I'm making a small (8/10") cake for a friend whose daughter is graduating from the eighth grade. (gift not sale) Anyway, when I started asking questions about design, she said "just make a pretty cake". This really doesn't help me since "pretty" can mean anything. I'm writing her an email to ask some questions and wondered what questions you ask to draw out ideas from your friends/customers. Here are the ones I have so far:

Can anyone suggest any other questions?

Thanks,
Kathi

For an eighth grade graduation I think that you should focus more on the school side of things. Possibly ask about school colors or mascot as well as what activities she was involved and see if she was recognized for an award and go from there

Someone else here had a similar predicament just the other day. The bride kept brushing off questions about what the cake should be and kept saying just make it pretty...or something to that effect. Yet the poster was insistent on the bride choosing colors, styles etc, no matter how much the bride resisted, and wanted us to advise on how we could make the bride step up.

My feelings are that in both cases, the bride/friend IS giving you the answer. She wants YOU to design it and doesn't care what it looks like, or doesn't want to be involved in those details. (lots of folks really don't care about cake the way we do)

I think we (myself included) need to learn to listen to our customers, even when the answer they give us is that they prefer not to give us the answers.

I say don't poke her with it. Use this rare opportunity to stretch your creative muscles and surprise her with a really great design that you completely own.

To me a "pretty cake" means a cake with flowers and maybe a bow if you feel like it. Don't make it harder than it has to be. I'd just ask what color, and be done.

I had the same thing. I told a friend I would send her cookies for her party, I just wanted to know the theme. Her answer? "pink" I asked what kind of pink, "anything you can make pink". What shape? something pink. Basically, she ended up buying them in the bakery. Plain cookies with a little swirl of pink buttercream.

As a customer, if I just asked for a "pretty cake" and then got an email with all of those very intricate detailed questions ("not just pink, but hot pink? baby pink? Flowers? Modern or retro modern?"), I'd probably be aggrevated at the very least and PO'd at the very worst. My thought .... as a cake civilian ..... would be "omg, pink! it's just pink! how hard is it to figure out pink! And what the heck is the difference between traditional, modern and retro modern flowers and which of those categories does a plain 'ole regular rose fall into?"

Now you and I and everyone on here knows there are 97 different shades of pink, but a cake civilian .... unless they have a very specific idea of what shade of pink ..... couldn't care less on what shade of pink.

Dont' overthink it. Since this is a gift, you pretty much have carte blanc on what to provide.

And if she doesn't like it, you can always tell her, "Well I'm happy to give you a full refund. Oh wait! You got this cake FOR FREE!!!!!"

Okay. I guess I will just wing it. I'll ask my daughter for some help since she's close to the girl's age. I don't want her to think it's old fashioned.

Thanks,
Kathi