Are testimonials a cliché?

Testimonials can speak to how you do business. A former member here who went by the name Anthony Bullock was an excellent designer, one of the best I've ever seen. However, he never met deadlines and we eventually banned him for running with a client's money. A google search for that name will render multiple bad references.

However, it is obvious that any testimonials you put on your site are ones in your favor. They are cliche but make you look better. Testimonials on independent third party like our iTrader system help a lot though as they are unfiltered.

Originally Posted by Village Genius Testimonials can speak to how you do business.

this is why you use them. period. clients don't care about design.

they care about as far as "as long as it's not ugly". clients are business people. it's all about costs and ROI. they want stuff that's easy and makes them a profit. as far as design goes as long as it doesn't look fugly or severely dated (meaning they'll have to redo this process next year), you're good enough for them - look at the amount of shitty sites still floating around the web.

only employers (creative directors) will care about the actual design techniques of your portfolio. everyone else wants to hear about how they didn't have to babysit you - or about how you actually care about design and some innovative idea you had they never thought of ended up making them money so it was worth the "risk".