At some point you will come face to face with the worst type of client. The client who despite numerous attempts on your behalf, is refusing to pay outstanding fees on a project.

As a business you will at some point have to go after a non-paying client, and as such should be prepared for the fight; or at least be prepared to issue the threat of a fight. Personal / Business time lengths are differential between entities but as a general rule you will know when this time sets upon you or is vast approaching when:

• Any invoice is over 60 days old
• At least four attempts at contact via e-mail or phone have gone unasnwered
• A client tells you that they are not going to pay (always the easiest to identify)
• When material you have created / sold is used before payment is settled against terms of contract
• Wishy-washy promises start being issued of further work so settlement should be delayed until they are complete
• A personal favourite: ‘payment has been sent, have you not received it?’

As an efficient and well prepared business you should have a method / set of rules in place for this very eventuality. You cannot expect a client to be prompt and timely with their end, if you are not the same with yours! The best way to address this hyperthetical situation is from the beginning…

1) First invoice not paid

I am not going to go into why you should have contracts, but simply this event is one of many in favour of working with contracts. One key point is having contracts in place that stipulate to the client how quickly they are expected to pay invoices once they have been issued. This immediately gives you a date to send your first reminder. Typically for us this may be between one and two working weeks. At this stage, our eyebrows are far from raised; there is a multitude of reasons why payment may not have been received. (Benefit of the doubt is given) For us, this is simply a follow-up email with the invoice attached as a PDF.
Example:

Dear ************,

Hope you are well. We are e-mailing in regard to ( project / reference number ) and its respective invoice sent on (date). As discussed, the project has now been completed and the invoice to the amount of (£ FEE ) is now overdue as per the agreed schedule of payment. There are a number of payments methods available as detailed in the attachment.

We look forward to hearing from you and receiving payment promptly,

Kind Regards,

(SIGNATURE)

2) E-mail not answered / Payment not received
At this point for us, payment is roughly 3 working weeks late and the client has been out of contact for approximately a fortnight. At this point eyebrows are raised. Lack of contact is an alarm bell in itself. This is where our tone in following contact needs to take on a certain level of seriousness. The first invoice at this point is followed by a phone call to enquire as per the status of payment and when it can be expected to be received. After this phone call, it is good practice to shoot the client an e-mail summarising your phone call and any agreements you may have come to, as well as re-issuing any amended invoice timescales etc. If unable to reach the client via telephone or they are uncooperative then an e-mail to the following extent is sent; as well as a letter to the same effect. Remember, your a business and as such you need to conduct yourself as one, being ‘nice’ at this point isn’t a requirement; being professional is:

Example:

Dear ************,

We are e-mailing in regard to ( project / reference number ) and its respective invoice sent on (date). As discussed, the project has now been completed and the invoice to the amount of (£ FEE ) is now considerably overdue as per the agreed schedule of payment within contract (ref number). The commissioned works were completed and delivered in full on the (DATE, 2009), and its payment has now been overdue by (TIME) days at the time of this emails composure. The bill of (£ FEE) was neither settled within ( TIMESCALE) as contracted and numerous attempts to contact you have been unsuccessful.

As per our normal practices, we must at this point (in accordance with our terms and conditions) request payment within (TIME SCALE) ( 7 days) of this contact. If payment is not received by (TIME, DATE) we will deem you in breach of contract and will take appropriate action. Detailed within our contract, we also feel it important to remind you that until payment is settled in full, all works are the full legal intellectual property of (COMPANY).

There are a number of payments methods available as detailed in the attachment. Please do not hesitate to get in touch via (CONTACT DETAILS).

We look forward to hearing from you and receiving payment promptly,

Kind Regards,

(SIGNATURE)

3) E-mail / Letter not answered / Payment not received

At this point you should revoke the use of any systems you have made available to the client if possible. (e.g a website). At this point you have several options. Our personal normal action after this is to simply to refer the matter to our solicitor. Solicitors will issue the following contact at a fee ( around £30.00 GBP ) per correspondence and keep us informed accordingly. Why get the law involved? Psychological warfare! Many people / small businesses will magically arise from the shadows and a ‘troublesome email server’ or an ‘office move’ when they receive a headed; formal; debt notification letter from a solicitor. One of these wonderful gems, contains diplomatically worded threat as to the consequences of further non-payment and absence of contact; it also establishes a deadline beyond which this threat will be acted upon. it is also advisable to discuss the matter in full with your solicitor, as in reality you do not want to word your letter threatening full civil action in regard to a bill of £1.00 GBP. Extreme example but you get the point. It often also states how the fee is likely to increase with interest / debt recovery fees should time pass by a further set time limit. You can also, simply send a similar letter yourself but we feel the fee is worthit. We also copy and type the letter as an e-mail to the same effect to the client.

