Design Tales from the Dark Side – The Client Who Wanted Cool

Design Tales from the Dark Side – The Client Who Wanted Cool

written by Charlie Pabst

Design Tales from the Dark Side
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 well, what with him seeming secretive and uncaring throughout. It was awkward from the outset. I wasn’t feeling any love and the hairs on my neck were standing on end. But the dollar signs were still in my eyes flashing, and I can be a slave.

The interview was nearing an end. One last question and we’d call it a night afternoon. The last question is the doozy that I throw at all my clients now. But this particular time, I should have trusted my instincts and let it go. Instead, the last question went down like this:

Me: “What’s the purpose of the logo?”

Him: “What do you mean?”

Me: “I mean, what’s the purpose of it?”

Him: “Purpose?”

Me: “Yes. You need a logo for a reason. What reason?”

Him: “Well, everyone has a logo.”

Me: “True, and they should. But I’m trying to find out what purpose you have for your logo? Is it to make the company look interesting, or the product itself? Is it supposed to just be interesting as a graphic element, or should it have deep meaning for the company? That’s what I’m driving at. What do you want the logo to do?”

Him: “Well…I have an SEO company…”

Me: “…yes?”

Him: “It should have a logo.”

Me: “Right…And?”

Him: “Uh…and I want it to look cool.”

Me: *sigh* “Fair enough. I specialize in cool.”

I took the project against my better judgement. It was a slam-dunk. At least that’s what I told myself. A couple hours, a couple hundred bucks. Fair deal.

But the couple hours turned into a couple days turned into a week. The lack of clarity and care from the interview continued and I learned that Aloofness is a hard client to please.

By week’s end I’d had enough, and thought maybe I’d take up smoking after all. But, luckily the client liked the latest rendition of the logo. Frankly I was pretty keen on it too. With not a little nostalgia, I turned it over to Jake who said “thanks.” He didn’t even bother to capitalize.

It was time for the money to change hands, so I sent Jake a PayPal invoice. He paid me promptly and quite handsomely.

That’d be a nice silver lining, wouldn’t it? Too bad it’s a complete lie. Jake didn’t pay. No money, and no Jake. He disappeared and I never heard another word.

I did learn a valuable lesson. Two actually.

  1. Trust your instincts
  2. Get some connections inside the Mafia

Finis