Unfortunately, the graphic design industry is rife with clients who live to make other people’s lives hell. One such client that is notoriously difficult to work with is known as the ‘control freak’ – these people will attempt to manipulate their designer and their creative process as much as possible. Whilst you might still need to accept the project for financial reasons, it is important that you are able to identify a control freak client from the very beginning so that you can prepare yourself for the work ahead.

• Jack Of All Trades

These sorts of clients are only employing you because they feel that they need your tools (such as Photoshop and even Macs in general), not your expertise. To spot these sorts of people, you should lookout for anyone who claims to understand every aspect of the graphic design project at hand. They will most likely prevent you from using you own creative thinking, ideas and so on in favour of using their thoughts.

• Constant Complainer
• These sorts of clients are prone to complaining about designers whom they have previously employed and seem to take pleasure in belittling them in your presence. Often, people who complain like this are very hard to please and will disagree with your method or your finished product most of the time. Another way to describe these sorts of people is that they are never happy with the work that you produce.
• Contract Nitpickers
• These sorts of clients tend to take the ‘control freak’ label to the next level and will do whatever it takes to get their way, including pointing out all of the clauses in your contract that they believe are wrong. Even if you are willing to re-evaluate some areas of the contract to make them happy, it’s likely that they will still be unhappy with the changes. You will probably end up wasting money and time with lawyers for these people.
• Repeat Caller
• These sorts of clients are known to call designers a number of times every single day, no matter how far the project has progressed. Whilst staying in contact with your clients is important, being asked to do so three times a day is absolutely ridiculous. At the end of the day, how are you expected to concentrate on your work if clients continuously call to ask questions that are completely irrelevant or that could wait?
• Energetic Helpers
• These sorts of clients actually bring out the very worst in control freaks’, as they will try to micromanage every single little detail of the project. In these sorts of situations, they will want to sit with you for the duration of the graphic design project and supervise every single aspect. Whilst they might see this is being the only way to ensure perfection, it will be a complete nightmare for you.

The above list comprises five of the most common ways to spot ‘control freak’ graphic design clients, but there are certainly other identifiers that may be more difficult to pick up to the untrained eye. We hope that being able to spot a control freak from a mile away will allow you to steer clear of these clients altogether – unfortunately we are very busy and cannot complete this project in your specified time frame – or to prepare yourself for the nightmare weeks that are to follow.