"Bold, yet ethereal" - A client told me to make the fonts and layout like this. So how do we handle this There's two places a comment like that can be taken: 1) Can you show me what you consider bold and ethereal - do you have a design in mind that accomplishes both? Several? Let's look at each element of each design together and determine what works and why..." That often ferrets out some very interesting information about design expectations. or 2) "And is that something that adequately captures the essense of your company's brand? I ask because in any web design our number one consideration is how the users will, on a practical basis, interact with your web site. You want to be user-driven - solving people's needs..." Of course I can't always think that clearly on the fly when somebody tosses out a statement like that - so I usually say, "Bold and ethereal: let me take all this in and get back to you on Thursday". IF you can pin the clients down to specifics very early in process, put it all down on one sheet that says "here's what we're doing and why" - then they can't give you flak. Or rather they can change their minds, but then it costs more money "I understand that you personally 'dislike' this interface, but you do see what it accomplishes and how, right? If you want us to go back to the drawing board, we'll happily do so. It will cost an additional $X,000 and set us back another 3 weeks, but we're prepared to do so. Or... you could move forward with this current design, test it for a few months, and change it again then based on what your clients think - this IS a continual process. What would you like to do?" Now, we did have a client who represented a board of people who wanted a "slick, modern design". Oh, and the whole project only had 1 month to complete. So we asked detailed questions about what a "slick, modern design" meant - his answer, "beats the *ell out of me, I'm just the committee leader". We followed by asking to chat briefly with all 5 people before quoting the project - without it, we didn't know if they wanted some flash intro or just a fresh look! Two very different price ranges... and the client said, "no way, you don't talk to them". Now THAT'S when you run and don't look back: whenever the client will NOT give you the info you need. In fact, that's the # 1 "bad client" sign for us. Turns out they didn't want anything complicated at all - but I'm still glad we didn't take it, 'cause the budget wasn't enough to run the site for 8 months AND re-design it...

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