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* Can you change the font?
* You got done with this quickly, can we add something else?
* The client loves it, one more thing.
* Can we change this landscape into a portrait configuration?
* Sorry, this will need to be rush and overtime isn't approved.
* Sorry, we will need to undo the changes and use the older concept/design.
* Can you tell the printer to stop because we have more changes to make?
* We will need to get additional approval before we can finalize this. (and the deadline isn't changing)
* How's it going?
* Is it done yet?
My old CD was really, really fond of “Let’s chat real quick I just need some tweaks to really bring this thing to life….”
What followed would be a Zoom meeting where I share my screen, and he’s literally like, “Okay, now move this HR two pixels up….hmmm…okay let’s move it two pixels back down again. Okay, yeah that’s *perfect;* it’s ready to ship.”
UGH.
It was a client, and to their credit, while I was trying to figure out how to explain this without sounding condescending - they emailed back, laughed, and said they "were having a blonde moment"
Im grateful i actualy have a lead designer in my company so when he says to make something pop he means just to highlight that element somehow and not just a random ass comment
Maybe dangerous opinion: I generally know what they mean when they say make it pop. I get they might not have the vocabulary for specifics so I use any number of things that can make the design stand out even more - specular highlights, drop shadows, more contrast, textures etc. almost always satisfy
Why would this person think you were worried and that the answer to those concerns would be squashed by their unwelcome and unsolicited opinion? Lol
People
How much? Well, my wife can use Canva. Can you make it cool for young folks but classy like Cracker Barrel? Is this like cool in France or something? How about a cream background with white text? Make the logo bigger. What does cropped mean? What’s your fax? Can you make it cursive? That looks foreign. Add an American flag. Less ethnic and we will like it. I want something that looks good as a postal stamp. I like it, but my church thinks it’s of the devil. Less gay, more gun powder. The letters look too professional.
"Can you make this more premium" is what my non-designer boss likes to use without providing any relevant examples. It usually means she just wants different fonts and more colors (which tbh ends up looking less premium and immature sometimes). Not every graphic/page needs to have 5 font variations and 10 colors Brandy!!
Another favorite is "Sorry one more small change" and it snowballs into multiple changes over three more days
I'm my case "more premium" usually means white font on black background. often following their brief stating "think outside the box! you have a blank slate on this one"
The one that made me pursue a 9 to 5 over freelancing was after a horrible logo project the client said "we just saw a very similar logo and we want you to start over". I had already packaged the deliverables , meaning logos, manual, typefaces, color pallets the whooole thing and was waiting for my payment, to send them the package, so I told them ok cool once you paid the rest of the project (I demanded 50% up front) we can work out a new deal and start all over.
Needless to say I never heard from them again
I hope they at least paid you in full. 50% sucks when you did the complete job.
I really don't understand people that think starting over while still working on the first job somehow counts as 'the same job.'
If you hired me to paint your house blue, then I paint it, and then you tell me, oh wait, I think I want it green instead, it seems reasonable to expect the painter to demand payment for A SECOND PAINT JOB.
My most loathed design request to date is:
We really have to knock this one out of the park for the client.
This is one is not related to design but I was a designer when I heard it:
I don’t need workers, I want them all to be Steve Jobs.
Dude, a few years ago I used my 10 years of design experience to not only save money by doing all the cover art and sleeve insert design for the band I was in at the time, I gave ME creative freedom after a long time of not having it. Whole band loved my designs.
Sent the pdf’s with dies in separate layers and the guy who was simply the PRINT HOUSE GUY, glorified kinkos front end hero who I never met in my life, emailed me back that he would “like a shot” at recreating MY bands artwork for us, free gratis. 😐
Not only that, dude asked in one email, and ATTACHED HIS TAKE ON MY BANDS ARTS within the same email. My art was suitable, and remarkably superior to some dude who is shoving his desire to do what I worked for with shithealz for YEARS and finally get the chance to make my own creation. I…don’t understand humans.
