Picking the Right Client

I recently had a potential client come to me with "concepts" that they spent some time gathering and producing comps for. They had supposedly given their ideas to the decision makers and they picked a direction. This is where they wanted me to come into the picture. My question was what exactly do you want me to do? The budget they had wasn't enough to actually produce concepts and go through the rough idea stage. They said that since I was a Senior Art Director they wanted me to come up with concepts and produce ideas to present to there bosses. This baffled me. They were insisting that since I was the Art Director the concepting really needed to be done by me. That statement was one I agree with. The designers and art directors should come up with the the concepts. The problem was they already lead the decision makers down a dead end road. A direction that had little impact and no thought to the future of where this company is taking it's marketing campaign. Needless to say I saw little reason to take this any further. If you insist on a creative doing concepts bring them in at the beginning of the project.

I wanted to address this point. From my standpoint I would be more willing to take a job with not quite enough budget as along as the client was open creatively to new ideas and the real future of their company. The last thing I want to do as a designer is come in produce a crappy campaign element and never see that client again. I personally want to build that relationship and trust to help their company reach it's full potential. A long term relationship benefits the client as much as it does the designer. If you have no interest in developing a relationship with your client then you need to get out of the business.

The reason that so many people are hesitant about handing over any creative control to an outside agency is because of the agencies out there that are only doing what the client wants for a paycheck. Those agencies aren't improving their marketplace, they aren't improving the future and vibrancy of their own industry. They are destroying it. I realize not every client is perfect and a few have a hard time looking outside the box, but at least try, at least educate them on why you think your decisions are better then theirs. Do your job. At some point you have to ask yourself is this good for me? Is this good for the client? Why proceed in a direction that a client wants to proceed if you know it's a waste of money? Why proceed with a client that won't let you do what you do?

I hate harping at these little facts, but I've seen it too often. After the dust settles and after the money has been spent these clients have essentially been ripped off, duped. They put their trust in an agency that had no interest in them. The client is responsible too, but there are a lot of people out there that talk a good game. If as a client you need to call a reference for a sound mind, do it. A good agency should have no problem giving you references to call. If they give you some crazy excuse, that just means they don't want you talking to their past clients and that's not a good sign. I know as a designer I love to find out what has happened with my clients creative partners in the past to get them to move on. It's not because I want to the hear the gossip (and usually it is) it's because I want to make sure that their decision to move on was a valid one. If it's some obscure reason like they moved to a different office, or the guys breath always smelled I would have hesitations about working with that client.