Tough one - I like the band and these guys always came across as really nice.
But they also hired me to do 4 shirt designs and never paid me for em.
I did rough sketches for all four, we confirmed the design ideas and my rates. I did the first 2 shirts, got confirmation that they were good and I sent the separations. I sent images of the last 2 finished shirts so they could tell me what changes they wanted and I just never heard back from em. Judging from their merch page, it doesn't look like any of the shirts were ever used. Still, it doesn't really negate the fact that I did four completed designs for em and never heard anything back, despite my phone calls, emails and Myspace messages.
And now, yikes, here I am complaining about it on the goddamned internet.
It gets frustrating - having done this design/illustration stuff for punk bands for nearly ten years, it's always lame when you get burned. And it was just surprising, considering that they did seem like genuine folks and an established band that could afford to pay up. It's shit like this that makes me feel like I have to preface everything with "Okay, I'll do it - and thanks for the opportunity - but, uh, I'll need half of the money up front."
Which seems like a pretty lame thing to have to do.
