Creative Advent 2008: Liam McKay

Yes you need to make the client happy, thats part of your job. But if Comic Sans and flashing gif animations make your client happy are your really going to agree and put your name to something that looks ridiculous? That’s right I didn’t think so.

The Client is Not Always Right

Really instead of sitting there and reading through the list of client requirements, you should be looking to critique the clients needs. If you know something isn’t going to look good let them know… Offer an alternative and explain to them why Comic Sans is an awful font for their website. 9 Times out of 10 they will gladly take your advice and respect you for giving your input. For those that don’t it’s often best just to walk away.

Sometimes we all might have to give in to a few requests that we don’t agree with, but don’t go making it a habit. It’s the only way to gain any respect, and although you might lose a few jobs over it - it will make the other projects you work on a lot easier.

This was the best advice I’d heard as it helped me to settle down and focus my efforts on creating sites that I enjoyed working on, and was able to have input on, rather than building a website which is in the client’s mind, and no matter how much work you threw at it, you would never get it to look how he/she wanted it.

Guest Author Bio