4) Contact and Resolution / ‘Walking the walk’

At this point, fortunately for us in the two honest occasions this has happened, the client has paid in full with an e-mail summarising their ‘circumstances’ within days of receiving the solicitors lawyer. The key for us, was simply responding in a professional manner:

Example:

Dear ************,

Hope you are well. We are happy to confirm receipt of payment for (project / ref number) and its invoice (number / reference). Please find attached the statement of accounts and receipt of payment. (Relevant files / services will be re-instated/sent) to you within 24 hours. We wish you the best in your further endeavors and would hope you would not hesitate to contact us in the future for your design projects.

Kind Regards,

(SIGNATURE)

However, not everyone’s tale ends in a fairytale happily ever after. The client may offer to compromise, in which case you will have to decide, in consultation with your solicitor upon the terms of that compromise. Sometimes, settlement for an agreed fee is the most economical and beneficial resolution to the matter.

If after setting upon the following process, and going out of your way to accommodate your client, then you have to decide if you wish to pursue the matter and carry out your diplomatically worded threats….

Related Posts:

• November 6, 2009 -- When Your Client Wants To Become The Designer (4)
• November 5, 2009 -- 11 Articles To Stop You Making Designer Mistakes (1)
• November 3, 2009 -- Your Quote is too high! – Charging/Negotiating for design work (6)
• August 1, 2009 -- Creative Block – Beating It – Fresh ideas and inspiration (0)
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As a London dweller, I am in love with my city! Though I would share some images of the one and only city, London!

The Painted Hall, Old Royal Naval College Greenwich by muddyclay

St Martin’s Cathedral by Acuity Designs

The Lloyds Building, London by m starling

HMS Belfast by edvvc

The Guerkin, by coostie

LeadenHall Market by Acuity Designs – Click to view..

The Globe Theatre by mightymightymatze

The London Eye by olib

02 Arena by mightymightymatze

Battersea Power Station by swh

House of Parliament and Westminister Bridge by Isofarro

Spitafields Market by Aurellen

The Royal Exchange by Acuity Designs

OXO Tower by Nikonmania

Tower Bridge by Kaddison

Borough Market by naughtyarchitect

Millennium Bridge by net_efeckt

No.1 London Bridge by Eat you greens

Tate Modern by beatbull

St Paul’s Cathedral by Carmen Seaby

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Every now and then you receive a client who gets involved in your end of the deal, and is questioning / making firm suggestions about directions to take. This could be due to their eagerness, misunderstanding of professional boundaries or personality; but it needs to be addressed when they begin to intrude too much upon the design of your project; to its detriment..

I have found, the best way to approach this niggle in la backside and take control is to explain why you are the designer and they are the client.

Experience

Make sure you take the time to explain that you are the designer and as such have a wealth of experiencing designing and they well… don’t. This is often a hard point to word without being antagonistic but make sure it is seen as a simple statement and not a call to argument.

Professional Skill

This is the point that you should be itching to use in your arsenal. You have reasons behind your madness – explain them. Explain why comic sans and neon green is not the correct brand colour for an emerging accountancy firm. Explain why that subtle flick on the tail of a character of text is a key element to the design. Explain why flash should be used sparingly when it is not appropriate etc

Homework

Another great approach is to validate your concerns as to why for instance a huge flash splash page is not necessary, is by letting the client read up o the issue. We have a great design community full of loads of little articles explaining many issues you may come to loggerheads over. Take the time to source something relevant and send it over to them.

On the flipside

It is also important to approach the situation from a professional standing, and ask why you object to their suggestions?

Pride

With every project, it is essential to maintain a professional distance. This distance is what allows you to evaluate their suggestions and to be objective. You need to ask, are you opposed to their intrusion because they are going to break the site’s function or logo’s fitness for purpose? Or are you opposed because you really think doing a certain something in a certain way will look great in your portfolio?

Contracts

This situation amongst others is another wonderful example of why having a detailed and pragmatic contract is essential! Ensuring that design revisions, what constitutes a revision, extra fees for extra revisions & how many revisions are included cemented within the contract protects both of you. Controversial to say, but if your client is adamant and set upon their course – remember two of the key points here are to provide what the client wants and that you are a business and such are being paid. If the client wants to delay proceedings by a month to see how a new web design will look, or to receive 4 more logo concepts, GREAT… show me the money.

Outside Perspective
There is no harm in seeking outside perspective… ask a fellow professional and if applicable ask a somebody who is not a design professional. Maybe your judgement is off and maybe this may be one of the rare situations where you will have to hold your hands up and say… ‘I was wrong’

Inspired by a thread on WDF

Related Posts:

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1) Just Creative Design – Bad Graphic Design
Yes, this is a controversial topic, however I hope to raise awareness of some mistakes you may be making in your graphic design pieces that are making you look amateurish, but please keep in mind that none of these are hard and fast rules, this is only a general guide of things you should be aware of.

