Wednesday 5th February

Today I spent the majority of my day working on the business cards for Hare and the Hat. I received more negative feedback this morning; they didn't like my second design as they though the hare I designed looked more like a cow, and they thought that it was too manly and not sophisticated enough. This was when I realised that we were dealing with a very difficult client.
The reason I felt that the client was being difficult was because although I understand that a client will want their design to be just right, I feel that they were making unnecessary comments about the designs that we sent to them, that weren't very insightful to help us design something that they would like. In addition, they asked for a lot of variations; the client wanted two sets of card, a blue set for male customers, and a pink set for female customers, and within those two sets they wanted four variations with the four names of the members of staff on the back so that customers know who they have spoken to. When I sent the first design I put all four names on the back so that the member of staff could put a ring around their name but they insisted on four separate ones. However, after one of the Revolution Inc. partners, Simon, explained that this would cost more they soon changed their mind.
I believe that the client has become more difficult because they originally came to us with a card that they wanted to print and we advised that they don't use their design as it didn't look professional and it wouldn't have done their business any favours. Then, after all this they were under the impression that they would be able to get 500 copies of the card in 8 variations for the same price of 500 copies of the same variation so they were then told that they would have to spend more than anticipated. 
Despite the issues we have had with the client today I re-designed the card one more time. I am awaiting feedback but hopefully they will like the design and will understand why getting so many variations of a business card printed doesn't make much sense under the circumstances.
I am glad that this situation has come about as it has been interesting to see how my colleagues have handled this client. 
After the issues with the client today Simon and Adam agreed that the client may save the artwork we send to them via email but decide not to print their business cards with us so that they can then go and print the cards themselves in all the variations that they originally wanted. This thought didn't even cross my mind and to be honest the fact that clients probably do that really disappoints me. However, Adam took the time to show me how to completely flatten and password protect all artwork so that under no circumstances can it be edited or printed. This will be really useful for the future as it will enable me to send artwork via email without the fear that the receiver may use it themselves. 
Due to the problems we have had with this client, working on these business cards took up most of my day, so whenever I had free time I worked on my branding project. I am now at a stage where I have three solid concepts that tomorrow I would like to print off and discuss with my colleagues. I emailed my client about meeting on Friday but they are unavailable so we have now planned a meeting for Tuesday morning to discuss the branding. This means that I can spend Friday and Monday tweaking my ideas and developing a fourth concept ready for Tuesday.