Smashing Cartoons: May 2011
We all have our favorite client stories, embarrassing design flaws and never-ending user requests which are all just a part of what we, as designers and developers, encounter very often in our daily work routine. In this new post series on Smashing Magazine, we’d like to put some of these situations into the spotlight and discuss them with you. The cartoons are all dedicated to Web design and also have a comic twist about everything happening around the Web and latest trends.
The main character of the cartoons is Fleaty, a talented, hard-working designer with big ambitions yet not that much luck when it comes to clients. Hopefully, Fleaty will put a smile on your face and maybe remind all of us of the flaws we have, and help us finally get rid of them. The creative mind behind the Smashing Cartoons is our talented illustrator Ricardo Gimenes.
We’ll be adding a new cartoon every week; the latest cartoon is presented on the Smashing Magazine’s sidebar as well as on the Smashing Cartoons page. There you will also find all previous issues of the Smashing Cartoons series for your convenience.
Fleaty’s experience in May:
Responsive Web Design
Mobile Design Strategy
Online Reading Experience
Web Design Trends
Web Typography
Tell Us Your Story!
Have you experienced something similar to what Fleaty has experienced? What’s your ultimate client story? Do your clients also want a responsive design with rich typography? Share your story with us in the comment section below!
For previous cartoons, check our Smashing Cartoons Archive.
Celikovic Ermin
May 25th, 2011 3:33 amI just love these cartoons.
Jonathan de Jong
May 25th, 2011 3:49 amPretty nice stuff in the smashing style :)
Arie
May 25th, 2011 4:04 amHilarious!
Johan de Jong
May 25th, 2011 4:05 amGreat comics! Especially the last one, since that reminds me of a case I had;
Client wants a website, we give a quote and client accepts.
Website is done, client wants extra feature… we give quote, client accepts, we build.
Feature is done, client wants a “small” change… we quote, client accepts, we build…
(do this times “a lot”)
We send bill… client: “That is not what I signed for at the first quote? I’m not gonna pay THAT!”
*sigh*
Paul
May 26th, 2011 12:09 amIt’s shameful companies act this way, but they need educating “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”.
Daniel S
May 25th, 2011 4:06 amI like the last one very much! Great!
Levin
May 25th, 2011 4:20 amReally great :)
Viktor
May 25th, 2011 4:22 amGreat! From real life!
I like a font cartoon. :)
Mark
May 25th, 2011 4:57 amUgh. If only these weren’t so true…
Great work guys!
SyafzMagz
May 25th, 2011 5:51 amnice and totally amazing cartoons…I laugh sometimes… :)
Matt Rittman
May 25th, 2011 5:55 amHaha these are great :)
Jan Eker
May 25th, 2011 6:24 amAbsolutely smashing!!
Moritz Gießmann
May 25th, 2011 6:53 amUhm, boring! I am sorry to say that, but didn’t we all read the same storys hundreds of times on clients from hell etc. etc. etc ?
peter
June 10th, 2011 8:44 amhaha, I’m glad someone had the balls to say it.
Yeah, for every designer complaining about their clients – there are 10 clients complaining about their designers.
Jürgen Koller
May 25th, 2011 10:02 amHaha, the last one is the best :)
Marc
May 25th, 2011 1:32 pmI also found this boring. Not even funny, just reused old jokes and not done that well.
Mikie
May 25th, 2011 2:37 pmthe single most annoying complaint, it looks massive on my screen not like yours at all, go to screen tea set 1024×768 when it should 1920×1200… Client ah much better!
Wendy Cockcroft
May 25th, 2011 3:01 pm“Why don’t we just use Tahoma?”
Oh, that one!!
Jonathan Wold
May 25th, 2011 5:48 pmThe last one was also my favorite :)!
Matan
May 25th, 2011 8:18 pmI love this. Ricardo Gimenes is amazing!
Viken Patel
May 25th, 2011 8:30 pmSmashing… i love this cartoons…
narvolicious
May 25th, 2011 9:53 pmGreat illustrative style. I’d have to also say I relate the most to the last scenario. Thanks for sharing.
