I asked you what your worst and weirdest client feedback was. and well they were...
you'll see so here are the very best ones and also what you can do when you're given similarly
unhelpful feedback I've also categorized them so they will be easier to identify out in the
wild the director says guys I can't give you any reference because this style of Animation
has never been done before the final product was not so groundbreaking unfortunately yeah yeah
that sounds like hell you might have to turn the tables on them in that scenario I can't give you
my quote because well I'm about to charge you has never been done before where's Anderson to
one of my teammates make the stairs more symbolic now this one I can confirm because this does come
from a close friend of mine who worked in the art Department of a Wes Anderson film or or a wesy as
we call it in the industry normally when you get feedback from Wes Anderson about making something
more symbolic and and you will here's what you do just put it in a cute cutaway works every time
never use red colors in a video everybody knows that look we all make that mistake when you're
starting if you accidentally include some red just remove the red Channel when you're exporting and
everything should be fine sorts it up nice okay a colleague of mine was told to change the direction
of a 2db flying clockwise to anti-clockwise because a b wouldn't fly like that now normally
I would think hey I'm no B expert I'll leave the B stuff up to the client but I am a b expert so
let's pull up some from the archive here's a b i animated on one of my first client projects from
like 10 years ago and it is flying clockwise you're right a bee would fly like that this
needs to start half a frame earlier half a frame that is a tricky one you could try interlacing is
that what interlacing is or just mask off the left side of the frame that'd make them happy
for the ending can you make the logo spin into frame if you use PowerPoint it's
well there's no reasoning with a client like that some people just want to watch the world
turn I had a group of clients standing behind me in the studio I hit preview and ran through
the animation on screen I let it run a couple of times and then stopped it and turned to see what
they thought then after pause one of them says I like the bit in the middle but I don't like those
gray boxes you have put around it they're fellow clients not at an agreement what gray boxes I said
then they pointed around the screen those gray boxes they're referring to after effects interface
not really a lot you can say to that yeah that's almost Charming that they thought there was a
creative decision though but it did teach them to always preview full screen which is great
advice and some more Sage advice uh replying to that comment was to charge them an extra day for
removing them not that I would ever condone that the tree is too sexy no other context on that one
and uh and none needed it's not penisy enough if that makes sense I think I think that makes
total sense I think that's some pretty straight direct clear feedback it looks like a vagina it
was simply the letter V okay well that is just completely inappropriate for you to be using
that letter in a professional environment I would recommend just taking it off the
keyboard if you can't be trusted to behave also maybe they wanted it to be more penisy perhaps
it's a good start that one's brutal um I used to get quite a lot it's getting there from a director
I used to work with a lot and at least they try to soften it a bit which kind of makes it worse
just a little bit worse well that's not total crap okay this is great this is the kind of one
I might have framed next to my monitor so I could see it every day I don't know how someone could
think type and send that think that yeah okay fair enough you might think that type it that thought's
already gone too far sending out I think Gmail even gives you a little alert when you're about
to send something like that to someone but also I guess sometimes if you're assessing your own
work I mean you're working on a personal project and if you can look at it at the end of the day
and think you know what that's not total crap I think that's a victory okay a quick PSA the client
design of relationship isn't and US versus them kind of scenario I don't want to divide clients
and designers any further especially because they are the ones uh with the money but especially
for newer people in the industry most client relationships are very pleasant and collaborative
sometimes it's just fun to share and bond over our most sort of extreme experiences these these
aren't the norm at all and also don't treat your clients like idiots either you shouldn't
be addicted to your client even if they're a dick because it's not going to work out favorably for
you in the end because well they're the ones with the money and most of the time bad feedback is
just because they don't really know how to give good feedback and giving good feedback is hard
especially if you're not familiar with the process so you might have to help them along a little bit
more and that'll be better for you in the long run anyway now that's out of the way I think we
can safely get back to some light-hearted ribbing they're the ones with the money
it just needs more wow now this seems to be a very popular variation on the make it pop which is very
popular earlier in my career wow is even more ambiguous make it pop I could kind of decipher
that into that they want something to stand out more you can add some more contrast some different
hierarchy maybe change the colors or something make something more prominent wow wow is I don't
know what wow is we love it now we'd like you to add the wow factor I think I love this one
even more as if this is a standardized process like everyone knows when you just add the wow
factor in at the end take that wow checkbox and be good to go add more design okay that I think that
might be the most vague request I can imagine I suppose they are paying for design I guess
it makes sense they want more of it what I'd guess is that they want some abstract
corporate shapes just dropped behind any text you have to make it seem like it's more expensive
so try that next time during character creation the children look too kidlike
yeah what are you trying to do making kids look like kids I'll tell you some reference
children should look like scaled down adults they knew this in the medieval times they knew
this when making cyberpunk 2027 use the same models as adults to scale them down a bit can
you make everything bigger also we think there is not enough air in the composition
I hate this one so often I'd get a full page of information to include on a poster and I'd ask
well what's the most important information and I definitely remember once getting the the exact
phrase everything is the most important so just a reminder if everything is the priority nothing is
a priority this is why I think hierarchy is the most important principle in design but it can be
tricky to extract that information from the client because I think I think they tend to interpret
that when you ask and what's the priority is you asking which stuff isn't important and they think
it is all important but it has to go in a certain order and if I suppose they say it's not big
enough just you know get them to hold it closer to their face make it a gif keep the music too
yeah I've had some similar feedback I get the confusion I think people just associate
any short video or animation or anything with a gif but for those that don't know a gift can't
hold music and is restricted to 256 colors it's it's not really a good file for really anything
anymore not as bad as a gif though the worst is web banners I hated working on web banners once
I had to work on 16 16 different size variations of this woman on a swing just thoroughly enjoying
almond milk had to Roto out the dress and everything and then on the last day of my
booking it was revealed that all of these had to be delivered and it was something ridiculous
but it was definitely either 64 or 32 kilobytes kilobytes I'm not joking about that so uh always
get the delivery specs up front yeah to this day I still I still recoil when I've seen that
almond milk in the supermarket okay I think there are plenty more examples of terrible feedback out
there ones that are even worse certainly enough to make a follow-up to this video so give me your
worst in in the comments give me your funniest your weirdest your strangest feedback or comments
or things you've ever heard a client say about yours or someone else's work and if you want to
be so good at design that you can ignore client feedback entirely been married Industries would
like to immediately retract the specificity of that proposition why not consider enrolling in
my Advanced animation course Master motion design full of all the principles and techniques to take
your skills from o to oh boy o to O boy surely we can do better than that full of all the
principles and techniques to take your skills from please to yes please that was definitely worse
enroll now