I run a small nonprofit organization, and reached out to a friend studying design about making a poster for one of our events. Though I offered to pay him, he said that because we were donating the event’s proceeds to leukemia research, he would do it “for nothing more than free.” In response, I told him that he should let us know if there’s anything else we could do — watermark, site recognition, anything.

He designed the poster, it was … honestly, it was pretty bad. But it did the job. Since he was doing it for free, I didn’t want to push him to make many changes.

Two months later (just now), he has sent me a very long email asking to be paid for his work. His message ended with a threat about never working with us again if we did not pay him.

I am confused, and not sure how to respond. I have read many designers’ grievances (clientsfromhell.net, anyone?) about not being paid, and I strongly respect for the design profession. I realize that I do not have the software nor the skills to do what you do. Even though we were less than pleased with the poster, it’s still not something that we could have created on our own. […]

What was the ‘very long email’ about? Was it a justification on why he is charging you now? or is he trying to find out why you haven’t paid up?

You should keep it at the friend level, I think. There’s no need to pull out the “let’s take this to small claims” card if you can clear it up amongst friends.

In any case, quote him his own email, but offer to pay him anyways. He will most likely remember he offered to do it for free and apologize. If not, he’s just a douchebag and it’s a small price to pay for outing a crook amongst your friends.

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