granted, clients end up having a different style then I have anticipated sometimes, but when they come back to me with a “design” that they “made”, it makes me wonder who the designer really is anyway?