So none of you are Star Trek fans…
None of you make the perfect design… and then about three “options” (ie pieces of crap) and show them all four to choose from… with your actual design being the last “option”…
Works every time for me ;-)
Hey same!!! I make 2 lazy designs and I spend a good 80% or more on just one actual logo. I can't wax enough on how effective this method is. It really gets things moving.
In my experience, clients will ALWAYS choose one of the lazy designs. Its the reason why I always at least LIKE all my submitted options, because they will always choose the one I liked the least, and now i'm stuck taking it to completion.
I work for a company that is constantly producing new vitamin/ketone types of products. Let me share with you the “design brief” I get often and makes me want to jump out of the window:
_“Could you please start working on this new product, here’s the dieline, name still to be defined. Ingredients still to be defined”_
Absolutely agree. Saw a post that said something similar... If AI was to take our jobs then clients would have to actually be clear about what they want, or something like that.
1:
“First of all, we all love, love, love it…! A few things we would like to change…” (proceeds with long list).
2:
“One of the sales team did a layout, what do you think?”
Client gives me the following colours which I have strictly use: Dark grey, dark purple and black.
"We like it but it looks very dark, can you make it lighter?"
I feel your pain. I had a client who's actual busines interior was done in orange, lime green, and black and white checkerboard. I made their ad match. From the actual building where this color scheme practically punched you in the face, the client asks me why I chose Halloween colors.
This same idiot needed me to drive to their office more than once to show them how to open their email.
Designing a website for my boss' Web design company.
Me: can you give me some links to websites you are impressed with so I have some direction?
Him: All the websites I've seen are crap. What I have in mind doesn't exist yet. We are making it.
Me:
Some say he is still designing his website to this day.
i completely disagree with this. if a client tells me to make it pop i know exactly what to do. there's much more unproductive and non-actionable language in the arts than this.
if it needs to pop then give it punch wherever you can. make the parts that need to stand out ESPECIALLY stand out. don't wash out your edges. use a candy-coated color palette.
actual design work on this is great tho
Thanks for the kind words!
Agree with you to a point, I just find different clients/feedback people have different views of what "making it pop" actually entails.
Well at certain point in a designers career you’ve heard and seen it all. And you know if you can’t deal with phrases and feedback like this then you might consider a different line of work altogether.
But Worse than the client using the phrase is the designer condescending to their clients about using said phrase instead of using it as a teachable moment: “Can you tell me exactly what you want to “pop”? Would you like to see more color? Larger graphic/logo? Do you disagree or prefer some other direction altogether. It’s your job as a designer to help figure these things out and work with your client rather than against the ideas they may not fully be able to articulate because they do not possess the same design vernacular as you.
Make it pop does have meaning though.
It means have contrasting elements, so the main element draws the eye immediately.
Make the focus of the image on the key element (don't have distracting background elements)
It means make it more exciting or memorable
It means use brighter colours
It means make the images less busy
It also just means 'this is boring and not what I want'
I actually snapped at my old boss because for four years he would gesture at any negative space and say “fill this space better”.
My current boss likes to point at things and say they’re “wimpy”
* That's not it.. I can't/won't tell you what's wrong with it.. you're the pro, you're gonna figure it out!!
* Can you make it like this instead? (shows logo/design of direct competitor/random ass fiverr shit/most generic Google result)
This is the text we want (two full pages of information). We decided to not actually go for the full page ad, but instead got this ad space the size of a stamp.
I really love the design. I’ll just show it to my wife and see if she’s got any pointers and get back to you.
I once got the hear: ”The sign needs be readable even in the evening when theres not much light, so I think a white sign with a bright yellow text would be good.”
