Logo design story

I can tell you why any designer shouldn't work without advance payment.

your fitness club


On 13th Oct, 2011 a guy from India sent me a mail and called me for a logo he wanted to be designed for his fitness club. Here is the e-mail conversation between me and him - Just go through it and you will know why.

Client : 13th Oct, 2011

Hi sumit ,

I happened to go through your profile and i will really liked your work.

Would you like to work on my project of logo designing
Me : 13th Oct 2011

Sure Client,

Just send me details of your project along-with your approximate budget.

Client called me on my mobile and had settled on a budget

Client : 13th Oct, 2011

Thats amazing sumit ,

I would love to send you money through western union.

Thanx for accepting my work.

The club name is ( ... )

I want the logo designed as "YFC" As i am not getting Trademark registration for the word "..."

So they have suggested that i use the initials " YFC " and can write down full name "..." below or sideways.

The colour which i have used for all the marketing , inside the gym and in current logo is "Dark pink , lemon yellow , dark grey , black "

Damn excited that you are gonna make it .

Thanx once again
Me : 13th Oct 2011

Hi Client,

Thanks for contacting me and sharing the details. I will shortly send you three options for your logo to choose from.

Western Union is fine, or else you can also send me money through bank transfer.
It was nice to have a chat with you.
Client : 13th Oct, 2011

wow , this is fast sumit.

By when can i expect results.

I am ready to do bank transfer as you are in india only
Me : 13th Oct, 2011

Hi Client,

Well I appreciate the selection of pink as you have a unisex gym - that'll be perfect for acceptability to the girl/woman segment. And also lemon yellow is a healthy color - so I think it will help you brand your organization as not only a gym, but also a health club.

Here are three options for your logo ...
your fitness club

tattoo styled text - with a hand pointed to '...'
your fitness club

healthy couple as used in the previous version of your logo.
your fitness club

minimal letter-mark logo with Y symbolizing a hand holding weight.

Please note that the hand graphics in option 1 and healthy couple in option 2 are dummy sketches only to show the composition, you will get full colored version of the graphics if you finalize one of them.

So how do you like them? Please comment.

Best regards.
Me : 14th Oct, 2011

Hello Client,

Are you there?
Client : 14th Oct, 2011

Hi sumit,

Will revert you 2mrw for sure

Today in ...
Me : 14th Oct, 2011

oh - you are travelling - sure, no problem.
Client : 15th Oct, 2011

I liked the 3rd one sumit

Can you integrate the same font YFC in the exisiting logo f mine and give better colouring to the existing logo
Me : 15th Oct, 2011

like this?
Client : 15th Oct, 2011

yes , something like this , but it should be easy to make a Signage out of it
Me : 15th Oct, 2011
your fitness club
Client : 17th Oct, 2011

hi sumit ,

I would call you by today afternoon
Me : 20th Oct, 2011

what's up Client? how are you doing? seems very busy!
Client : 20th Oct, 2011

Extremely sorry sumit

Being traveling like anything

Have liked one of your concept.

I will definitely call u 2mrw to discuss it over
Me : 8th Nov, 2011

are you still travelling ?
Client : 8th Nov, 2011

i was :)

We have launched new one in ... now

Please send me you phone no. , will call you right away

attached the logo on which we can work further

I am writing this post today - 13th November - simply one month after we started the logo design project. So what did you learnt from this? The budget of this logo design was 100 usd only.

And here is another update from my honorable client, after few days I published this post.

Client : 18th Nov
Dear sumit ,

Please contact asap
Me : 18th Nov, 2011
hi Client,

it's great to hear back from you - i am always here - please tell me what can i do for you.
Client : 18th Nov, 2011

please call me
Me : 18th Nov, 2011

please send me details over mail and i will get back to you.

I don't know what he wanted to mean by asap!. And for sure he was so busy that he couldn't write a few lines - and I didn't want to waste money calling him.

Comments

  1. oh thats so bad...earlier I had also done similarly without payment and he kept me making changes to the logo...and lost contact with him at the end.. thanks for sharing this as people will be more careful regarding such clients. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes Nisha - they are the majority - this is just an example, but unfortunately, tho being an Indian myself, I must admit that Indian clients are worst. I generally avoid working for Indian ( or widely speaking of Asian ) peoples as they are 'smart', 'picky', 'choosy', 'have a great taste', 'have an eye for art' - in a nutshell - they are simply 'not professional' at all.

    This year I had to work on 4 projects from India - I can share the history of these projects here.

    1. Logo+Bizcard for Camelia - I got the payment after 8 months after a lot of email and sms notifs, they were that busy with their business, that they simply forgot about the payment!

    2. Website for a wireless broadband service provider - they thought I am going to be the their webmaster - who can manage the other technical things like creating and maintaining a SMS ad server, I could also do the web aand TV marketing etc. Oh - the full payment was cleared after 8/9 months - believe me, they contacted me from a friend's reference and I just created a static site as their budget was around Rs. 4000!

    3. Flash Presentation for a transport company - till they haven't cleared the full payment - and my client's father got sick! Briefly they thought computer can do anything - and flash has built in 'magic', so I was supposed to be lazy if they needed unlimited changes within a single day.

    4. You are currently reading about it :)

    So what I can tell you, If you ever needed to work for any Indian clients, it is best to take an advance payment of 200% of the project value, and then you can return the extra 100% if everything goes well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. thanks for the info!! People must definetly read this! 8-9 months for payment? oh my that's worse...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nisha - yes guys in India are doing 'serious' business - they value their own time and money so much, sometimes they forgot about the guys they hired.

    Worse is for the design industry - would you like to pay just for a jpeg or eps?? These goddamn start-up guys just take the logo designs nothing but text wrapped outside of a 'clip-art' - ha ha!

    In my career I had the luck to get in touch of such 'entrepreneurs', 'directors' or 'marketing genius' who says they know 'how to build a brand' - actually they are only wasting their father's hard-earned money and also the graphic designer's time and effort.

    ReplyDelete
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