Just, stop. What’s worse, stop letting your clients noodle your work until it’s no longer your work. When you send a draft to a client, accept the markups for typos and the things you feel are valid feedback, but don’t let them ask you to tweak your design to the point of it no longer being your work, but their piece of garbage attempt at design.
Remember, they hired you. Remind them if you need to, and ask (politely) that they respect your design decisions and explain (politely) why you feel that certain feedback won’t look good or won’t work with the vision you had. They will respect you more for speaking up than they will if you cow to every single tweak they suggest. Just because they are suggesting it, doesn’t mean it will look better.
I recently fired a client that noodled my work to the point that I will never ever show anyone this work in a portfolio (it’s no where on this site either) because in the end, it looks awful. I allowed them to turn it into crap and I resent them for that. I hate the work I did for them, and I wish it didn’t have to be that way.
So that is why I’m passing this advice along.
If you feel confident in your skills as a graphic designer, you need to believe in yourself and ask permission to have creative license. Once that is granted, if it’s granted, please don’t let others make your beautiful work turn into a beast, like I did. If that permission isn’t granted, give some serious thought to whether to continue with them as a client. Stand firm and be true to your designer side.
In the end, you will be grateful you did. No designer should ever resent their work.
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