2) Smashing Magazine – 10 common mistakes in Logo design

A professional business should look professional. New business owners often invest a lot of time and money in property and equipment, but do not often match it by investing suitably in their logo.

3)Noupe – 10 Common design mistakes

Below are ten of the most common mistakes web designers make, along with examples of sites who do things right. Some of these are easy to correct if you’re aware of, others might take a bit more time. But all are fixable and worth the time and effort to correct. While this is by no means a comprehensive list of common errors, it is a good starting point.

4)Daily Blog Tips – 43 Web Design Mistakes You Should avoid

Some of the points are common sense, others are quite polemic. Most of them apply to any website though, whether we talk about a business entity or a blog. Enjoy!

5) Crestock.com – 7 common design mistakes that clients love

From flash intros, to logo theft, to information overload, clients often ask a design team to do a lot of stuff that’s just plain wrong. Here are 7 of the most common mistakes clients might ask you to make — and how to talk some sense into them.

6) Desin cubicle – 10 common typography mistakes

The goal of this post is to help designers and clients understand the importance of good type skills, while avoiding some of the common mistakes. Please keep in mind that most of these mistakes are subjective and can be changed varying on the project, goals or circumstances.

Below is a list of 10 common mistakes used in type design/layout that can make a large impact in the effectiveness and appearance of your designs, in addition to saving you time and money when dealing with printers.

7) Web Pages That suck – Biggest mistake in web design

These ladies are laughing at you. Why? You designed your web site for your needs, not their needs. It gets worse. After they stop laughing, they’re going to one of your competitors’ sites and buy something.

8 ) Andbreak.com – 101 common designer mistakes

A lot of people are nowadays starting a new web site, may it just be personal blog or your own ecommerce site. With a growing number of web page we also see a growing number of web site designs.

The main stream of web sites are flawed with mistakes that are easily avoidable. Here is a list of what I found the most important mistakes made by web designers.

9) Articulate – 5 common visual design mistakes

I was working with a student intern the other day. We reviewed his first attempt at a rapid elearning course. For this review, we focused on the course’s visual design.

Overall, he did a great job, especially for someone just starting out. However, he made some mistakes that are common to many of the courses I see. I thought I’d do a quick rundown of what they are and provide some tips on how to prevent them.

10) Turbomilk – 10 mistakes in icon design

It is much easier to criticize somebody else’s work than to create something cool yourself. But if you apply a systematic approach to criticizing, make a numbered list and prepare illustrations, it will be regarded as a fully-fledged analysis! In my opinion, icon design is undergoing a transitional period. On the one hand, screen resolutions are increasing, hence enhancing icons. On the other hand, we still have good old pixels. Icons sized 16×16 and even smaller are still widely used. And so, here are the most commonly observed mistakes in icon design…

11) Smashing Magazine – 15 common mistakes in E-commerce design

Selling online can open up huge new markets for many businesses. When your store can be open 24/7 and you can reach a global market without the costs of mailings and call centers, it can be a huge boon to your business. But there are plenty of things to consider when designing an ecommerce site. It’s not as simple as throwing up some shopping cart software and plopping products into a database.

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Hi all, whilst trawling the web in the late hours, I came across Will Pearson’s website. His work is simply… breathtaking..

View his portfolio here: http://www.willpearson.co.uk/portfolio_cityscapes.php

Will Pearson is a professional panoramic photographer living in London and working worldwide. His panoramic photography and virtual tours have been showcased in the press, and the panoramas have been exhibited in various spaces in both the UK and China. He is frequently commissioned to take panoramic photographs to be reproduced at large-scale. A recent commission was reproduced at 32m (105 foot) long.

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It is inevitable and if it hasn’t happened to yourself yet, it is not far round the corner especially in the economic times were in. Quite often, a potential client will challenge you on your pricing. i.e your rate per hour, total price etc

The first time it happened to us, we were hit with this painful urge to almost apologise, back-track and revise our quote…. Don’t. Handling a pricing objection well will help present yourself as an experienced professional.

When pricing and developing a quote, it is self-defeating to believe that it will be too high. If a client challenges you, the trick is to act genuinely surprised but not to apologize or automatically decrease your fee. No other company would do this! The sad truth, is many people simply do not know what quality professional design services should cost them or their business and are often hit with a quote they never envisaged.

Firstly, respond to the client reassuringly and explain why you have costed the works as you have. (time involved, skills required, your expertise, general industry reasons as to why you are a design professional )

Secondly,; You should impart the feeling that with your experience, level of expertise – the client is getting value for money and that your pricing is actually very competitive.

Thirdly, those wonderful little marketing and mind game sentences that serve many so well. Sentences like:

‘If you hunt around, I am sure you will find it hard to find similar quality and level of work for cheaper’

By saying something like this, you put the ball back on their court and subtly ask them in a friendly way to think again. Cost – benefit analysis. Introduce the idea that low price is not as important as good work and high value.

