i was sub-contracted, with guranteed pay, to work for a small 'design' company - their first 'major' website, and their (but not mine) first time utilising flash...
the client wants the following:
"we want flash, dhtml and java - it must have them all"
us: "ok... want kind of website style/design are you looking for?"
client: "well, we've seen AUDI's site and we want it exactly like that!"
us: "but Audi spent a lot more money than you're paying us, to get a site like that."
client: "hmm, but we really want Audi's site."
a couple of bad 'audi-inspired' designs later, the client liked the layouts.
the client complained when we made the Flash movies a fixed size.
so we asked them what size monitor they're using and at what resolution:
client: "we've got 21" monitors at 1280x1024"
us: "but most of your web users will be using 800x600 on 15 or 17inch"
client: "it doesn't matter - make it fill the screen."
so we made it scalable, proportionatly.
client: "the movie doesn't reach the top and bottom edges. it must fit the entire screen completely"
so we made it scalable, non-proportionatly, thus distorting all the text and bitmapped-logos and graphics. oh dear, oh dear. but the client was happy.
then they wanted all the text to be in Copperplate Gothic.
and they wanted all the text to be blurred, until it was 'rolled-over'.
then, as if they couldn't make it any worse, they wanted:
<blink> page curls </blink>
page curls!! urgh!
after getting this far (or low) I had to leave (I'd promised them minimum 4 weeks, a better job had arrived for me, and the design company felt happy working with the flash stuff)
the client paid a percentage of the money, so the design company paid me in cash when i left.
in the end:
the final text (after eight weeks) was emailed two days before the deadline.
they accepted Tahoma as the text font instead.
the Flash 'intro' animation was 715Kb.
the entire site was purple and lime green (no, really!)
every flash section had to have the 'page curl effect!' every time it loaded!! and all the text beneath the page curl had to be blurred (so it had to be a large jpeg, so every page took an eternity to load on 56k)
three weeks later, the client sent a cheque to the design company.
it bounced.
a phone call or two later, the company apologised and said they were awaiting funds from one of their own contracts - eventually they did get paid.
rather funnily though, the same client phoned up the same design company not long after and asked them if they'd do the Dutch-language version of the same website!
they politely declined...
[This message has been edited by tJC (edited 11-15-2000).]