Walked out on a client who wanted 12 revisions for a $200 logo

Met a guy at a local coffee shop in Portland who runs a startup. He liked my portfolio and asked me to design a logo. After I sent the first draft, he sent back a list of 12 changes. On the third round of edits he started asking for stuff that had nothing to do with the original brief, like adding a mascot. I packed up my laptop and told him to find someone else. Has any designer here actually completed a project with a client who kept moving the goalposts?

3 comments

3 Comments

green.mason11d ago

So you're telling me the guy paid you $200 for a logo and you expected him to just say "looks great" after one draft. Clients don't know what they want until they see it, that's literally the job. The dude asked for 12 changes, so what, you'd rather do 2 changes and call it done. Every revision is a chance to really understand what they need, not what they said they needed in some email. You walking out probably saved him from paying for someone who can't handle actual client feedback. A mascot isn't even that crazy of a request for a startup, maybe he saw the logo needed more personality. And $200 for a logo is already super cheap, so complaining about extra work on a budget job feels backwards to me.

river18311d ago

And here I thought "make it pop" was the peak of vague feedback, but I guess asking for a whole mascot mid-project is the new normal for $200. Twelve revisions later and they still don't know what they want, that's not feedback that's a hostage situation. But hey, charging budget prices and getting treated like a mind reader, sounds like a great business model.

alicebarnes11d ago

Twelve revisions on a two hundred dollar logo? That's wild. At some point, you're not charging for a logo, you're charging for a therapy session where they figure out their brand. The mascot thing is the red flag that tells you they have no idea what they actually want. Walking out was the smart move, you gotta protect your time and sanity. Green.mason is acting like doing free extra work is just part of the job, but thats how you get taken advantage of forever. A startup that indecisive on a small project is gonna be a nightmare on anything bigger. You dodged a bullet for sure.