First, as a disclaimer to any future clients (love you!) let me say that very few clients fit into the client from hell category. If you’re an average Joe or Jane who’s spent the majority of your life not getting slugged square in the face, you’re excluded by a mile. Welcome!

That said, here are some warning phrases that any freelancer should tune his ears to. If you hear a lot of these from the same client, not just a couple here or there, be very sure to clarify down to the finest detail everything that’s needed and wanted. And get a contract signed. In blood. On ancient parchment from the fertile crescent. Or, don’t even take the commission.

“I don’t care.”

The client always cares. If he’s writing the checks, he cares. If he’s proud of his business and the things you’re producing for…

We’re a litigious society. Some people get sued more than I eat breakfast. The psychiatric profession industry alone currently has more than 28,000 active suits against it. So this post is not without purpose, and the main point is that you need a contract.

Contracts are essential. They don’t have to be big or confusing or full of legal jargon or anything like that. But they do have to be agreed upon and they have to define the responsibilities of both parties. And they should be signed by both parties.

Now, there are cut/paste contracts floating around online. They’re free to use but I would recommend writing your own or getting a lawyer to prepare a standard one for you.

Regardless, contract writers and lawyers, not being designers, aren’t always aware of how the design process can wreak havoc on one’s time and money. This post is about three little…

There are two things I’ve discovered that waste more time than anything in freelance work.

1. Doing crappy work
2. Starting before you know what the client really wants, leading to crappy work

We all know what doing crappy work is so no need to elucidate here. It goes in the trash.

As to starting a project before you clarify milestones with the client, same things applies. While you may make them the most incredible logo or website ever, if it’s not what they wanted it’s still crap to them. It goes in the trash too.

Now, I know that freelancers in many fields have a tendency to blame the client when things go wrong. And yes, we all know there are tough personalities and clients who don’t pay and such. I’m not saying there aren’t law-breakers and thieves out there, but clients like that are a…

SEATTLE, October 2006
It was a dark and stormy night when the phone rang. I pulled the cigarette from my teeth and reached for the phone. Actually, no. I don’t smoke.

And besides it was a perfectly mild mid-afternoon when my email inbox said “PING!” I opened the message, read it and dollar signs appeared in both of my eyes. Someone, we’ll call him “Jake”, wanted a new logo and I was just the man for it.

And thus begun one of my toughest and most time-consuming cases ever. The job was simple: design a logo for this gentleman’s SEO company. That’s about all I knew when I accepted the project and by the end, I didn’t know much more than that.

Aloofness is a hard client to please

I gave the gent the ordinary rundown on how I work, then did my preliminary interview. It didn’t go…

This site has changed about 400 times over the past few months.

Anyone who’s come here any two days in succession probably watched the H2 colors shift from black to blue right under their eyes. Or maybe they saw the active links go from cream to off-chartreuse to slightly-more-off-chartreuse. Or the body text going from Georgia to Verdana to Helvetica to Helvetica Neue and then back again.

Yeah, I’m done with that now.

It all started when I finished some commission work and was too lazy to go get some more. But creature of habit that I am, I can’t just sit here and not design. So what choice did I have other than to turn my evil wiles upon this here site?

There are still some minor adjustments to make. A pixel here and pixel there for alignment and such. And the portfolio I’ll admit can…

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