Presenting Work to Clients

Jimlad

Well-Known Member
You get a job from a client. Old client, new client, doesn't matter. You got the job and they've paid the 50% deposit, so you start sketching out ideas. You get to the point where you have to show stuff to the client before you can realistically move on. I'm interested to know what other freelancers do at this point.

I know some people will email the sketches to the client as is. And that's simple and to the point and for some cases all that's needed. After working with a branding company a couple of years ago and seeing how they do things, I started keeping a self-made template to one side in Illustrator to plonk sketches into, editing the client name and project title before emailing a branded PDF of sketches to the client rather than a collection of JPG files. Sometimes it'll be a few pages, or sometimes it'll just be one sketch with my contact details on. Might sound a bit much when it's only one sketch, but believe it or not I've had a client tell me that (as well as the quality) the way I presented my work got me the job over other freelancers competing for it.

What do you do when sending rough sketches or concepts to a client?
 
Honestly I don't really have a set layout but with my 3D work, my sketches 'usually' relate to layout of images so I normally work on them with the client when I'm there, that's assuming I even need to do that with the client.

My 'rough sketch' stage is showing off screen grabs or smaller/clay renderings to a client so it's usually just a low res image sent asking for comments/feedback/tell me now or it's left as is type responses. Usually get a 'sign off' agreement as well so that it's 'final' and would require extra cost if it needs changing for something regarding layout etc. I don't add my logo/info to the work because I show the work as it would appear at the end but it is included with the email or I'm actually there showing it to the client.

I've also got NDA's to consider and the possibility that I'm working for a client that is actually working for someone else so my logo appearing on an image could cause issues.

When you think about it this is a whole area of branding many of us don't really think too much about.

I think I'll explore this in my spare time or when I'm doing my rebrand... got an idea now so shouldn't be hard because it probably is a good idea to have a set layout sorted.
 
That sounds great Jim, I may start doing that with some clients, but I would have the same problem as Levi as a lot of my work is through
another company. I usually just send a jpeg or otherwise at a reduced size, but I can understand it would look impressive, specially for a pitch,
for instance.
 
I see what you mean about doing work for clients doing the work for their own client. As it happens I don't usually put any branding on for that kind of work, but it's something I hadn't thought to mention when starting this topic.
 
I like to use the medium of contemporary dance wherever I can to get the message over to clients.
They like that.

Also, photographs of cute kittens go down quite well I find.
 
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