Monday 24th February 2014

Today I have spent the morning working on the banner and three boards that Hallmark want printing for their stand at the wedding fayre. I have spent a lot more time on this project than expected because the client has been very indecisive about what they want. In addition, they seem very particular about every design we have sent them. I am starting to find it very frustrating how indecisive they are because it is starting to affect the other work I have to do. Everyday I work on their designs and send finished products by the end of the day, in the hope that the next morning it will be signed off and I can get other work done. However, every morning they seem to have alterations or new ideas which means I have to spend more time on it and I am starting to get behind with the social media work that Danny asked me to nearly a week ago.
I understand that the client will want their products to be perfect, and I don't want to design anything they are less than 100% happy with, but it's a frustrating situation to be in because they are asking me to design flyers, banners and boards with images of their workshop on. I appreciate they are trying to emphasise the fact that they hand make their jewellery, but I don't believe that these images are appropriate to use on material that will be seen at a wedding fayre. We already discussed this concept at our initial meeting and both Julian and I advised that we keep the images from the workshop on the flyer, and clean images of finished rings on the boards and banner, to which they agreed. However, this morning I have come in and the client has sent a design through for the banner that they want it to look like, with three images from the workshop on it. Neither Julian nor I think that these are appropriate, but we have already advised against it and I have designed alternatives and they still want their products designed this way so there is not a lot else I can say. This puts me in a difficult position because today I have been designing products that I really don't like, and it is hard to be motivated and spend time on a project when you don't think the design is as strong as it could be. I understand why they want the workshop images on there, but I think they are focusing too much on the hand made aspect and not enough on the target audience which will be the brides at the wedding fayre, who will be attracted by clean sparkly images. In addition, had they have just told us a week ago that they were definitely going to want the workshop images on the banner, the work could have been signed off by now.