A few ramblings about deadlines

Starting out as a designer, I had a couple of tight projects with miniskirt deadlines. (ie they are short). (And I really this analogy, I will get back to this a bit more)

At that time I wished I have more time, and wished there wasn't any deadlines.

Much like the story of the Monkey's Paw, this wish is coming back horribly to haunt me in really weird ways. One thing I realized is that clients rarely stop making changes. There will always be something they want to try, something they want moved, something they want changed. "make my logo bigger, change the picture!, change the format? Oh did I say pink? I meant mauve with a dash of purple with orange overtones." Very often it has to be the looming deadline that actually forces them to confirm the artwork and go to production.

So yes I have a couple of projects where the deadlines are silly putty and can stretch to an infinite amount of time. This is not a good thing. Things that should have been presented at the very start suddenly gets slotted in at the last minute.

Then there are the tight deadlines, those that are even shorted than miniskirts. Think thongs. You only have time to cover the basics and thats it. Wham bam thank you mam'm. So in effect thats not so bad.. Cos you don't have time to be wrong, you only have time to go with your gut instincts.

The other thing about deadlines is that we designers work with them all the damn time. The file should have been sent to printer 4 hours ago and the client is still waffling on the decision? Its called Tuesday. (Wednesday is spent buying coffee for the printer to appease him btw) While the client may only do this a couple of times a year, we do this round the year. Sometimes we go the extra mile to please clients, to do a few extra things, and put in a few extra hours. And somehow the client expects us to do the same the next time round. I'm sorry but its a one off thing. The very sad fact sometimes is that the reward for doing more work is well; you get even more work.

Am I whining?

why yes i am whining