‘My price may seem high, but you’ll find I am very easy to work with and highly dependable’

Emphasise the value of less physical benefits that you can offer and how they should factor into a client decision.

If all else fails, and the client will not budge or they simply cannot afford your quote. You then must make the decision whether to pass up work or set into motion the unfortunate:

‘Lets see what I can do to meet your budget’

This is a position we have all found ourselves in right from day one. Be attentive, be helpful. Let the client know that you are going to take some time to see what can be done for them. Respond by describing how you can maybe offer a less expensive option that still delivers near enough the same result if done correctly. ( 2 colour printing vs 4 colour printing / innovative brochure packaging etc ).

If the client, does not wish to have any change to their specification and you still wish to take the job on, emphasise that doing the job at the lower price than normal is a one-off exception and it is almost certainly not a trend for projects to come. Give a blanket reason for your kindness:

- Interested in your project / cause
- Filling up your portfolio with this type of work

Te key is never to appear that you are just desperate for work!

Reference: The Business Side of Creativity by Cameron S.Foote

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Hi all,

Acuity Designs has just started a facebook group; giving you all another way to spread the word about our services and stay in touch with all things AD from our projects, to updates on fresh blog articles and posts!

Acuity Designs on Facebook

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“To choose art means to turn one’s back on the world, or at least on certain of its distractions.”  Melvin Maddocks

Designing with distractions.

Maybe this doesn’t only apply to freelance designers and illustrators. I think it’s probably a conundrum that faces people in every walk of life, particularly as they progress through student years. The topic of distractions vs. comfortable background noise. Bear in mind when I speak of Background noise to a designer, I’m not simply talking about some music playing as you work, I mean everything. Tunes, design-related visuals, even videos streaming in your browser, (only half–hidden by an active Photoshop window.) Basically the question that I want to pose is, when does it shift from having inspiring material fuelling your creativity, to just a distraction keeping you from your full productivity. Where do we draw the line?

The truth is that we can utilise this background noise for different reasons in different professions. One fact that I found interesting was that most surgeons now find it very difficult to operate without some form of background music, in fact I’ve heard it said by medical professionals I know, that these days a CD player is one of the most vital pieces of equipment in an OR as it prevents the surgeons from being tense, and jittery. And hearing this, got me thinking, I actually do find silence quite oppressive when I’m working, maybe it’s being a product of the iPod generation that background music or visuals go arm in arm with creativity.

With this in mind though, it’s difficult when you are working freelance, because so much of your productivity depends on you being self-disciplined enough to know where the line should be. Where in an office you can have the boundaries set for you, when you’re privileged enough to work from home, it can be harder to come up with black and white rules as to what distractions are acceptable. I want to leave this question open and appeal for comments on the issue, partly because I’d be interested to see where everyone else draws their lines…but mostly because it’s a question that’s hard to come down with any definitive answer, (particularly if like me, you’ve got a Youtube video playing in the background distracting you)

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So your self-promotion has worked and you have that all important new client. The project itself has scope for you to add some personal style or artistic flair to it as well. After the initial brainstorming, research and sketches you are nowhere – with nothing visual to guide yourself. Creative block!

We have various ways that we attempt to get around creative block:

- A Thesaurus

This has worked particularly well with illustration pieces where clients have given us a word as a ‘theme’ – brainstorming doesn’t always do it. Picking up a thesaurus or using the thesurus.com with your theme word can shed new light on different interpretations/concepts/understandings of the word and theme.

- Walking Away

This may sound somewhat foreign and not make much sense; but quite often when stuck, the best thing to do is to turn off the macbook, put down the sketchbook and go do something completely unrelated. At times, giving the brain time and space to think can work wonders – you might not get a classical ‘eureka’ moment but when you next sit down to tackle the project you may see ideas flowing a lot more naturally than before. Worst comes to worst, the cd collection you just organised was a terribly important task that you can now check off the procrastination list.

– Other people’s work

Inspiration and not Imitation is the key here. A useful way to see how others have approached branding companies in similar sectors etc. Also, will hopefully give you a new direction to head down in your interpretation of your brief.

Some good resources:

- 10 sources of Logo Inspiration
- Web Design Gallery
- Illustration inspiration

- Asking Others

The design community is a great place. You tend to get out of it what you put in. Helping others will pay off when yu need help in return. Asking for different approaches/ techniques / research paths / colour choices etc can help get you through the block and into a place where your able to develop the project!

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Whilst on twitter, I came across this nice little tool to help grade your blog via a tweet by Rutiso It then provides an analysis of your blog and outputs a score out of 100. It functions/looks vry similar to hubspot’s ever popular Website Grader.

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