Comment by solost | Hacker News Reader

Comment by solost | Hacker News Reader

I think you are taking the wrong approach. You don’t want to manipulate the people you are working for you. Instead you want to educate them. I think the easiest and most direct route you could take is to prepare mockups using the font they want at the size it would be on a mobile device and the font you suggest.

Then encourage them to get feedback from family and friends. Chances are if your assessment is correct then your client will get the feedback not only from you but from others whom opinions they respect. In the end this is about all you can do.

Having clients means often having to do your best within the parameters that they set for you. They are the ones paying and you are the one working after all.

The other thing that is very concerning in your post is that you think this one issue is so bad that you don’t want to be associated with it. The truth is that this is going to happen over and over again in your career and you are going to need to learn to make the best of it.

Nothing says you can’t be associated with a project and also discuss, on your resume or web site, how if you were allowed to make the decisions you would have done things differently. I think if you take this approach you can gain credibility with future customers so that it might make it easier for your opinion to count more.

Distancing yourself from too many projects in the long run will make you appear inexperienced and eventually may damage your reputation much more than being associated with a project you are not completely happy with.

Best of luck to you.

Thank you for your reply. It helped me grasp my feelings personally and gave me some great ideas. I'd like to give a quick response to some of your points.

To your point on manipulation: I agree and I'm using the word "manipulate" a little cynically here. What I used it to mean is a frictionless way to convince my client.

Regarding educating: I agree again, but I suppose a good portion of my question boils down to how to put myself in a position to educate, given that my client feels design isn't something I ought to have much of an opinion about. I fear that trying to educate without first having overcome that will lose me a lot of political capital.

On finding alternatives and gathering feedback: Great suggestion. I'll definitely do that, thanks.

On working within the client-defined parameters: I try to stay aware of that. As I pointed out in my post, I'm going along with their decision and changing the font without making a fuss. I still would like to find the limits of those parameters.

On disassociating myself: I regret that's the way it came across because it isn't how I feel. I never considered walking away - I'll definitely finish the project. My comment with regards to putting it on my resume was more related to my skepticism about how much professional benefit I might receive from the project once I'm done with it if things aren't done right.

Thanks again for your reply. It helped in more ways than one.

I think you may have missed what solost meant regarding disassociating yourself form the product. I took it to mean:

  This isn't mine therefore I don't care that much about it.

Rather than:

  I'm going to cut loose and walk away from this.

Disassociating yourself from your work (My understanding mentioned above) can be viewed as immature and unprofessional and that's what solost was saying, I believe. We've all done work that we're not happy with but there's a big difference between acknowledging the parts that we don't like and trying to disassociate ourselves from the work entirely.

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