Adventures in Keyframes and Code

Hi Dave,

Ok i'm afraid i've gone down the road of quoting for the perfect job.

Recently I quoted for a charity rebrand where I estimated the time for the logo to be x amount - this was 4 concepts and 1 concept to be carried across into the final design. All was well until they kept changing their mind (as clients do). When they were satisified with the logo they said "now we just need to show it to the board'!!

As you can tell the amount of extra time I have had to put into the project is ridiculous. Once they showed the board they chose one of the designs and they got back to me the next day saying the design was too similar to another charity logo!

So i'm still re-working the logo and the client is getting more and more frustrated. But i've stated that anything that goes over the given timescale is chargeable x per hour. If they had told me upfront that the design had to go through the board then I would have factored more time in....it's probably my fault for not asking!

Here is a list of things that I have learnt from larger design projects:

• Create a document with given timescales and an initial fixed value. Break the project up into smaller chunks. i.e. Concept Stage, Implementation and Programming
• Charge the client 50% upfront and 50% on completion of the project OR into 3 stages and everything has to be signed off and invoiced at each stage
• Create a T&Cs document for both parties to sign this includes cancellation and termination of project.
• Regularly update the client with how much extra work you're carrying out and cost so they don't get a shock at the end of the project

I've also said to clients that within the quote x amount of days for changes. The 'rounds of changes' has never really worked for me, my clients find this too restricting.

I have a client who is spot on with organising everything from the start. Word documents, images in alphabetical order etc etc. so I quote her less because the project is quicker to finish. With some clients you just know that the project is going to take longer because they are wishy washy, they faff about and they keep changing their mind.

The worst one for me is text changes and typos. I get so frustrated with really small changes which end up taking forever. It's really difficult to know exactly how much time to factor within the quote for these kind of things because these small changes end up being time consuming.

Unforseen - extra meetings. Sometimes I put in the quote 'meetings not included' within the quote so they are charged separately, I add travel on to this as well.

I think that's all for now,

Zac