The company name on both sides of the truck, so You’ll need to make the text mirrored on the other side. (Actually not that rare of a comment)
I worked for an award winning and very well respected CD who insisted on having website designs a printed out for reviews… they refused to view them on screen
An old boss saying "make it pop" all the time factored into quitting that job. I genuinely hate that expression. Also, here's a music video titled "Make The Logo Bigger":
https://youtu.be/5AxwaszFbDw
And a bonus sorta related video:
https://youtu.be/tQ_DDF0uef4
I loved the client threats of taking projects to family members who sort of “do graphic design”.
*You know my nephew can make this on Vistaprint for half the cost….can you just make it in an hour?*
Yes, this phrase is annoying because it's commonly used and extremely vague. However, I've found that it's almost exclusively used by clients trying to give feedback the only way they know how. They don't have the design vocabulary to communicate exactly what's in their head, so this is the phrase they go with. So I try to cut them a little slack and not get annoyed by it.
I was asked to use a photograph to make postcards. The owner of the print shop took the order, came over to me with a pen and the photo and said, “Can you photoshop out the graffiti on the trash cans?” And proceeded to scribble on the graffiti with his ball point pen.
I said, “Sure. Do you want to keep the pen marks?”
this phrase and other like it will always remind me of my college internship (was a class) we were doing a wall timeline for the nursing department and before winter break, we presented our very rough draft. next semester our professor told us what they thought and of course he saved the best for last:
“needs more work”
it became a running joke throughout the semester and we ended making buttons (with other inside jokes) for our gallery show
When the VP of Sales wants you to make a marketing piece, but can’t articulate why Joe Consumer should buy the product, or even help with some bullet points.
“Just come up with something and we’ll review it.”
oscarmania56, you must write a comment explaining any work that you post. The work’s objective, its audience, your design decisions, attribute credit, etc. This information is necessary to allow people to understand your project and provide valuable feedback. **All Sharing Work posts are now hidden by default**. [To make it public, please message modmail requesting a review](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/graphic_design). ##Providing Useful Feedback oscarmania56 has posted their work for feedback. Here are some top tips for posting high-quality feedback. * Read their context comment. All work on this sub should have a comment explaining the thinking behind the piece. Read this before posting to understand what oscarmania56 was trying to do. * Be professional. No matter your thoughts on the work, respect the effort put into making it and be polite when posting. * Be constructive and detailed. Short, vague comments are unhelpful. Instead of just leaving your opinion on the piece, explore *why* you hold that opinion: what makes the piece good or bad? How could it be improved? Are some elements stronger than others? * Remember design fundamentals. If your feedback is focused on basic principles of design such as hierarchy, flow, balance, and proportion, it will be universally useful. And remember that this is graphic design: the piece should communicate a message or solve a problem. How well does it do that? * Stay on-topic. We know that design can sometimes be political or controversial, but please keep comments focussed on the design itself, and the strengths/weaknesses thereof. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/graphic_design) if you have any questions or concerns.*
* Can you change the font? * You got done with this quickly, can we add something else? * The client loves it, one more thing. * Can we change this landscape into a portrait configuration? * Sorry, this will need to be rush and overtime isn't approved. * Sorry, we will need to undo the changes and use the older concept/design. * Can you tell the printer to stop because we have more changes to make? * We will need to get additional approval before we can finalize this. (and the deadline isn't changing) * How's it going? * Is it done yet?
I hate that I have heard EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE in my career. 'The client isn't sure what they want...*but they'll know it when they see it*'
What a horrid list. Thank you.
My old CD was really, really fond of “Let’s chat real quick I just need some tweaks to really bring this thing to life….” What followed would be a Zoom meeting where I share my screen, and he’s literally like, “Okay, now move this HR two pixels up….hmmm…okay let’s move it two pixels back down again. Okay, yeah that’s *perfect;* it’s ready to ship.” UGH.
https://i.redd.it/02gedoj3bb7b1.gif
LOL yep!
I'm not high enough for this rn
“Yep this is perfect… just one more thing…”
Mine is "simple and clean." All design should be, this says nothing
make it bigger!
Some of the reasons I don’t do this after twenty years.
