Anonymous Stories: The Client Whisperers with Donavon Brutus | Aug 11, 2025
- Author
- Monday Meeting
- Published
- Wed 13 Aug 2025
- Episode Link
- https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/monday-meeting/episodes/Anonymous-Stories-The-Client-Whisperers-with-Donavon-Brutus--Aug-11--2025-e36pmrs
In this episode of Monday Meeting, host Jen Van Horn is joined by mystery co-host Donavon Brutus to share more anonymous stories from listeners, covering everything from compliance nightmares to creative misunderstandings.
This episode covers:
- Compliance chaos: A financial company's compliance manager who refused to approve scripts until seeing the final video, leading to expensive VO retakes and rushed deadlines
- Mystical decision-making: A client who said bad ideas were right because the time was 11:11 AM and warned about the world ending in 7 days during a business call
- Creative workflow insights: How to stage feedback rounds, write down creative decisions for future reference, and balance client expectations with personal artistic vision
- Cross-medium challenges: A face-painting disaster that reminded us that being good at one art form doesn't automatically translate to others
- Equipment and workspace struggles: Being forced to bring personal computers to jobs, render failures requiring remote work, and the challenges of working with inadequate company hardware
- Religious workplace dynamics: From percentage signs deemed "too sexual" to requests for crosses in logos at religious institutions
- Scope creep nightmares: Projects with mismatched stock assets; clients misleading you about having "fully illustrated boards," and the importance of protecting your reputation even on difficult projects
- Creative director challenges: ECDs who ignore briefs and push for unnecessary reconcepting, leading to off-brand presentations and wasted creative effort
Send us your anonymous motion design stories for next week! Whether they're client horror stories, funny mishaps, positive collaborations, or industry insights - we want to hear them all. Submit with our form link here!
Visit mondaymeeting.org for this episode and other conversations from the motion design community!
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