Butt Ugly Fonts

[myront]

[QUOTE="
Then you have the knucklehead that walks in with a PowerPoint presentation on their thumb drive, and they can't understand why I can't use that file."
.[/QUOTE]

We get this a lot especially from the military here but I know why. I was a "Visual Information Craftsman" with the USAF (aka Graphic Design). We used illustrator, CorelDRAW, Publisher, and MS OFfice. A couple of years after I retired from the military they did away with the career field. The only programs that the military allow for the common office folks to use is MS Office.

That leaves me to redraw/rework their ppt files.

 

[spectrum maine]

papyrus, olde english. brush script, comic sans. to name a few.

 

[Sandman]

It's easy to tell your customer their font sucks. It's hard to get them to pay you to change it when they think "it looks fine".
We work mainly with supplied artwork. It's almost always too hard basket trying to convince someone to change their art, so I mostly don't bother. Some butt ugly fonts look pretty good in the right configuration though.

I don't find it easy to tell a customer their font is ugly. So I don't tell them. I'm not out to hurt their feelings so I steer them in the right direction. But to do this successfully you need to sell yourself as a professional. The problem is with everyone having a computer these days, too many think that the tool automatically makes them a designer. Well buying a saw and hammer doesn't make you a carpenter. Who tells their dentist how to drill their tooth, or their doctor how to remove your appendix? Sorry but in today's market you need to go beyond being the craftsman. You need to be a salesman of your design capabilities and your craftsmanship. I won't lower the bar just to pull in a few bucks. And most times the home designers are not the customers that generate much profit. Good customers know you are the designer and they let you do your job. I want good customers. Another tactic that works fairly well is to have them sign a waiver that you are providing a sign with their design and are not responsible for the lack of effectiveness of the design. Yeah, there's nothing legal about it, but it gets them thinking.

 

[Gino]

I agree wholeheartedly except for the last statement.

But that sounds like a friend of mine whose son started a gun shop about 35 years ago. He had the sign made for his son and was telling me that the kid put an answering machine in his office. [that was a new thing back then] and was upset, because no one was calling him after being in business for 3 weeks. He actually said, business is slow, no one's leaving any messages.........

 

[Sandman]

I agree wholeheartedly except for the last statement.

But that sounds like a friend of mine whose son started a gun shop about 35 years ago. He had the sign made for his son and was telling me that the kid put an answering machine in his office. [that was a new thing back then] and was upset, because no one was calling him after being in business for 3 weeks. He actually said, business is slow, no one's leaving any messages.........

I've only used that tactic once and it worked. I had highly effective sales training before I started my sign business so I can usually persuade customers very easily that I know what I'm doing.

 

[boxerbay]

"Babby Kruffy" is my logo. its been that way for 20 years.