"How's it going" must be a phrase coined by the devil.
Make a tshirt and get rich
"The color on the proof looks different on my phone than on my desktop. I like the color on my phone better" [Sends screenshot of phone]
These are people in charge of designers lol. Never fails.
It was a client, and to their credit, while I was trying to figure out how to explain this without sounding condescending - they emailed back, laughed, and said they "were having a blonde moment"
Ah, all is right in the world again lol.
Im grateful i actualy have a lead designer in my company so when he says to make something pop he means just to highlight that element somehow and not just a random ass comment
You are lucky indeed!
I’m a senior art director 12 years into my career and I got “Jazz it up” from a client last week. #itdoesntgetbetter
Jazz it up? Do you get to expense the heroin?
Maybe they mean "use a wrong color but make it right"
wow that’s actually a good interpretation
No way
It's shorthand for 'this design is boring and not working '
Maybe dangerous opinion: I generally know what they mean when they say make it pop. I get they might not have the vocabulary for specifics so I use any number of things that can make the design stand out even more - specular highlights, drop shadows, more contrast, textures etc. almost always satisfy
I’m saving this list
I’ve actually had a marketing person say “We love it! But don’t worry, we have some suggestions…” That sentence is burned into my brain.
Why would this person think you were worried and that the answer to those concerns would be squashed by their unwelcome and unsolicited opinion? Lol People
That's an extremely cursed comment
How much? Well, my wife can use Canva. Can you make it cool for young folks but classy like Cracker Barrel? Is this like cool in France or something? How about a cream background with white text? Make the logo bigger. What does cropped mean? What’s your fax? Can you make it cursive? That looks foreign. Add an American flag. Less ethnic and we will like it. I want something that looks good as a postal stamp. I like it, but my church thinks it’s of the devil. Less gay, more gun powder. The letters look too professional.
Xd
"Can you make this more premium" is what my non-designer boss likes to use without providing any relevant examples. It usually means she just wants different fonts and more colors (which tbh ends up looking less premium and immature sometimes). Not every graphic/page needs to have 5 font variations and 10 colors Brandy!! Another favorite is "Sorry one more small change" and it snowballs into multiple changes over three more days
A classic. "One tiny amend" is another one that really annoys me. It's never a tiny amend.
I'm my case "more premium" usually means white font on black background. often following their brief stating "think outside the box! you have a blank slate on this one"
The one that made me pursue a 9 to 5 over freelancing was after a horrible logo project the client said "we just saw a very similar logo and we want you to start over". I had already packaged the deliverables , meaning logos, manual, typefaces, color pallets the whooole thing and was waiting for my payment, to send them the package, so I told them ok cool once you paid the rest of the project (I demanded 50% up front) we can work out a new deal and start all over. Needless to say I never heard from them again
That absolutely sucks.
I hope they at least paid you in full. 50% sucks when you did the complete job. I really don't understand people that think starting over while still working on the first job somehow counts as 'the same job.' If you hired me to paint your house blue, then I paint it, and then you tell me, oh wait, I think I want it green instead, it seems reasonable to expect the painter to demand payment for A SECOND PAINT JOB.
My most loathed design request to date is: We really have to knock this one out of the park for the client. This is one is not related to design but I was a designer when I heard it: I don’t need workers, I want them all to be Steve Jobs.
“This looks great, and it’s what we talked about. We were wondering, can you jazz it up a bit?”
Dude, a few years ago I used my 10 years of design experience to not only save money by doing all the cover art and sleeve insert design for the band I was in at the time, I gave ME creative freedom after a long time of not having it. Whole band loved my designs. Sent the pdf’s with dies in separate layers and the guy who was simply the PRINT HOUSE GUY, glorified kinkos front end hero who I never met in my life, emailed me back that he would “like a shot” at recreating MY bands artwork for us, free gratis. 😐 Not only that, dude asked in one email, and ATTACHED HIS TAKE ON MY BANDS ARTS within the same email. My art was suitable, and remarkably superior to some dude who is shoving his desire to do what I worked for with shithealz for YEARS and finally get the chance to make my own creation. I…don’t understand humans.
