Secondly, if you work for a non-profit for little or no money, it’s always nice if you benefit in some other way in place of money, such as wide exposure at an event or the simple reward of supporting something you believe in. It sounds like this time it didn’t work out for you, and I’m sorry it went down like that. Unfortunately, your story is a pretty common one.

I had a client (breifly) who loved a 4×5 foot detailed painting of a cactus flower-loved the colors anyway. So client wants a tryptych with 4 x 5 central panel and two 2 x 4 foot wing panels. The client vaguely suggests they want a desert scene, not the cactus flowers I painted-OK I can do landscape too.

Oh and of course the client immediately balks at my price-there’s the red flag that I ignored. They also did not want to sign a contract right then-flag 2.

Within 24 hours, I sent the client 4 full-color sketches of various desert scenes-they were not high quality thank goodness-but they did take me about an hour each, and they were sufficient for her to tell me what direction in the broad category “desert scene” the client wanted to go in. You guess it, they were not detailed enough for the client to make up their mind. I guess the client wanted me actually paint 4 four giant tryptychs so they could chose among them.

I politely suggested the client send me a magazine cut out when they found something similar to what they wanted-I suggested AZ Highways as a source-but I further advised, until the client knew they wanted I could not work for them.

I have been on the lookout for “vague” ever since then. They will waste your time.

Jake

PS. loved the link to the pie chart and logo thing. Funny, my eyes were watering I was laughing so hard.

This is the fundamental discrepancy – you won’t get an in-depth understanding of the market in a free pitch, so, if engaging a design company is about solving your communication needs, then it is hard to imagine that effective design & marketing can be developed without a reasonable application of experience, knowledge and time from the client and the design team.

Some agencies may consider the creation stage as an absorbed cost to their main income stream, (from media commissions for instance) but strategic design studio’s do not. It is how we live.

The value and depth of a good design solution springs from a professional client-designer relationship and like any effective business process, it begins with a good definition of the business and its objectives.

Developing that definition requires the experience and knowledge from both the client and the designer, a certain amount of learning on the part of both, and most definitely respect and commitment from each.

If for instance, we were to consistently engage in free pitches and win say, one in every two, we would have to build extraordinary margins into the projects we did win just in order to survive, let alone make money.

We feel the client loses by either not getting the most effective design solution or paying too much. So if they want to engage you, it’s fair to ask for a percentage up front, included with your terms & conditions.