“Is this a non-negotiable feedback?”
You’ve been there before. The client sends a list of feedback he wants incorporated — layout adjustments, colour tweaks, swapped images, delayed transitions. And then the specific ones: adding brightness to transitions, changing the font size to 90 points (“because 90 points on my Microsoft PowerPoint looked good”), replacing headlines with a handwriting font from dafont.com (“because it is catchy and nice”).
What do you do? Especially when you have been doing this for 15 years and the client is an IIM MBA grad in his late 20s who has climbed the corporate ladder and is now a brand manager handling projects. He reports to a senior manager who reports to a group manager who reports to the CMO — who is your real client. He has to prove himself in the eyes of others.
(Note: I wanted to be gender-neutral, but he/she/they looks cumbersome. I’ll use “he” — it could well be a “she” or a “they”.)
You’ve tried explaining why certain design decisions were made. You’ve tried highlighting that videos should be reviewed as a whole — a single frame can’t be viewed in isolation. You’ve pointed out that making the headline RED will look strange across 80 pages. You’ve said no to the drop shadow on the CTA button. He hears you and interprets everything as confrontation — because in his mind, he is the client, and you are the supplier who has to do his job. And the client is always right.
So he wants everything done his way. Non-negotiable. He keeps his feedback as a checklist. If you don’t incorporate 100%, a stinker mail arrives CC’ed to everyone implying your team was careless.
You have a good relationship with the head of marketing. It’s just this one person you dread. For the sake of the long-term relationship you put up with it and finish the job. You wish you could bypass him entirely and deal directly with his boss’s boss — but that sounds petty and politically wrong.
The common suggestion: hire juniors and servicing people to manage these clients. “He’s an entry-level brand manager — hire a messenger, take his feedback, pass it to the junior designer. The job gets done, he stays happy. You’re the boss. Why are you even involved?”
But why turn people into robots? Take the feedback, implement it per checklist, don’t question, don’t ask why. How do juniors grow into critical thinkers if they’re never allowed to think critically? What message does it send if I, as an employer, don’t value their creative decisions — and instead force them to take design calls from a client’s whims?
If designers have it tough, the writers have it worse. At least the client asks the designer to try a different font. With writers — he just rewrites the copy himself. Opens Google Docs, circles the paragraph, types “replace this line with xxxx.” One part of you wants to debate it. The other part just wants to click accept + resolve and move on with life. Every client thinks he can write.
There’s a brighter side.
As clients progress in their careers and grow into their roles, they start letting go of the micro tweaks and start paying attention to bigger things — strategy, channel effectiveness, user experience, overall brand messaging. Whether the headline is in a cursive handwriting font stops being significant.
Maybe this is just parenting. Dealing with teenagers who yell at their parents for not aligning with their vision — craving attention and validation.
You’ve been there. That teenager. Your parents probably told you all about it.
“But darling, it all turned out well, no? It’s just a phase. Look at how close we are now.”
It’s just a phase. It will be over. Be patient.
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