I’ll leave the creative up to you.

I too love this sort of direction. :\

Use your best judgement, but I would suggest... yeah, heard them all before.

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Powerpoint is not a design application
My latest web design work

I had a boss that would tell me that before. "you're the designer", after ripping designs apart verbally. At least he was honest if he didn't like a design.. but that whole "YOU'RE the designer" bit would steam me after having a design vetoed. Live and learn, I guess. I give credit to the guy, he really pushed me and got me to do better work, though. Most creatively challenging job I'd ever had.

Or how about?: once all their suggested changes are implemented they revert back to your original!

Hopefully they leave the billing up to you too.

ttfn!
3dogmama

I think it's the same reason that the folks in my IT dept (going through a reorganization of the company website) told me that they don't know the size of the graphics that I'll need to design for them "but their size shouldn't change that much." Given that input, I'm still not going to start on anything until I know the size of what I'm working with and what the mockup looks like: blatant misunderstanding.

Maybe for another thread ... but why in the heck do websites fall under IT domain? All of the content is created elsewhere in the organizations. Maybe it should live someplace else too.

Kind of falls under the old "he who gotz the money, gotz the control." This is especially true in the U.S. where every dipshit, coffee-getting secretary has some say in a company's advertising.

I call it the Powerpointization of design work. While computers make things easier, they give people the false sense that whatever the computer can do, they can do. Hence the 'can you animate that logo' and other comments. :)

Usually a website needs to be a combined effort between IT and design staff unless you have a designer that understands back end coding (forms and the like).

The worst design situations I've been in are those where the paranoid CEO/Boss is so stressed out that they hound you constantly and then when the deadline has arrived they want to change everything to match whatever else might be out there at the moment; no matter how silly.
----
Powerpoint is not a design application
My latest web design work

"work your magic"

"Make things pretty."

I had one client who was convinced that he KNEW good design. He had me designing a couple logos for him, and EVERY time I worked on something, he'd tell me to put the logo in a freaking box.

No matter how many times I'd try to tell him a logo doesn't NEED to be in a box, he'd get ticked off at me and tell me, "Look, I know what good design is and a logo needs to be in a box."

Of course, one time I tried to joke with him with the buzz phrase "Dude, it's time to think OUTSIDE the box."

Yeah, he didn't take that well. This guy was a freak.

{sarcasm}
Here's a list of some of the best designed logos in boxes:

CocaCola
Nike
FedEx
Adidas
Apple
AT&T

oh, wait ... my bad. Those logos must be terrible since they're not in a box.
{/sarcasm}

I"m dealing with a project right now and the client wanted it "simple, clean and eyecathing" (who doesnt) then I get 10 paragraphs to put in it... o make the logo bigger.. can we get rid of all that white space??

arggggggg make me want to quit

I get asked to do this at least 2 times per year.

"Just make it the same... But different."

It usually means they want something in the same genre but with some little glitzy thing added.

"Here you go how about this one.. I did one completely in left field thought you might like to see something different". "Oh, you like the previous one, glad you liked it."

"Here's your CD with the art., Thank you for the check, have a nice day".

Next!

I've been working on a web redesign for a particularly picky bunch of department heads and I nearly fell over laughing when In one of the emails they sent me on my first design mockup was "our logo is too small. It should be larger than the art elements around it."

It was just so funny. I went around to the other artists here and announced: These people want me to use the 'Make My Logo Bigger Cream"! (by the way, we still play that video here for a great laugh.)

Sometimes you just have to say to yourself: "Sure. I can make your ad/logo/web site/whatever as ugly as you want! You're the one paying for it!"

In any case, I think I've still managed to somewhat salvage the web design despite the ginormous logo on it. At least they didn't bitch about too much white space and request animated hula dancers on it or something.

Drama here still continues today.

I shot a mock of what I'm thinking some changes to our corporate website's index page should be around yesterday to "the powers that be" ... this afternoon just now got first response; and that it's approved. Good. It's still missing any content that can be added to it since the direction so far is WHAT the boxes should represent, not WHAT products would be promoted. So the mock is approved. But still can't do anything.

And!!! Even better, the IT dept uploaded the new code this morning for the website's index page. Yep. Without the graphics to go in it. So it has big busted empty spots all throughout it.

I truly believe that we are successful in spite of ourselves. But! Just about every organization or client runs the same way.

I've since, had the IT dept put the old code back up so the site isn't broken. And will have from other marketing folk what content should go into the mockup on Monday. Maybe this'll be done then? Nah ...

My husband has had a female client tell him, "You know what I like". LOL...

And then there's this all time favourite:
"Just make it look good."

ttfn!
3dogmama

Transparent businesscards online Photoshop (Sating)
http://www.businesscardsexp.com/en
Hallo.
What do you think about my produkt?
I want to know the opinion of other countries. I work in Italy but also online. Watch the link http://www.businesscardsexp.com/en
Thank you!
daniela

did u tried to ask WHY?