Let’s imagine a hypothetical* situation. A client approaches you for a website. They’re really keen, and have lots of ideas about the project, including what it should look like. Great, you think, it’s always nice when a client is enthusiastic about a project and relishes being invloved.

You’re then given the worst logo ever, told “I’d really like a lime green and bright red color scheme”, and it rapidly becomes apparent that the client, however nice, has no clue about design. Or taste.

Animated gifs may be mentioned at some stage, and you start to tighten up like a Christian choir girl on prom night.

What do you do? Capitulate with the client in the knowledge that it’s going to look like spew, or ignore them completely and do what you wanted to do regardless? Or have you ever bailed on a project completely because you knew it was going to turn out really really bad.

I’ve seen some sites recently that would have looked great had the design not been tied into a certain colour scheme, obviously drawn from existing branding. Or had they not been forced to include elements from other sources of marketing.

In most cases there’s probably going to be some middle ground where everyone is happy, but I’d like to know what everyone thinks.

* no really, it is hypothetical. All my clients have impeccable taste.