Complaint Review: Will Boswell - Rogers Arkansas

I had come down sick the week of 8/1/07. I had a job for my customer that was due the following Monday (8/6/07) at 3:00pm. Since I wasn't feeling well, I had to improvise to get the job done. I ended up contacting 20-20 Design on 8/2/07 and asked if they were interested in doing the job. They immediately said, "Yes, we can do that". This was before they knew the details of the job.

I told them that I had done some previous renderings for a new brand launch. There job was to do graphic revisions on four existing 3D renderings. The existing renderings consisted of two families (A and B). The job was to adapt the graphics from "Family B" to "Family A" structure. I told them that I had worked with another designer on the first set of renderings, so I did not have the 3D files. He said, "That's fine, we can rebuild them". I then sent two emails to them with eight PDF examples of the first set of renderings, so they could get an idea of what my work looked like. When they looked at them, they said, "It's nice to have these examples, so we can match them".

I explained that the first round of renderings took us 120 hours, over two weeks, to complete. This included: designing two sets of new brand packaging, eight displays, 3D renderings from scratch and several revisions. Anyone who knows graphic design knows how long it takes to do initial creative design work. I told them that the new revisions should be much easier than the first round; cause there was no more guesswork. Then, then asked what the payment terms where. I said that I usually charge $85 to $100 an hour. They said, "Is $100 an hour ok?" I said, "Yes." I then explained that each rendering could take up to 10 or 12 hours each. That would depend on how much detail you put into the graphics and 3D model.

They sent me an email asking me to clarify the terms. I said, "Please render them at 8.5" x 11" at 400 dpi. Just in case they need to enlarge them for presentation boards. Also, I need the each rendering as layered PSD file with the reflected floor and display on two layers, so I can format the Presentation page like you see in the PDF that you received."

The next day I received a creative brief from my customer. This brief explained the changes for the graphics. When 20-20design looked it over, they called and said, "we don't understand this." So, I went thru the brief and sent them an email that broke down the changes in detail. The copy changes as well as the graphic changes were very minor. They called me that afternoon, around 2:00, and informed me that they could not do the artwork. They said, "We don't have time to do the artwork and the renderings". I was a little frustrated by this, since they agreed to do the art in the first place, but I told them that I would go ahead do it.

I finished the art revisions later that evening and I made some minor changes to it early Saturday morning. I spent approx. 8 hours redoing the artwork. I sent several emails and called them to let them know that the art was on my FTP. I have dated files to prove this.

At 2:00 Sunday afternoon, They called me to let me know that one of the renderings was finished. I went and downloaded it from my FTP while I was on the phone with them. When I saw it, they asked, "How does it look?" I did not respond at first. For a moment I thought that they was joking with me. The rendering was so bad that I did not know what to say. They did not come close to matching the examples that I had sent them. The color, lighting, perspective, and artwork looked slapped together, like they had never done this type of work before.

The 3D structure did not follow the specific artwork that I sent them. The art was twisted, skewed, running off the panels and changed from the original files that I sent him. It looked like they built the 3D models, before I had given them the artwork. When they received my artwork, they did not bother to change the 3D files to match it. Plus, they did not provided the files formatted like I had asked. I asked for the display and the background to be on separate layers. They were not. I said, "I'm going to have to do a lot of work to these. I will let you know once I have seen the rest of them."

Later that evening, I received the other 3 renderings. I was in shock and now very worried. These renderings are completely useless. I called them and said that I was going to have to stay up all night to fix these. They said, "Come on, they can't be that bad." they could tell that I was very disappointed. They said, "This is the best we can do in the time allowed." They did not offer an apology or to help fix anything. It was apparent that they made false claims about their ability to do what I had asked. I was furious at this point.

Instead of getting into all the problems, I told them that I would talk to them tomorrow to let them know how things go. Since the artwork was due the next day at 3:00pm. I stayed up all night trying to recreate everything.

I worked on everything from 5:00pm Sunday evening till 8:00am Tuesday morning. I had finished one of the renderings before the deadline of 3:00pm Monday, to try and appease my customer. They were happy with the results of the one revision, but where not happy that they didn't receive all of them. At this time I had found out that they were not due till 5:00pm East Coast Time. Which is 7:00pm central. They told me that they needed everything by 8:00am Tuesday morning or they would not consider the concepts.

20-20design sent me an email and asked how things went. I said, "I did not send your renderings. I tried to fix them in photoshop, but it was just way too time consuming. I end up modeling them myself and I'm now in the process of rendering them. I have till 8 am to get them done. I'm already 46 hours into this myself and I quoted them around 40 to 50 hours. I just hope that I don't burn a bridge because of all of this. They said, "Well I'm sorry you felt they were that bad. We will still be sending you an invoice for 39 hrs as we felt they were as close as we could get on the time allowed".

I finished the renderings at 2:00am and sent them to my customer by 8:00am. I spoke with them that morning, and they seemed to be ok with the renderings. They told me that it would not be a good thing, if they lost this opportunity because we where late, and that they were not happy with this situation. I have not heard from them since then. This customer has been very loyal and appreciative of my work, up until this point. Since, I have not heard from them, I can only assume things did not got well.

20-20design sent me the invoice a week later. I thought about how I would respond for several days. I said "When we started this job, I provided you with all of the updated vector artwork and PDF examples to go by. I asked you if you could do this and you said,yes Your words where it is nice to have these examples to go by, so we can match them.

However, not only did you not provide quality work, you provided unacceptable work that did not follow or come close to the examples that where sent. Your excuses where that you did not have the right program or the right amount of time. You should have never excepted the job in the first place if you could not deliver. Because your renderings where not usable, I had to completely redo them. Which caused me to get the job to my customer a day late. Because the job was late, my customer did not deliver on time to their customer. It made all of us look bad. I haven't heard from my customer since then.

Now, I may have lost a customer because of this. Since we did not have a written contract, I am inclined not to pay this invoice. However, I want to be fair and ethical about my business. I will agree to pay a "rejection fee" of 30% of this invoice. Because the work you provided was not reasonably satisfactory and the renderings were not delivered to me completed." He responded with, "Pay in full or we will turn you over to our attorneys."

Notice that they have never offered an apology or any hint of restitution. So, instead of getting into the legal action over a verbal agreement, I ended up paying $3,900 for totally useless work. Atleast I can count it a loss on my taxes.

I felt that they had wasted my time and lied about their ability to do this kind of work. Apparently they did not listen when I told them about the project and how long it had taken me in the first place. They led me to believe that they could do this from the begining. I understand that our phone conversations and verbal agreements can be written off as "Hearsay". In a court of law verbal agreements can go either way.

However, since I have evidence of what 20-20design provided vs. what was expected, I feel justified in my decisions. Furthermore, I feel that they lied to me just to get money. Apparently money is all they care about or they would have tried to make things right. I can't understand why they cannot apologize or admit that they were wrong. It's obvious that they cannot follow instructions or provide quality work. Since, this line of work is my lively hood, it is my responsibility to bring this to the attention of everyone I do business with, so that they do not make this same mistake.

Unfortunately I can't post the renderings here so everyone can judge the work themselves.

Darren

Rogers, Arkansas

U.S.A.