Ajay Jagdeva
May 25th, 2011 11:04 pmGood illustrations. I like all of them. :)
Elsa
May 26th, 2011 5:59 amBeautiful your cartoons, congrats!
Helene
May 26th, 2011 7:07 amWonderful! I’ve just sketched one more very fast on my desktop notebook (paper)…
I’d be happy to just scan and share it…
It’s me as a “webmaster”, very little, on a huuuge desk with a loooot of different monitors and labtops and mobile phone saying “of course, I can manage your website on “all” devices”…
You can use the idea if you want ;) Must already exist anyway… And maybe it’s more efficient in the comics above.
Thank you Smashing Magazine for all the wonderful content you’re publishing every day!
Back to work…
António Cardoso
May 26th, 2011 7:05 amIt’s live :)
Very nice article
Amy W
May 26th, 2011 10:10 amLove it! Can you tell me the name of the font you’re using with the cartoons? Or is the font custom? Thanks!!
Ricardo Gimenes
May 27th, 2011 1:41 pmbree font ;)
muctMoiliotly
May 26th, 2011 6:13 pmi am new here, wish you a happy day
Benno
May 27th, 2011 4:28 amGreat cartoons. The second one is really hilarious :)
Denn Rodriguez
May 27th, 2011 6:37 amThis are so funny and so sad at the same time. I experience some of these on a weekly basis. :(
Jordan Blakey
May 28th, 2011 3:37 amNot going to lie… every time I see Fleaty, I think it’s an ad.
Phani
May 28th, 2011 8:14 amLove the Fleaty’s wrkin pose .. “codin, codin codin .. ” :-) humorous..
Yaibua
May 28th, 2011 8:33 amI like the last one!
rob Haskell
May 28th, 2011 10:40 amha ha. Also do one about “one more thing” that requires and entire redesign of the website.
anyone
May 28th, 2011 3:18 pmnice no
Just use arial :D
Masoud Garousian
May 28th, 2011 8:02 pmAs always great!
But I think, it would be a more effective illustration if we have used a more pure illustrative approach instead having too much “dialogs”..
Felicja
May 29th, 2011 3:25 amHaven’t you read anything funnier? For me it is as amusing as “slipping on banana peel”.
And, be honest:
1. Do you all invent new web design techniques that everyone copies after seeing it on css gallery, where you of course are?
2. Do you think that having all of Apple’s gadgets makes you a good programmers? You are rather Apple fanboys :)
KedarWEB
May 29th, 2011 10:25 pmGreat cartoons!
I like last one.
Same story with me.
matt
June 1st, 2011 1:06 pmThe mobile design strategy one reminds me so much of my current job, haha. I’m going to print it out and hang it on the wall!
Ukyoe 07
June 2nd, 2011 12:33 amAhaha! I am a designer and I know really well how all the Typographic Beauty is lost in my client browser…Sigh!
jamie
June 3rd, 2011 2:25 amit’s real??
i mean, thats a real life of web designer..
i just love it.
Norbert Papp
June 5th, 2011 12:32 amI had an really stupid client, he wanted an fresh, young design, i created that with nice color, but he isnt liked, he send me poor colors. I recreated the design, and he said me: What are these colours? Looks like sh*t!
Hayavadhan Murali
June 8th, 2011 3:37 amWeb typography is really good.. ha ha :-D
Ryan
June 8th, 2011 8:11 amShould at least say it looks crappy on IE and not XP. – just sayin.
Rebecca F
June 9th, 2011 5:34 amThe client: “I want this sign up form to ask for more info”.
Me: “OK, can do!”.
Coding, coding, coding… Validates. Semantic. Vertical Rhythm. Best Practices. Native widget rendering…
Me: “There”.
The client: Changes, changes, changes.
Coding coding coding
Me: “Here you go, done by your specs!”.
The client: “My girlfriend says it’s unusable and too long!”
¬.¬
Joe Fanai
June 14th, 2011 7:06 pmYeap, why don’t you simply used TAHOMA :) Love it
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August 2nd, 2011 12:02 pmGreat work . I love it …
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