Your thoughts

[budafist]

I know what my gut instinct tells me about this situation. My gut says I don't like it, but I'm not entirely sure if I've been wronged.

I'm doing a logo and business card design for a new client. The price is a set price based on a specified number of concepts and a number of revisions. After I sent the logo concepts to her, she sent a set of logos back to me to continue to use these to mock up business cards for her. The second set had been designed by a website company and they had taken 1 of my logos and rearranged it in different ways and colours.

I feel wronged, but I guess if she wants to pay 2 designers to do 1 job, I guess there's no foul? I also suspect that the website people are throwing in the logo play as part of a webdesign package deal.

I just want to throw this out there and hear others' thoughts on it.

[cornfed]

Hmmm....I usually put something in my contract that says my files can't be altered or messed with by anyone except me. I would feel irked, but I don't think you've been extrememly wronged. I can see where you'd have an uneasy feeling. Kind of weird of them, too. They probably weren't thinking at all that you would get a funny feeling from their actions.

[Patrick Shannon]

That is an extremely weird thing of the client. Hrm...well, as long as you're getting paid for the revisions after the second designer changes it, might as well go along with it if that's what floats the client's boat. Don't really see the point of that, though....it's like hiring another person to mow your lawn immediately after the first hire already mowed it.

[CatintheHat1]

Ohh, just saw this happen in the publishing world with a big project. They had several independent designers working on the same project, but different parts of it. At some point part designer B was asked to "work on" an absolutely stunning and perfected creation of designer A. They liked what designer B did (it sucked, it wasn't his specialty at all)...and when they asked designer A to use B's work to complete the project, he wrote back and said it didn't really look like his style of work and wasn't something he could finish or "do justice" to, which was a kind of between-the-line dig that went over many heads. Problem was, designer B had no idea how to finish it because as I said it wasn't his area. I wonder if they found a designer C. Then A + B = C.

It does totally suck though, Buda. Why do these people always make us feel icky?

[CamarotaDesign]

Eh, Buda, it's not exactly nice, but at least both designers are getting paid for their work.

We just got jacked by a jackass. (remember "Idiot, the client" I posted about) Well, after asking me to put together a sheet of logos that I've already designed, plus the ones I did for them, they went to one of those cookie cutter logo places, got something they liked for $400 that everyone else has. Too bad I didnt get to work more with those jackasses, I was really looking forward to it.

We still charged them hourly for my designs. But they're still jackasses, I'll get to see the logo they got on Thursday.

[budafist]

Ohh, just saw this happen in the publishing world with a big project. They had several independent designers working on the same project, but different parts of it. At some point part designer B was asked to "work on" an absolutely stunning and perfected creation of designer A. They liked what designer B did (it sucked, it wasn't his specialty at all)...and when they asked designer A to use B's work to complete the project, he wrote back and said it didn't really look like his style of work and wasn't something he could finish or "do justice" to, which was a kind of between-the-line dig that went over many heads. Problem was, designer B had no idea how to finish it because as I said it wasn't his area. I wonder if they found a designer C. Then A + B = C.

It does totally suck though, Buda. Why do these people always make us feel icky?

Another job I did:
I put together a whole catalogue, but the client gave the front cover to another designer to do. Since the other designer hadn't seen the full catalogue I'd done, the front looked quite different - totally different fonts to the rest of the catalogue. So I had to rehash the front cover that the other designer sent me with fonts that matched the catalogue. I also had to design the back cover to compliment the front. Again, both designers were paid. I don't know why people do this. Maybe they had 2 designers in mind and they couldn't choose just one?

[MPI]

I was contacted by one of my clients to help them 'fix' the work of their primary design group. Apparently they didn't like certain aspects of the packaging treatment, and wanted my style worked in.

It made sense to me. The primaries had a huge plate full of work, and this was only a small slice of it. (90% of the project was beyond the scope I normally work and I doubt I would have wanted it anyway.)


But I imagine this rankled the main design group, which I can understand.

[norrie]

Wow. These stories suck.

[CatintheHat1]

Probably told this before, but I worked on a project that was fairly high profile a few years back. It was completed, then last-minute changes, for which the company owner (well known) called me personally to thank me. I wrapped it up and sent it off to the printer. Later in the week, late at night, I get an eMail from someone I didn't know saying they wanted colour changes - blue text on red (you could almost read it if you stood under a really bright light LOL). So, I'm trying to convince them not to go with it...and she starts getting really nasty saying I'm not eMailing fast enough, she wants to call (by now it's nearing midnight), the red is not right, (she has an RGB red she wants to use and it's just not working in CMYK) or she's gonna send it to her ...and I quote "New York designers" hahahahaahahahahahahah. Never laughed so hard in my life. Wished her luck and never heard from her again. I did send her the native files though, because Ms. Nasty copped attitude and apparently didn't realize they no longer had updated natives for the printer....But I saw the project and it actually had a little blotch on the upper left hand corner that sould have been removed...not only were my red and blue still being used, but the blotch was there, so apparently the "New York design firm" didn't want to work on the project in the middle of the night, either.

[budafist]

Serves her right.