One of my ‘regular read’ blogs is Clients from Hell, a collection of anonymously contributed client horror stories from graphic and website designers.
Even if they’re not all true, they are the sorts of things I’ve heard in my time and which Mrs P has to deal with on at least a weekly basis.
The quotes were published as an anthology (if that’s the right word) earlier this year and here are a few examples to whet your appetite:
“Can you change the colour of the headline? Black text scares old people.”
“I really like Apple’s logo, so I’ve taken it and put our name under it.”
“We like the woman in the wheelchair, but we don’t want people to think that being in a wheelchair makes her less feminine. You need to make her breasts bigger.”
“Can you include an intro animation that turns the screen into a mirror so that visitors can see themselves?n We really want to push the metaphor.”
“All these drawings of dinosaurs… Why can’t we just use photos?”
“I don’t care if we lose 90% of our visitors; we can’t have a ‘skip’ option on the flash intro. We paid a lot of money for that, so everybody has to see it.”
“Can you put page numbers on the postcard? I’m not sure people will know how to get to the other side.”
These are some of the pithier quotes and there are more involved conversations to enjoy.
I recommend the book and website if you’re in that line of work if only as a form of catharsis.
“All these drawings of dinosaurs… Why can’t we just use photos?”
I dont think ANYONE could beat that one
Some of those comments remind me of the answers to exam questions which surface from time to time. Interesting to note that these people do not become more intelligent/sensible as they get older! 😉
Serious design thinking going on here… LOL!