Want to share your failed Before and After attempts?

[Pat Whatley]

The last couple of weeks I've been a total failure. Every now and then I get a project in that has bad artwork. If I've got a little down time and the project has potential and I'm feeling inspired I will redesign the artwork without involving the customer, without being asked, and without any expectations of getting paid. These aren't "award winning" designs, or all that original, just an attempt at improving on what they have. A lot of the time it's done to make production easier on my end so it's a win for me there. Most of the time customers either go with my re-design or offer any of a number of semi-legit excuses.

The last couple of weeks have been the exact opposite. I had one lady absolutely offended to the point she cancelled her order, another laughed at me, and one lovely lady told me that she had a professional designer create her "brand identity".

After talking to three other designers this week all three of them shared some horrific "before and after" redesign failures. Anybody else want to share any?

 

[Billct2]

None that I've saved, but I've been there. Both are really great upgrades.

 

[signmeup]

These "unauthorized" logo revisions generally end in disaster. I did this a few times in the early years but after experiencing pretty much the same reaction as you I decided I would rather produce the crappy "nephew art" and get paid.

Adrian

 

[skyhigh]

Don't feel too bad Pat. Both of these are slam-dunk improvements.

Judging from the vast improvements, I'd say those customers should visit the optometrist real soon.

 

[Marlene]

it seems like when I get a call these days and the person starts out by telling me they have a brand that they love and paid a lot for, I know I will cringe when I see it. I can't think of a time when I heard those same words then saw the "brand" and was in love with it. when you suggest that they move things around a little as we are making a sign and it would work better they go crazy. there is no hope for them. some I have suggested that too are open to it and I've moved things around and did the best that I could to make them something that would work for what they want it to. I don't post customer art online as it isn't something I want out there with me saying "boy does this suck" so I won't post up any of it but trust me, that original cup cake logo is 100% better than most of what I've seen

 

[Gino]

The nerve of you going from a cherry to a strawberry. What a thoughtless and callous thing to even suggest to a customer. You should hang up your mouse and start taking people for rides on an elevator. If you did the same thing on an elevator, nobody'd ever get to the floor they want.......... :Big Laugh

 

[sardocs]

A local barber presented me with this design a "world class" designer friend of his created for his new shop. It is to be viewed by moving traffic from over 130 feet away. I insulted both of them with my revised suggestion on the right.

 

[Gino]

:ROFLMAO: looks like Mullins the barber is advertising at the local bar on the beer coasters. ​

 

[TheSnowman]

To paint the picture, I do hardly any artwork design anymore. Sign Amigo is my go to even for the smallest of jobs. I've had a few of these over the years where I thought we could do something really fun with their logo, and he hit it out of the park on the design. I think out of the few we did, one liked it, the other didn't really care, and the third totally despised it.

We had one lady give us some general guidelines for a "man cave" sign, so we worked around her theme. She called the next day and said that her brother 2 hours away had the same idea for this person the sign was for, and he got a better deal, so she needed to cancel the order. I told her that she had already agreed to the quote we provided and we had already started on the design, so she told me to go ahead and send it to her. We added some terminology to the effect of "great stories" or something along those lines, I can't remember the exact words, and she found this as her "out". She LIT. ME. UP. because she didn't tell us to put that verbiage on there, and there's no way she's paying for something that wasn't what she'd asked for. I informed her that we have to work with very general guidelines because we have to normally improve upon the information a customer gives us to make the job work in the end. She just tore me apart when I tried explaining that.

I learned never to go above and beyond unless I knew a little more about the customer at that point. There's people that come in and really trust you to do what's right for their brand, and there's people that just have something set in their head and they are gonna make your life miserable until you give them whatever they envisioned.

I've printed some horrible signs over the years because people designed them in Word or Power Point, or whatever their choice is, but you just gotta print it and move on in some instances because these people are just wired in that way.

That being said, the OP did a good revision and I think if your customer didn't go with the new versions they're nuts.

 

[visual800]

oh it must be rampant!

the pool co sent me the top logo, I did the bottom 2. Nope they like their old one

Radio Show asked me to do some mockups, I did the 3 you see he had a "friend" do the one on his website

the biggest dissappointment was the vets office. His office was cedar, stone kinda looked like a lake house, beautiful. I did the layouts below. His response? "I want black letters on dark taupe brick, helvetica!........to this day, his response haunts me. Idiot!

I will flat out refuse to do a job with sh@tty artwork and I have lost several from telling people their logos suck (some in a nice way, others not so much) I care! I care that someone has a sharp, crisp clean logo instead of some POS designed in excel or powerpoint. I dont know if people dont know or they dont care.

 

[ddarlak]

A local barber presented me with this design a "world class" designer friend of his created for his new shop. It is to be viewed by moving traffic from over 130 feet away. I insulted both of them with my revised suggestion on the right.

I kinda like the original art better...

 

[ddarlak]

I dont know if people dont know or they dont care.

I simply don't care, i'll produce whatever crap they want. done enough "fixing" like pat says only to have them want their crap, so. crap it is.... not worth even trying to convince them, learned my lesson. you can't fix stupid

 

[visual800]

Doggy vet

When I first was approached with this project it was end of Dec, sign had to be up end of Jan, contractor would handle all the stone and posts, based on my design, I laid out the one on left (to match the building.) The Vet was a contol freak and handled all aspects of everything. he was not impressed with my layouts and said he wanted the one on the right, as he handed me a sign drawn on notebook paper along with a name change

I told him what he wanted was not very effective and would not show up as good as mine, I also suggested another name might be better than east montgomery.. At this point I didnt GAS if I got the job or not

I laid it out, side by side with mine hoping he would "see" the difference. They have decided to go with another company and the sign is still not done! lol Who knows what is going up at this point or even what name it is

 

[JR's]

There is two instances that I remember that just blew my mind.
The first one. A guy had a complete meltdown. Yelling at me that the signs were too good.
That they looked to new.? They were parking lot signs. for no parking. lol
I was so shocked I just smiled and waved and told him to have a good day. We still laugh about this one.
This one I decided to draw up a option for them to choose from. She started yelling at me how dare I change their art work. I had no right changing it.
I tried to explain to them that it was just an option to choose from I did not change their artwork at all.
She told me they spent a lot of money and time having their logo design by a professional designer/artist.
I told them no problem if that's what you wanted it to look like you got it.
And I know my quick layout is not that good but, come on.?
Oh well just smile and wave. LOL