Free ebook offers designers practical solutions for working with bad clients.
Just as Dante had to struggle through the nine circles of hell in the Divine Comedy, graphic designers can find themselves in their own inferno of frustration when dealing with difficult clients.
Clients who expect designers to be constantly at their beck and call, or who turn minor tweaks into full-blown emergencies, for example, can spoil an otherwise rewarding creative assignment.
The client isn’t always right, and your service to them shouldn’t just fall to an execution of their ideas
Tyson Beck
Route One Print takes a literary approach to the important topic, splitting nightmare clients up into nine types – named after the nine circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno.
The nine stages of clients hell include:
Greed: Clients who just want a bargain, so don’t pay designers what they are worth
Violence: Argumentative and aggressive clients
Fraud: Clients who think that they are designers and can therefore do everything better
Treachery: Clients who agree to the terms at the beginning of projects, only to refuse to adhere to these terms once the work is underway
Not only does the ebook identify the types of clients who can cause designers headaches, it also offers expert advice on how to work with them productively. With The Design Comedy, you’ll learn how to overcome common client-designer problems and turn these into opportunities for learning and improving your business skills.
For example, when dealing with fraud, author Tyson Beck suggests: "As a freelancer, don’t hesitate to provide your client with a different solution to what they’re suggesting you do. The client isn’t always right, and your service to them shouldn’t just fall to an execution of their ideas."
Ella is Creative Bloq’s former production editor, and now works as managing editor for CB’s sister site, Woman&Home. In both roles, she helped the team to ensure content is expertly written, authoritative, timely and compelling.
While on Creative Bloq, she wrote a number of news and feature articles, specialising in graphic design and photography, attending design industry events and interviewing leading studios. She has 14 years of of editorial experience, graduating from Kingston University with a First Class Honours degree in Journalism in 2008.
Ella has written and edited magazines and websites including TechRadar.com, Digital Camera magazine, BikeRadar.com, Mollie Makes and more. She worked on professional photography website www.canon-europe.com/pro for six years, having worked her way up from production editor, to deputy editor, to editor. As such, she's a stickler for fact-checking, has too many opinions about grammar and is easily excited by a beautiful photo.
