Customer artwork

[Geneva Olson]

As I suspected, a dilettante. The client [Dairy Queen has 'customers'] doesn't have to be in love with it, it just has to pay for it. Nonetheless,I have clients that I just know that we're going to go back and forth an ungodly number of times. I have clients that are delighted with whatever I give them. I have clients that are somewhere in the middle. My prices are such that they accommodate the middle-of-the-road bunch. It all balances out. I do not, ever, charge someone to layout a sign. Ever. I charge for a sign, whatever that takes. Everyone pays the same for a sign of a particular configuration, regardless of the copy. My net is probably on the high side for sign-making. Go figure.

Ok. You're telling me that the customer doesn't have to love their graphic but they just have to pay for it?

 

[CJ-NYC]

Are you a sign maker or a dilettante passing through on your way to something else? To a real live sign maker making a sign involves laying out the sign. It's part of the job, you don't charge separately for it. It's no different doing it in pencil/charcoal/whatever right on the substrate or doing it with a computer. Client contributions usually referred to as 'nephew art', are treated as sketches and nothing more.

I know this is from a month or so ago, but I had to laugh at 'nephew art', lol -- sums it up rather nicely. My favorite is when I ask for an EPS file or PDF and the client just takes the crappy, bitmapped artwork and drops it into that file type.

For layout service I include it as part of the price and a cost of doing business. I will do one layout (approval doc) and include one sensible revision. Any revisions beyond that point have to cost something or the client will act as though all this service is without cost and therefore can drive me nuts for free. So after the first revision, my salespeople inform them of this policy. As for corporate clients, if their layout has some glaring error or stupidity (the logo has the name of their organization in a circular path around the logo ... and they also spell it out underneath it a second time) I used to try to guide them to something more sensible, but now I avoid it. We discovered that as bad as some of the designs may be it represents months of meetings to 'achieve' it. And changing it would require more meetings, more consultations, etc.

For clients that are a bit more amenable to an improvement on their layout, I will sometimes give them a Layout A (their sub-optimal layout) and a Layout B (what I suggest they do) -- most of them are just not capable of understanding the improvement without actually seeing it. I don't charge for this -- it takes me a moment and I just would rather make better signage. It doesn't work for everyone, sometimes clients take a 'execute my vision' attitude and that's fine. Then I take a 'pay-your-invoice' attitude, lol.

The best layout seems to be whatever they will approve.