Who is your ideal client?

How do we determine an ideal client in the creative world? They seem to come in many guises don’t they? It’s such a hard thing to define because we draw from so many industries.

I have recently done some great work for a client that my employees and myself are very proud of. However, the project will never be seen on TV nor broadcast in any form other than a closed-door audience in a government department in Indonesia.

But…and it’s a very big but…this was one of the most rewarding and pleasant creative experiences we’ve ever had in our company. We devised the concept, wrote the script and executed all of the imagery (this was a completely animated short film). Basically, we controlled the entire project from start to finish for a client who was prepared to pay for quality (yes they still exist apparently).

But the project will be seen by only a handful of people.

Does it matter? To me…not in the least.

This was the perfect creative scenario for us, as close to the ideal project as you can get. Sure, the client had opinions and drove us pretty hard on some issues, but this didn’t detract from the quality of the film.

We reviewed the work and we were all very satisfied and happy, and this was AFTER we’d worked around the clock for three weeks to get the project finished.

I can remember creating very visible work on many occasions only to suffer bad memories of the project because the client or the production process was really painful.

This can be an eternal battle for creative people. Do you chase the “glory” of high profile projects, even if the execution is painful? Or can you get creative satisfaction from less visible work?

Some will argue, high profile work always pushes you to higher standards and I agree. But if you have great clients (or collaborators), generally you’ll push yourself to give them your best work anyway.

If anyone is out there, I’d love to hear your thoughts.