Yesterday there was a Creative Amnesty over at checkthis.com. The idea was that, for one day, you could share your worst creative projects with impunity. It's a brilliant idea and there are some reall humdingers on there, I particularly like the Wet Lemon website posted on the Creative Review site. As the designer Jonathan Ogden says: "I'm sorry internet."
The project that I'd love to surrender in the amnesty is unfortunately too recent for comfort, and the business is very much still going so I am unable to place it on the site. Suffice it to say that they didn't need a designer, they needed a monkey to push boxes around the screen. Over and over and over again. They chose colours for their stationery as some kind of sick experiment in colour un-theory and they added circles and striped lines on the back enough to make your eyes bleed. Every time I submitted their amends I would add my own version as to how their amends could be integrated while giving it some semblance of, I don't know, beauty? Congruency? Clarity? Anyway, every time they rejected my points out of hand and went ahead with more changes like a child with a box of paints. Every time I died a little more inside. Eventually I sacked the client. If and when they go out of business, it will be my pleasure to publish here the horror that unfolded before me, but for now you will have to make do with the back of their business card. Mmmm. It's like the Renaissance never happened.
The lesson is, when you lose creative control of a project and you are pushing boxes around at the client's behest, it's time to end the contract. They hired you because you are a design professional and they need to trust you to deliver what they can't.
For more on the creative amnesty, visit http://checkthis.com/creativeamnesty
Main image: misterQM / photocase.com
Like this post? Try How To Grow Your Imagination In Secret or Making It Easy For Your Readers
