♾️ The Undefined Unicorn

Ever had a client who seems to communicate exclusively in hand-waves and "you know what I means"? Meet Tom Martinez, a seasoned freelance animator with 12 years of experience who encountered what we'll affectionately call "The Undefined Unicorn" - a client whose vision was as elusive as, well, a unicorn. Tom's specialty was creating sleek motion graphics for tech startups, but this project would test every ounce of his expertise.

The initial brief from a promising fintech startup went something like this: "We need an explainer video. Something cool and engaging. You know, make it pop!" No target audience. No specific length requirements. No brand guidelines. Just "pop." (Sound familiar?) Tom's first red flag should have been the absence of concrete deliverables in their initial meeting.

Tom spent three intensive weeks crafting what he thought was a vibrant, professional animation, complete with a carefully selected color palette and smooth transitions. The first draft featured clean, modern graphics and a coherent narrative structure. The response? "This isn't quite what we were imagining. Can you make it more... dynamic? And maybe add some pizzazz?" After three rounds of revisions and increasingly cryptic feedback like "make it more modern, but also classic," and "we want it to feel more Silicon Valley," Tom was ready to pull his hair out. Each revision meeting became an exercise in interpretation.

The project that should have taken two weeks stretched into two months, with Tom putting in extra hours trying to decode vague feedback. The budget? Long since blown, with Tom absorbing the cost of countless revisions. The client's satisfaction? About as stable as a house of cards in a hurricane. The experience taught Tom a valuable lesson about the importance of detailed creative briefs and setting clear expectations upfront.

This fictitious case study was developed with the help of Anthropic's Claude models for educational purposes only.