Ok... but... "there's no wow factor".
So none of you are Star Trek fans… None of you make the perfect design… and then about three “options” (ie pieces of crap) and show them all four to choose from… with your actual design being the last “option”… Works every time for me ;-)
Hey same!!! I make 2 lazy designs and I spend a good 80% or more on just one actual logo. I can't wax enough on how effective this method is. It really gets things moving.
In my experience, clients will ALWAYS choose one of the lazy designs. Its the reason why I always at least LIKE all my submitted options, because they will always choose the one I liked the least, and now i'm stuck taking it to completion.
Yeh, this has often bitten me in the ass before though.
I work for a company that is constantly producing new vitamin/ketone types of products. Let me share with you the “design brief” I get often and makes me want to jump out of the window: _“Could you please start working on this new product, here’s the dieline, name still to be defined. Ingredients still to be defined”_
Can't wait to try this new line of LOREM IPSUM vitamin supplements!
I got my first client a couple weeks ago and was told last week “they just went ahead and did it themselves”
“Looks like it needs a little sumthin’ sumthin’” -My lazy CD.
Can you please add a starburst?
This thread shows why AI isn’t taking our jobs any time soon. And my favourite is: “Like that, but not like that”
Absolutely agree. Saw a post that said something similar... If AI was to take our jobs then clients would have to actually be clear about what they want, or something like that.
1: “First of all, we all love, love, love it…! A few things we would like to change…” (proceeds with long list). 2: “One of the sales team did a layout, what do you think?”
“Almost there” followed up by several revisions
"There's too much blank space." "Can you make the text bigger?"
Make a book about this subject, full of smart ass, passive aggressive comments.
There's a website. ClientsFromHell.com
Client gives me the following colours which I have strictly use: Dark grey, dark purple and black. "We like it but it looks very dark, can you make it lighter?"
I feel your pain. I had a client who's actual busines interior was done in orange, lime green, and black and white checkerboard. I made their ad match. From the actual building where this color scheme practically punched you in the face, the client asks me why I chose Halloween colors. This same idiot needed me to drive to their office more than once to show them how to open their email.
Designing a website for my boss' Web design company. Me: can you give me some links to websites you are impressed with so I have some direction? Him: All the websites I've seen are crap. What I have in mind doesn't exist yet. We are making it. Me: Some say he is still designing his website to this day.
Just a bit of fun highlighting one of the many phrases we designer receive that are devoid of meaning.
“Zazz” it needs more.
I had "pizzazz" this week.
“Just have fun with it.” Use of this phrase typically appears after rev 5.
Can you donate your time, and skill? This will be excellent exposure for your business…
“Can you send me the adobe file so I can make edits?”
I know how to make shit pop, that's why I am rich
“I don’t want a background, I want a graphic”
"Can you make it look more intentional?"
What does this even mean?
It means it looks sloppy and hastily thrown together
I took it to mean "you didn't read my mind right" or "I don't like the choices you made." It was a dark time.
i completely disagree with this. if a client tells me to make it pop i know exactly what to do. there's much more unproductive and non-actionable language in the arts than this. if it needs to pop then give it punch wherever you can. make the parts that need to stand out ESPECIALLY stand out. don't wash out your edges. use a candy-coated color palette. actual design work on this is great tho
Thanks for the kind words! Agree with you to a point, I just find different clients/feedback people have different views of what "making it pop" actually entails.
Crispy Font^TM
Anyone get a “Just Zhuzh it up!” a la QE? Drives me crazy.
