We did not receive money, although we spent a lot of time on this project.
It was written in the vacancy that the budget was small, so they didn’t raise the price, they agreed on the amount of 50 hryvnia per page, since we are not very experienced, although we have already encountered similar work.
The customer asked me to make a strip to test abilities, they did it, she said that we were doing it well, although we needed to work on the text. We tried to take into account the wishes and made about 20 pages in a week, as the customer said that the matter was quite urgent and had to be done by September 10 (started on the 5th).
In communication, it turned out that some of the stripes did not fit in style, that more bright colors, more blocks, and diversify the style were needed. We didn’t mind, it’s necessary, it’s necessary, we redid the stripes many times, but we couldn’t please. Arguments:
-children don't like it
-children love circles, not squares;
-children do not like pastel colors;
- I can do it myself in Photoshop;
It became clear that the customer needed not so much a design as many small elements on the strip, so that there was no free space and to be brighter.
Did. In the process, I noticed through the shared dropbox folder that our pages, which were, as it were, approved and “final edits” were already being made by other designers, although no one told us about it. They asked, the customer said that we would be paid for it, even if our pages were not chosen.
Continued work on 7 pages. Finally, and they were approved, they made “last edits” for 2 days. We already knew that we would not be paid the full amount, but we were counting on at least half or more (after all, they promised to pay for those pages that were given to other designers without asking).
This is where the work on the rubric's logo began. Nobody wanted to pay extra for it, they said that part of the band, so included in the price. Once it enters, I thought that the requirements for it would be small. As a result, we went through about 4 variants of the logo, and finally came up.
When the printing of 7 pages was just around the corner, according to the customer, we asked about payment. It was already September 22 (started on 5). We were charged 350 hryvnia for 7 approved bands. They refused to pay for the stripes that were given to other designers. In response to our indignation, they offered a condescending 50 hryvnia "bonus" allegedly for the logo. They offered to work on another strip in addition for more money, for obvious reasons we refused.
The customer asked to send the source so that another designer would finalize our pages and do prepress, because again the sun turned wrong and what was ready yesterday turned out to be “not up to par” today. I threw off the source along with the card number, but the payment never came. They said they refuse to pay. The reason was put forward by errors in the prepress preparation of the file, which we did not do (!):
- Initially, we did not agree on prepress, it turned out in the process, although we didn’t really mind, especially since they emphasized that we just need a pdf prepress, and not an indesign document.
-errors that make "impossible to print the file" did the following:
- built-in indesign file links (which are extracted with 1 click and stored in a folder), slightly incorrect fields, which is solved by one dragging the block. And other errors like that, which looked like nitpicking, and about which no one had said anything before, all the requirements were that the text did not go beyond the slices, and from us a PDF file with 300dpi graphics quality and a SMYK profile.
As a result, for 50 hryvnia/strip we were required to:
-high-quality design, taken telepathically from the minds of mythical children, who either like or dislike everything;
-unlimited number of edits and alterations of pages from scratch;
-knowing what can and cannot be added to the strip. For example, a popular cartoon with bright characters is ugly and not Orthodox, but children seem to like more photos of the children themselves sent by their parents. By the way, in a fairly average quality, their processing was also required and was not paid separately.
-All technical specifications were clarified in the process with all sorts of “fi-this is not design”, “me and my 13-year-old daughter can do this in Photoshop too.”
-constant addition of material. The strip is already ready, it has a certain layout, and here you need to constantly add new information and “her parents sent a photo of this girl,” which is why you constantly need to finish it, because the whole concept and layout of the strip breaks down.Today is the last line, and tomorrow is not the same.-Many variations of the color logo of the rubric "in price".-printed preparation, the requirements to which were sounded completely different (pdf prepress file), and dragged to the source, in which the printed preparation was not done, it was a work file.We sent them a source, a folder with images-links (including a logo in good quality), fonts, and received 0 UAH.0 cups and 2 weeks of dead time, nerves, shame, humiliating relationship, disrespect for the time of others.If the project is your budget, then the requirements have, please, budgetary.If the job didn’t like it from the very beginning, you had to say it on the first pages, but no, you wanted to have a cheap worker because he’s a newbie and you can ride on it.All posts and results are available, I can provide on request.
