The Harsh Truth About Life as a Designer – 9 Hilarious Videos

Life as a designer is great, right? You spend the day doing what you love, producing creative design material for big name brands and seeing your work being admired around the town in the form of ads, leaflets or even as a website.

But it’s not the same for everyone! People perceive life as a designer in three ways, as a simple job which pays their check as a reward, as a career not only just a necessity, and also as a calling, which makes it more fulfilling and rewarding. In the first case, viewing the designer life simply as a job will not bring you any emotional rewards, but instead, you will try to spend time away from the job. In the second scenario, the career path, designers will try to advance, get to a better position and invest a lot of effort in it to do so. Lastly but not least, seeing the designer life as a calling is what all of us designers should strive for. This means it will be a pleasure to work and we’ll get the feeling that we’re contributing to something good, giving us the meaning and purpose to do more and become better.

For people who fall into the third category, like I do, being creative doesn’t stop at 5 o’clock when your work hours end, but instead, it continues all day long. You can be inspired by just sitting on the bus, looking out the window and contemplating. Being creative will be your whole life.

Of course, the life of a designer has its ups and downs, and most of the downs come from the fact that we have to work with people and not all clients are the best.

People hire you for your experienced knowledge of white space, composition, typography and color theory, then put the image of their company entirely in your hands to work your magic and put the years of training into practice. In reality, things often don’t go quite smoothly. We have gathered here some comedy videos that show the harsh truth about real life as a designer.

Graphic designer vs. client

Graphic designer vs. client video highlights some of the things that all designers have to deal with at one point or another in their career. This will be a fun one to watch. Warning: this video is filled with profanity so it may not be for everyone.

Graphic designer vs client: the sequel

This is a continuation of the previous video series where two robots – one designer, and one client, are having a “typical” conversation about a project.

South Park Mac vs PC

In this hilarious video, you can see a heated debate of which one is better – Mac or PC, between South Park characters. This video has been watched 20 million+ times! Even if you’re not a South Park fan, you’ll love this video! It’s clever, fun, and will definitely put a smile on your face, whether you’re in team Mac or team PC.

Web designer vs. Cheap client

Okay so we’ve all had to deal with cheap clients and it’s never fun. This video takes cheap shots (pun intended) at a typical cheap client you have probably seen quite a few times in your career.

Can you make the logo bigger?

This is a funny video that portrays a conversation between a graphic designer a client who isn’t entirely happy with their logo.

It’s all about the impact

This video from Agency Fusion taps into the experiences of almost every designer and turns the old client – designer debate into a hilarious spoof product ad. Thankfully these goods aren’t available for real! However, we really enjoyed the concept of this video.

You have to please everyone

This parody covers the process of redesigning the stop sign, but with a comedy twist when the client gives their input and continually adds new requirements to the brief. How would you like to redesign a stop sign? : )

The designer just doesn’t understand

Paul Boag highlights 10 things a web designer would never tell you in his talk at BathCamp, a tongue-in-cheek guide for website owners to rein in their designer to make sure the project is done right!

30 Worst Logo Fails

I am quite sure each one of you has had to design a logo for clients. Clients can be very difficult in their requirements, constantly asking for revisions and even changing their requirements as the project goes along. In this video, you can look at 30 really hilarious logos that clearly failed – but they are great for entertainment purposes. We can’t believe these are actually real logos! The mistakes are so evident, it’s almost impossible someone in the design team wouldn’t notice!

We love it really!

OK, so these videos are all exaggerated just a little, but they all tap into the experiences faced by designers on a regular basis. If every client offered full creative freedom and agreed with your every point, what would we have to moan about?! This is what life as a designer can be about sometimes, dealing with complicated clients, unusual projects, and even failure!
What are your favorite client stories? Drop us a comment in the section below and please share some of your experiences with clients.