Ok, I feel like I'm going to get destroyed for this but I need some advice. I know I screwed up royally, please don't rub it in.
So I've been working with this client for 5 years. I've always given them great prices, mostly because I undervalue my work.
Well somewhat related, I suffer from an chronic illness that pretty much destroyed my chance of a normal career and I ended up having to quit my full time design job after my illness made it clear that I wouldn't be able to hold down a full time job. That was 2 years ago.
Since then, this freelance client is my only client, and I work part time at an unrelated job that helps pay the bills. After I quit my job, my work for my client started suffering and it became mediocre at best. I think I'm a semi-decent designer, and looking back over the last 2 years makes me cringe a little thinking about the work I did for them. They were always adamant that they loved my work, but it was definitely a step down from what I was capable of doing.
Well just recently the company had a wake-up call when they sent a proposal to a potential client and they got turned down because the competition looked "more professional." Now, to be clear, this material in the proposal were documents that they had put together themselves in Word that looked very cheap. My work always came in after the proposal was accepted.
They kind of freaked out and realized that they needed to step up their game and sent me those proposal documents to redesign which I did gladly and charged them appropriately.
Then they decided that they desperately needed a rebranding. I pretty much "created" their brand when I started working with them, but never in an official capacity. I designed the logo and then pretty much just followed their guidelines and the rest followed. There was no official process.
Well this time there is and I have agreed to take on the work. Their idea for the brand is pretty much night and day from where it was, so it has been a ton of work for me over the last week to get the brand together and build the guidelines.
And I am a complete idiot and told them I would do it for free. I have no idea what I was thinking... They didn't even ask me to do it for free, I just offered it. I guess I felt so guilty and was really ashamed of my recent work that I just blurted it out and now I'm very much regretting it 20 hours into this rebranding.
Is there any hope for me to see a paycheck? Is there a way I can nicely ask for payment without looking like a dick and an idiot? I really don't want to sour relations with this client as I have an amazing relationship with them and would like to keep working with them for the foreseeable future, especially since they are my lifeline to stay connected to graphic design.
~ Tl;dr- I am very stupid and offered my client to redesign their brand for free because I was ashamed of my work over the last 2 years due to illness. Is there any polite way to request payment after offering it for free without souring relations with them?
Great design resource
100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People (Voices That Matter)
Submitted August 14, 2018 at 06:11PM by LovesHyperbole https://ift.tt/2MpwCDr
No comments:
Post a Comment