Customer Wanting Design Files

[Stacey K]

Don't put another second of thought into this. DELETE THE FILE NOW.

There! Done, over with, on to the next job!

 

[DL Signs]

100%. Sometimes you have to let things go and move on for your own sanity. Watching a bad customer disappear in the rear view mirror is priceless, it's such a great feeling.

Agree. I'm happy to be rid of some, whatever it takes.

I'm not a file Nazi to start with, most art is customer specific anyway, so I'll never use it again. If a PITA's bill has been paid in full, including design time, as far as I'm concerned they can have artwork, minus any print layouts or cut data specific to what I was doing of course. If they ever decide to come back, the price will reflect the experience, and hopefully scare them off forever.

 

[Geneva Olson]

ANOTHER funny story: we have a local ambulance service that doesnt like our pricing but seems to drop of vans to us for us to put decals on. Every single time they drop one off, the head office manager complains. But she always pays when it's time. This last time, another office person came in and asked where we got the clean artwork from. my boyfriend was elusive and said we got it somewhere. We actually redrew it so that the graphics came out clean and crisp.

well, apparently, they dont have clean artwork of their own. We had provided them with a price quote for shirts and they didn't like the quote and went with an online vendor. They spent $2000 on shirts and they can't wear any of them because they didn't have clean artwork. It wasn't until after they had them done that they came over and realized we have clean artwork. they didn't ask for the artwork from us because they are always squawking about price. it's actually kind of funny. i'm waiting for them to actually place an order for shirts now.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

In all honesty, everything is so easy to copy, logos, layouts, wraps or whatever it is. If another company is not capable of doing this then they shouldn't even be in the business. I'm not condoning giving in to anyone but at the same time I think some people on both sides make a bigger issue out of this than it needs to be. I don't even ask customer's for their logos or whatever half the time, it's just as quick to build it yourself rather than fixing some crapped up file that they send you.

 

[gnubler]

Customer: My last printer didn't have any problems with our logo.
New printer: Probably because it was easier to just fix your crappy files than try to explain it to you. And yes, you were charged. It was padded into another invoice somewhere.

What we wish we could say...

 

[Richard Curry]

I did a bunch of designs for another small business and they were specifically for cornhole boards. I have decided to cut ties with this company due to reasons that I don't care to explain, but he wants the designs so they can be reproduced later down the line. Is this something you would do? I didn't charge a design fee, I just charged him per pair printed for boards. Thoughts?

I have been doing signs for 30 years and have come across this problem. I am not a lawyer but I thought if the sign person does the artwork the sign person owns them. Sometimes it is easier to give the person the artwork. rich

 

[AndreaRotela]

If you cut ties, Say no. Or say nothing. They didn't pay for the artwork, you owe them nothing.

True!