Crap Thursday!
The day started okay, slow and easy. It was the late afternoon that was horrible. My current project requires a website, and the target audience is students both local and foreign. And so the website design came in, and it was not very nice. Dark, dull colours as background, placement of photos were bad. Well, basically, it wasnt to standard, especially the agency that designed this website had previously designed better websites for other projects. And so, the idea of a redesign came up, and so we had to meet up with the agency.
This i say... could be my worst encounter from the agency. The 2 Account Directors came down to see us. One was rather nice, she was here for the purpose of moving ahead and solving the problem. The other... definately came to settle a grudge! But anyway, im sorry, but i think both still need to work on their PR skills.
This is what i felt from their responses, body languages and facial expressions:
1. They disregard us as their CLIENTS!
2. They insult us by telling us, oh I've been in advertising for 5 yrs, web design for 3 yrs, i know what i'm doing. Leave the art director work to us. 3. Blantantly told us, please do not use the word poor quality, i think it is rude to say that and very insulting to us and my designers.
There's more... but i shan't continue further. My point is this, they as an agency made a mistake by giving us a poorly designed website. Dont' give us the crap about that u focus on usability over the design elements. These days, websites are not just info, people go for the deisgn too. Even if the content is great, fantastic or informative, the design element shld be there too, and that's when the agency comes in! They're the expert in web design, not my organisation! I mean we can say what we want, but u are the ones who are the consultants. Why take us so literally?
Also, the comment abt leaving the art director work to them and we dont play art director, that really pissed me off. It's like insulting my studies. WTF! I know I aint arty farty or design inclined, but I didnt go to poly and uni not graduating with no knowledge on webdesign! I still know a thing or two about websites! I really hated that comment. It was obviously a personal attack. How unprofessional.
My feeling is this, and this is based on assumption, I feel the 2 AD, especially the one who made the abv comment, must be thinking that my colleague and I are young and coz we're not in the business, know nuts about web design. Obviously, they're trying to mock us and show the least respect they can. As much as you would love to be frank and open abt this, there's a fine line between being personal and being professional. Many things could be not said, can't handle this kind of feedback, dont be an AD! I know being AD is a tough job, but I still insist, you crossed the line.
I felt, if let say my co was their biggest client, do u think they will react the same way as they did, and also, if it was my manager that sat in the meeting, would they have said what they had said? I dont think so!
Maybe now, i can still tolerate this, it was indeed a good learning experience. Shld another time happen again, dont make me turn nasty and be very blunt as well. I dont care if they have 10-20 yrs in the field, times change, people change, perceptions change, if the client says not nice... it means not nice, dont come and argue saying.. but u gave the go ahead. If they really claim to be in the industry for so long, then by now they shld know Clients are always the fickle minded ones even after approval.
Now we shall see what changes they'll make.
