That Newborn Client Smell

We’ve all had that client. Those difficult days where you have to deal with someone who just doesn’t get it. Maybe they have a lack understanding, time, education, resources or a mixture of any of these. They complain about their CMYK print outs not looking like the low res proofing PDF viewed on a monitor in RGB on a third party distribution site. They feel like you are cheating them by putting too much “white space” on an ad that, “they are paying for”. As if the negative space is some sort of trick to rob them of valuable starburst or coupon or menu “cram” room. They get pissed when you try to offer world class suggestions backed by Ivy league marketing engineers studies and the best psychology money can buy. They refuse to accept the benefits of a balanced layout and color schemes that make sense or the fact that 35 fonts is just much chaos. Any of this sounding familiar? Thought so. The point is, you need them and they need you, for better or for worse.

So how do we deal with these types of cry babies? Treat them like a wise and patient parent, not a deadbeat nitwit. Sometimes we have to hold their hands, tell them their special, give them warmth and food and clothing and pay for all of their mistakes until we reach year eighteen and can legally boot them the heck out if they fail to launch on their own. Tough love. Okay maybe we’ll wait till twenty-one when they graduated college or something, but you get the point.

Now, there are varying levels of design maturity your clients may be at. They levels go a little something like this:

The Infant: Aww they’re so cute and smell new! They listen and actually want to be helpful, but have no clue what you are asking when using industry terms like bleed, margin, glue gap, trim, fold, .eps or .PDF. Basically they just nod and smile and make spit bubbles expecting you to clap and make noises at them. Severe hand holding must be initiated. You’ll get them there but they may have a melt down in the middle of the produce department when they smell something like broccoli. Irrational fears must be calmed. Prepare for worst case scenarios with this one as normal print tolerances / web functionality expectations meet reality tend to set them off in fits of rage.

The Toddler: A.K.A., Jon Snow, they know nothing. “What’s a font?” “My brother’s step-son made my logo for me and I really like how he made my website with a clown gradient background. Can you guys do something like that?” “Do you guys accept Gimp files?” “Starbursts, starbursts, starbursts, gradient, registration black text. Oh also, can you put a picture of my dog in my cupcake/cell phone/title loan company ad?” Key here is to Educate, educate, educate. School is in session. Permanently.

The Pre-Teen: They aren’t misunderstood, but they do misunderstand. “Can you use my low-res business card scan and this PowerPoint slide as a layout? Why is it not fitting the 10.25″x12.125″ dimension? My design looks good on my 1024x768 powerpoint slide on my monitor! Can I put my entire menu on the back side where you originally had the coupons?” You’ll be constantly reminding them to do the necessaries like package documents or send hi resolution images for the four-hundredth time.

The Teenager: They understand the need for good design, but aren’t willing to do anything to get what they want. They don’t want to pay, or listen to half of what you suggest. They also tend to be the know-it-all’s. “Hey I saw something cool on instagram I think would be awesome to put into my advertisement.” They also have a tendency to say, “Make it cooler!”. They make eight revisions from scratch. They are basically every ignorant sales rep chasing nothing but the sale I’ve ever worked for, with few exceptions. (No, Shane and Corey, you’re cool.) Basically, they want to drive a car that’s way to fast for them. The expectation is a Lamborghini, when in reality they have a ‘92 Ford Taurus budget. They know what InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop is, but they only like Photoshop, because it’s cool. “So I should just Photoshop everything?” NO, use data protection! Vector anything scale-able for print. (You should know how to convert for web though.)

The Young Adult: They understand you’re doing your job. They trust you. You’re the working professional. They aren’t. They still want to tweak things and make it “original”, though. They “get” Photoshop and InDesign, but they are running a few versions behind because it’s just not something they worry about. It’s recreational for them. They know just enough about the programs and system and design to make your job slightly difficult, but for the most part they are fairly knowledgeable and you can get away with taking risks here. Sends some high res photos, maybe some fonts, half of which may be corrupt

The Actual Adult: Has great design sense, a clear vision, may even know exactly what they want. Perhaps, so much so, that they don’t need any proofs or layout options and just need you to put it together for them. “What’s that? You have a clear mock-up of what the ad should look like, included high resolution images and fonts that have punctuation characters included for multi-lingual support?! You sure you aren’t a graphic designer?”. They are always up to date with their software and may even challenge you to be better.

At one point or another you WILL run into each of these maturity types of clients. The important thing to note is when you get on one of these phone calls or go into one of these meetings with clients like these you keep your cool. Escalation is what you don’t want and it’s easy to avoid. Regardless of their level of design expertise you have to maintain control.

So, based on the different levels of maturity you should be able to come up with a plan of attack for each so you can fill in the gaps where they may need your professionalism, experience and parental guidance. You want them to respect you and you can’t get respect by just yelling at them. You need to know what you are talking about, have subject matter experts with you if you aren’t one already and if you don’t have one on hand you need to network more or know where to get the answers for them. Never say, “I don’t know.”. It’s okay to say “I’m not sure about that, I’ll need to check with a colleague, let me get back to you on that.”. Sometimes it’s comforting for a client to believe It’s not what you know it’s who you know. You want the client to feel that YOU are that person that they know who has the answers. Stay confident, stay in control, have a plan of action for each of the levels of maturity and always maintain a helpful attitude and never escalate emotional outbursts regardless of the clients position. These simple things will help you negotiate some rough terrain with even the most heated client. Trust me. Congrats, it’s twins! Good luck!