Lately I've been neglecting this website a little. Been working for some international clients and doing project via the internet but it didn't work very well. I'll describe two clients I had. The first parts are mostly the same:

Communication:
It's first problem is the communication, you can do it via an IM program like MSN or call via Skype. A problem is that not everyone speaks english fluent and getting the right words in a real life conversation is harder than typing it in a post like this. Getting a proper project description is key here, you have to know what to do and make good arrangements.

Work and money:
Once you've gone through the project description you'll find out that most of the time you have to do work way beneath your paygrade. Designing 5 custom pages in Photoshop within a few days / week and make it completely functional for future clients. The money you receive for this is allmost next to nothing.. We're talking about 5/6 custom designs within a hell of a deadline for $200,- Since you don't have anything else to do at the time you think to yourself "hey, it's work and money so let's do it and perhaps there's future assignments." They mostly tell you there will be new projects in the future. Since the client doesn't know you and can't trust you you're put in a corner. A good chance you have to make a design first and afterwards they will give you your money.

Doing it the right way would be to receive 50% of the money beforehand if they agree on your first design and afterwards once you've finished the rest.

But then:
The designs you make are great at first but later they want some changes and instead of working 2-3 days on all designs you're stuck optimizing the '1 great design' you mailed to them for confimation. This will take one full week, each time you change the first design they want it just a little different and ofcourse the time-zones will work against you as well.

After some time:
You address your client to this and say you want to finish it and come with some good reasons in your mail. You keep it professional and in your mail tell them you still want to make one change to it's design and then stop. Working for weeks while it should've taken a few hours for a measly $200,- just isn't worth it.

The clients then:
1). The first one told me he lets different designers make designs for one client and picks the one his client likes. This person gets the money while all other receives a 'better luck next time'. This isn't such a problem wasn't it for the fact he told me afterwards. I felt pretty screwed then and told them I wouldn´t want to work like that and thanked him for his time.
2). The second one kept bugging about one part of the design and wouldn't help me properly. After a few designs I gave them a deadline mail and also asked them if they could sketch it the way they wanted for reference and the response was that they didn´t wanted to continue working like that.

Lesson learned:
The interface design competition is brutal out there. There are more than enough people who would do such much work for so little. As for me, I got new clients which enabled me to things my way, my prices, my own deadlines. In Dutch we have the saying: "Schoenmaker, blijf bij je leest" Shoemaker, stay doing what you´re good at.

Don't ask less than normal. 3 weeks work for $500,- just isn't enough. You could spend that time going to companies with outdated sites/interfaces and try to reel those in. It's what I did afterwards and it really paid off in the end.

Do you have a story like this as well? Share it in a comment!

But ofcourse, I'm still busy doing designs and sites. Expect some new stuff soon!