i made this

I feel like my recent process of attempting to create a poster and identity for an upcoming Law School event is worth recording. It will remind me forever (hopefully) that I need to assert myself with more conviction that I know what's right when it comes to design, and to stop being such a push-over when confronted by peers who are better able to verbalize their thoughts and convince me to work on their whims (lawyers-to-be).

The event is an exciting (in the law world, that is) symposium on the limits of the first amendment of the Constitution when enforced in America's public schools (think protests about the Vietnam War and promoting bong hits 4 Jesus). I was eager to create smart illustrations combining the visuals of schools, government, and free speech. My first attempts:




I'd be the first to admit that they're not Earth-shatteringly brilliant. A majority of them ended up looking like promotions for a presidential debate, but I was proud none the less; a good start in my mind. The client agreed that this was a good start, and appreciated my work, but believed that I was running the wrong way and needed to turn around and run in a new direction using photographs.
My mistake #1: I'd like to begin noting where I feel I could have done things differently so as to make this process easier on everyone, but most importantly on myself. Pictures were never mentioned in our initial meetings; my instructions were to make something professional, classy, crisp, and clean. So looking back I should have entered the initial meetings more prepared with samples from similar events to run the gamut of design options.
That never happened and the following two samples were my attempts to implement photographs.



Again, good, but not great. I chose these two photos because they were naturally inclined to attractively work well with text elements. The client didn't like either poster and provided me with photos of classrooms that they requested I bleed to each edge of the poster and place text over. I replied that this would be a bad idea because the end result would be one ugly-looking poster.
My mistake #2: During this meeting, I should have expanded on my knowledge of design, and failed to communicate it to those with less experience than myself. I knew, but failed to state that this solution is uncreative, unprofessional, will look cluttered, and will end up with an amateur feel. I was convinced to do the work when asked to "humor" the client and attempt this poster for their reference.
My mistake #3: I can't believe I didn't say I don't have the time to humor anyone. I instead made the following hideous monstrosity, along with another request via email, later on the same day, giving instructions for a poster which the client strongly believed just might have a chance to possibly look good.



These two posters were both rejected outright by the client. This, I believe, is most definitely because of my mistake #4, that I began spending less time and less effort on each of my subsequent attempts. I followed directions, gave my advice where I felt it would be valued, but didn't feel any closer to concluding this project than I did at its beginning.
My mistake #5 was consistently made throughout this entire process, but became obvious right about here: I needed to set a cut-off point at the beginning of the process and which, more importantly, I needed to strongly enforce. I tried, two posters previous, to convince the client that it was necessary they choose one of the posters I had already created in order to keep our deadlines, but was ignored.
My enthusiasm for doing anymore work with this client was now non-existent, so I suppose it was good that I was emailed a pdf showing a poster that they created and wanted me to mimic.
My mistake #6: I didn't quit the project right then. However, in all fairness, being an in-house designer doesn't give me the liberty to pick and choose my jobs, or quit one when things go sour. Without any self-respect, I copied their design, polished it where I was able, and provided the following proof for the client's approval.



I wanted to tell the client how wrong it is to superimpose an image of a courthouse over an image of an image of a classroom, and to use translucent white boxes so the text is legible, but I just wanted to finish the project and didn't care what I had to do to reach that outcome; I kept my mouth closed.
After accepting a request to have a meeting in my office about this, what I thought was the, final poster design, I allowed the client to watch from behind my shoulder and make suggestions while I worked.
My mistake #7: It shouldn't have come to this point, but I was willing to let someone else believe they knew how to do my job better than me in order to rid them of my to-do list; I hope I never do that again.
After telling me what to do in my office for twenty minutes, and then later telling me in an email to change all fonts to Berkeley Bold, most likely because it looks more intelligent, I was thoroughly destroyed. My respect for myself and my respect from the client were completely gone, I was two weeks over deadline, and I had only the following pile of poo to claim as the reason why everything was worth it (the image on the right is the final poster after an impromptu font-change).

My mistake #8:


I suppose I can say the client is happy with the end result, at least they had better be, but I doubt I can say the same thing for the process we went through to get here. I now know how I don't want to work with a client, as I already have many examples of how I do like to work with them from previous jobs, and don't think I'll ever forget it.
I'm writing this simply to make sure I don't.