That response is amazing. It really does go like that. I send so many "Hey here's the first go...give me feedback" emails that my computer auto completes it now. Sometimes it goes great. Productive feedback, thoughts, honesty, more information about the business and marketplace, and I can work with that. I can take that and make the stuff work better for them because of this information. The worst is when it turns to "Can we make it this font and this shade of blue and move that letter over 10px." I just make the changes and don't try anymore. It sucks to say it, but it happens. Nothing productive can happen after that unless both the client and the designer can start fresh. No good design has ever happened when the client is dictating the design. The best message thread of the day goes to the epitome of an ignorant (and arrogant) client on the dev side of things. :-O Me: Talked with [old backend guy that quit]. Got another admin password from him. Honestly, this is over my head. All I know is there is an ISS server somewhere. We need like a sys admin or something. Server guy who knows all this stuff.
Him: Hang tight.
Him: Forget [old backend guy that quit].
Me: [Old backend guy that quit] knows how the servers are set up. There's like 5 pieces that he put together.
Him: How the servers are set up?
Yeah, there's no cure for stupid. Here was my take-away from the whole process: When we first started, she told us we'd probably be ten to fifteen hours into a logo. And we were like, naaah, no way. We aren't anywhere near that choosy. And then she gave us a couple first-runs and we were like I mean, dayum. Print that sucka. but there were one or two tweaks, and we talked about it. And we did "one or two tweaks" like four times, and then I asked "how many hours we at?" and she said "Twelve." And that's where you go "You know, we're working with a professional who has done this before, is intimately familiar with the process and has a firm grasp of what we need and how to give it to us. Let's pay her." ...or, you go "HOLY SHIT HOW DID YOU SPEND TWELVE HOURS MOVING PIXELS AROUND, WOMAN?" Because after all, you just get emails. It's easy to forget that there's work that happens between them, and you need to pay for it.