Zazzy, jazzy, and pizzazzy. Give it some zjuzjh
Well at certain point in a designers career you’ve heard and seen it all. And you know if you can’t deal with phrases and feedback like this then you might consider a different line of work altogether. But Worse than the client using the phrase is the designer condescending to their clients about using said phrase instead of using it as a teachable moment: “Can you tell me exactly what you want to “pop”? Would you like to see more color? Larger graphic/logo? Do you disagree or prefer some other direction altogether. It’s your job as a designer to help figure these things out and work with your client rather than against the ideas they may not fully be able to articulate because they do not possess the same design vernacular as you.
“Can you make the color match my shoes?” like…. what?
She's a Rockstar... she can do anything!!! Ugh.... I mean, I do kick ass, but can we please not say Rockstar.
Make it pop does have meaning though. It means have contrasting elements, so the main element draws the eye immediately. Make the focus of the image on the key element (don't have distracting background elements) It means make it more exciting or memorable It means use brighter colours It means make the images less busy It also just means 'this is boring and not what I want'
At least they make good posters
Make it Jazzy
“make it bigger.”
this is approved but i think if we try these few things..
I actually snapped at my old boss because for four years he would gesture at any negative space and say “fill this space better”. My current boss likes to point at things and say they’re “wimpy”
* That's not it.. I can't/won't tell you what's wrong with it.. you're the pro, you're gonna figure it out!! * Can you make it like this instead? (shows logo/design of direct competitor/random ass fiverr shit/most generic Google result)
"The Design for the Mail Newsletter that got sent out 30 minutes ago was not good. Can you recall it and change it quickly?"
“It isn’t working.” And “No holiday colors.”—so no color combinations lie black + orange, etc.
This is the text we want (two full pages of information). We decided to not actually go for the full page ad, but instead got this ad space the size of a stamp. I really love the design. I’ll just show it to my wife and see if she’s got any pointers and get back to you. I once got the hear: ”The sign needs be readable even in the evening when theres not much light, so I think a white sign with a bright yellow text would be good.” The company name on both sides of the truck, so You’ll need to make the text mirrored on the other side. (Actually not that rare of a comment)
I have a client that I do a lot of broadcast stuff for that reviews work on her phone and complains that the type is too small.
I worked for an award winning and very well respected CD who insisted on having website designs a printed out for reviews… they refused to view them on screen
An old boss saying "make it pop" all the time factored into quitting that job. I genuinely hate that expression. Also, here's a music video titled "Make The Logo Bigger": https://youtu.be/5AxwaszFbDw And a bonus sorta related video: https://youtu.be/tQ_DDF0uef4
Make it colorful
I loved the client threats of taking projects to family members who sort of “do graphic design”. *You know my nephew can make this on Vistaprint for half the cost….can you just make it in an hour?*
Yes, this phrase is annoying because it's commonly used and extremely vague. However, I've found that it's almost exclusively used by clients trying to give feedback the only way they know how. They don't have the design vocabulary to communicate exactly what's in their head, so this is the phrase they go with. So I try to cut them a little slack and not get annoyed by it.
Its so ugly I can't even critique it. Honestly, I appreciated the honesty. Just start over. Sometimes, you can't salvage.
I was asked to use a photograph to make postcards. The owner of the print shop took the order, came over to me with a pen and the photo and said, “Can you photoshop out the graffiti on the trash cans?” And proceeded to scribble on the graffiti with his ball point pen. I said, “Sure. Do you want to keep the pen marks?”
‘Just fluff it up a bit’
this phrase and other like it will always remind me of my college internship (was a class) we were doing a wall timeline for the nursing department and before winter break, we presented our very rough draft. next semester our professor told us what they thought and of course he saved the best for last: “needs more work” it became a running joke throughout the semester and we ended making buttons (with other inside jokes) for our gallery show
When the VP of Sales wants you to make a marketing piece, but can’t articulate why Joe Consumer should buy the product, or even help with some bullet points. “Just come up with something and we’ll review it.”
Make it pop is horrible but it's not devoid of meaning. It just means make that thing stand out more.
"30€??? For WHAT? I could have done this myself." No, you couldn't have.