Working on a design project with government (Indonesia), does it really suck?

I have been working with local government for many years already. From very small government area to across provinces. From individual politician to larger groups. From national education institution to a more corporate government institution. 

I have seen so many complaints from fellow designers that working with them are pain in the ass. Low payment, super fast deadline, funny design requests, etc. 

My work for Buleleng Regency Government: Buleleng Mekorot Festival 2019. A unique kite battle culture from Buleleng Bali. 

While I have some similar experiences, I wouldn't think that it is really that bad. 

I think working with these government institutions, is not that significantly different to working with personal or private company clients. Both can be evil, both can be an angel for your mental and financial state.

Indeed, there are some unique 'visual culture' when working with typical government design work. Here are some.

1. Color decision is sometimes driven by the political party identity. If you work with a governent where conquered or dominated by the notorious red party PDI-P, make sure the red is the dominant color in the design. If you work with a fresh lemon inspired Golkar party, yellow color design is the easiest option to get approved. Arguing and debating this have 50% success. If you deal with a person who have enough progressive thinking, the chance are, you might get away with different color choice. But if you deal with an archaic and oligarchic politician, you might need extra efforts or better just follow along. 
   
   
2. The politician figure should be inserted in the design, regardless the content or theme. If the poster promotes about a tourism object, the politician figure must be in the design, can occupy over 50% of the artoard. The beauty of the tourism object images occupies only 10%, that does not matter. Luckily enough, I have met with some young politician who understand the contextual content importance, they can be suggested to remove their image completely. But good luck when dealing with old farts. I have ever asked to remove an attractive young woman model image who fits the tourism event visual to be replaced by an ugly fat 60 year old politician photo. 

These two are the most common issue when dealing with the governmental institutions. Some designers complained about the payment. Luckily, I never had any problem with that. So that may depend on the government, just like the other type of clients, where some clients ghosted the fellow designers' invoice for months.

My work for Karangasem Regency, a booklet of Karangasem's potential assets.

Working with young government figure is usually much better to work with. They have more positive attitude towards good design and communication generally. Perhaps, they also still in a positive transition from a common civilians into the wild government realm. They still have more patriotic idealism within them. As a designer, this is actually a positive path to contribute for a positive change in your hometown. 

I did the same when local governemnt ask me to rebrand their events' visual identity. In the past, I grew tired seeing some badly designed key visual of the government event, even for a national scale event. It is embarrassing to see an ugly visual representing my hometown, while I can definitely help them to make it way way better. When the opportunity arrived, I was never in doubt to take it.