I’ve had a recent string of “bad clients”. Clients who’ve been very heavy handed during the design process. Essentially wanting to use my computer, my design programs, and me as a surrogate host, to do their graphic design bidding. They’ve wanted me to simply extract, then execute this massively horrid, *cough* *cough* I mean magically wonderful idea from their brains. My abilities as a designer and a thinker are are being wasted. It would be too easy to just give in to these poorly conceived demands.

I’m struggling to find a way to better communicate to these people. To explain to them the benefits of my knowledge, but in a way where they believe it. Many of these clients are simply making personal and subjective decisions based on their lack of design knowledge. Where’s the trust? The trust that I’m capable of helping them. The trust that I have their best interests at heart.

While it may be briefly exciting to give these clients their awful logos, then sprint to the bank, with check in hand, before their businesses fail. The ultimate outcome is very hollow and quite frankly upsetting. It is also damaging to my reputation as a designer, as well as damaging to my eyes. Many of these clients are local and I’ll be forced to gaze upon the awfulness I’ve created as it appears plastered on billboards and driving by on pickup trucks.

I find that learning how to design high quality, well thought out, useful branding elements is only part of the process. Being able to essentially sell the client the idea while convincing them to trust you, is just as valuable a skill.