Comments on: I’ll Never Fall in Love Again

By: Kelly Erickson

Kelly Erickson — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:19:14 +0000

Doug,

Hello! Welcome to Maximum Customer Experience.

I agree, your skill in selling the angle you’ve taken is a key ingredient. And since you’ve been around a while, then I suspect most of the time when you fall in love with a project, even if you’ve gone slightly off the brief, you know you’ve done it for all the right reasons. Most of the time our love is justified!

(Just that once in a while can be killer, ha ha.)

Regards,

Kelly

By: Doug C.

Doug C. — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 06:56:12 +0000

Heh, I do this quite often actually. Usually I can persuade the client to see the positive aspects of what I’ve designed for them, because after all they came to me. If they were designers themselves then they wouldn’t need to hire one.
Doug C.´s latest blog… Designer’s Rant: Psychotic Photoshop

By: They Say It’s Your Birthday! | Maximum Customer Experience Blog

They Say It’s Your Birthday! | Maximum Customer Experience Blog — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:13:50 +0000

[...] 8. Never falling in love again [...]

By: Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome

Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:20:49 +0000

@Kelly
Ah yes, once you’ve gotten the last go ahead it’s so tempting to let a fun and beautiful tangent pull you off course. It’s like Little Red Riding Hood sings in Into the Woods: “Nice is different than good.”

Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome’s last blog post…Fearfully Moving Forward

By: Kelly Erickson

Kelly Erickson — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:51:21 +0000

Ahh, Rita,

Well, best to keep a little distance from the work, eh? Usually, not a problem for me.

Heartbreaks of the other sort—see the Maximum Dating experience blog, coming… never. LOL!

Jamie,

Welcome!

Thanks for your story, painful though it must have been. Time to rework it or cherry-pick the most wonderful ideas from it and get it out to somebody else, I’d say. No sense keeping your light under a bushel-basket!

Karen,

“Unlock the door and let the critic and editor back in the room.” Oh, yeah, time-crunched, I knew there was something I forgot! That’s really it. Sometimes I get wrapped up in a great project and I don’t want to hear from my inner critic.

Thank goodness for outer critics.

In this case I still think it was brilliant, but it didn’t take more than a half-hour of sitting and pondering “That’s not the direction we agreed on” to realize it wasn’t brilliant for the client, which is how we get paid. All’s well that ends well.

Re: CommentLuv—Andy’s explanation was great, though it’s obviously going to take a lot of publicizing about the upgrade to get everybody to install it. From what I can tell it’s well worth it, and I’m looking for a break in the next two weeks or so to do it here. My readers’ pain is my pain.

Until later,

Kelly

By: Karen Swim

Karen Swim — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:02:01 +0000

P.S. Must do that commentluv fix, btw thanks for having the discussion over the weekend. Clearly, I'm having the same issue. Karen Swim’s last blog post...Truth or Madness Monday

By: Karen Swim

Karen Swim — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:00:52 +0000

Kelly, I cringed and laughed. Oh yea, I’ve been there! I put in nights and weekends for a kick butt corporate training only to have it met with lukewarm response. I ended up revisiting it in the light of day after a few days off from it and the darn thing really did come together. I try to only fall in love as I’m writing it the first time and then I walk away, unlock the door and let the critic and editor back in the room. They are brutally honest, and are never afraid to tell me to get over myself.

Karen Swim’s last blog post…Truth or Madness Monday

By: Jamie Simmerman

Jamie Simmerman — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:56:38 +0000

I had a slightly similar experience once. I wrote my heart out on a project for a client I really liked. I emailed him to deliver the prized writing and collect the remainder of my fee, but never heard back. I checked his website once a week for six months to see if he posted my work and emailed him once a month, to no avail. My best work is still collecting dust in a folder and my client may be six feet under or kidnapped by smelly freedom fighters for all I know.

No one will ever love it but me. I feel your pain Kelly Girl.

Jamie Simmerman’s last blog post…9 Steps to Clearer Writing: Cutting the Fat and Choosing Words Carefully

By: Rita

Rita — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:19:04 +0000

Kelly,

At least you have your heart open to love. The breaks are part of appreciating the glories. I’ve had my heart broken so many times, that I spent a long time shutting it down. Now THAT’S a place you don’t want to be!
Regards,
Rita

Rita’s last blog post…I Was A Mail–Order Bride: Part One – I Have RSD

By: Kelly Erickson

Kelly Erickson — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:45:15 +0000

Alex,

That’s what was truly sad about this old love affair I’m writing about. It had been through at least three rounds of approvals, then I just started running with something mainly because I’d fallen for how clever I was, without stopping to consider whether I was taking the design off course.

There was a lot of talk between me, myself, and I that went, “Oh, it’s beautiful.” “Yes, should we push it further?” “Why not, this is genius already, let’s go for it.”

In among the swearing about the technical issues. I’d gotten distracted from does this work for the client, and more importantly, does it work for the client’s prospective customers.

Truth is, I’m not much into validation, but it’s fairly critical to design work! Without it I’d be in love with everything I do, I suppose. Knowing I’ve got to run things by someone else usually keeps me from forming relationships too quickly.

Regards,

Kelly