All freelancers know there are downsides to the job; working long hours, often alone, and having to file your own tax returns are just a few. But arguably the worst part of being a freelance creative is dealing with difficult clients. There are those who let you fulfil the whole brief, before they decide they want something completely different, clients who want a branded campaign in a particular colour "because their child likes it", or those that "fix" a design of yours by crudely using one of the best logo designers to make their own version. And those are the relatively good ones.
But have you ever considered that how much of a pain a client is might be related to how much they're paying? Illustrator Corey Brickley has posted a simple graph on Twitter that addresses the client/budget continuum (see below).
The basic idea is that it's the clients who have either the really small or the really big budgets that are the most painful to work with. The ones with the middling budgets tend to be lower down on the "how much of a pain in the ass the client is" scale.
And besides making us smile, the graph seems to have struck a chord with creatives:
There should be a serious study into this phenomenon because this is undeniably trueJanuary 17, 2023
Quite literally this.January 17, 2023
Anecdotally, it sounds pretty accurate to us. For tips on dealing with clients, see our pieces on 5 things a client really wants and on how to stop clients asking for endless revisions (an oldie but a goodie).
Do you think the client/budget continuum works differently? It is not as simple as this graph makes out? Are clients with big and small budgets really that similar? Feel free to send us your own visual representation.
Read more:
- 9 things you need to sort before going freelance
- The best website builder
- The best places to sell design online
