How do I get the average Joe to understand about high quality artwork?!!!!!

[heyskull]

This has always been an issue but with the dawn of computers and the world wide web everyone thinks they have access to amazing artwork that is
usable. In my 30 years in the sign making trade this issue has got worse and is a daily occurrence.

I watched in amazement as my business partner has spent the last two days and probably about 5+ hours on making a customer understand between high quality and low quality unusable artwork.
Also trying to explain the difference between raster and vector artwork has always been an impossible task which Mr and Mrs of the street will never understand. And they keep coming back with a low quality raster image stolen of some web page!

It is almost like this clip:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh5kZ4uIUC0

How can I get them to understand the difference and realise that hours of tidying up or digitising into vectors takes time and costs money!!!?

I won't say how much was made on the job as it was just ONE Motocross race top but I ended walking out the shop in disgust with the final cost.
This customer was constantly moaning about costs and wanting it cheaper and how to bring costs down it really wound me up.
Real annoying thing is this customer works in the Nuclear Industry and is most definitely bringing home 4-5 times my wage!
Then had the cheek to ask if there was to be a discount for a large order of say 4-5 tops?!!!!

:dog42


SC

 

[GAC05]

Gotta break it down into something they can understand

What I asked for:









What you sent me:





wayne k
guam usa

 

[Biker Scout]

That's an easy solution... and it feels pretty good to be smug about it. What you do is purposely pixelize the hell out of the stolen web graphics and say, sorry... it's on the web, it's not the right kind of format to enlarge for crisp wide format printing.

The other solution is to say, sorry, but we don't work with any images that you cannot produce usage rights to. Unless it's original art that you made and are giving me permission to use, or we buy it from a recognized vendor who has transferred the usage rights, via a purchase and subsequent download. Same goes with photographs.

I would think that your staying in business (without possibly being sued) would mean more to you than just closing a lousy sale for a few pounds. Bollocks, I say!

 

[AnthonyRalano]

I gave up and just learned to recreate it with the speed of light, or use Alien Skin Blow Up 3 plugin when I can, or if all else fails, send them a screen shot of what the pixeled artwork will look like on a banner. In most cases I just recreate it because it is easier than confusing the customer, waiting on emails receiving file after file that still won't work, and pushing the production time back when I could have had the job in and out the door. I don't think that the customers will ever understand and when I try to make them understand they get confused. To me their overall experience at the shop is better if I just take care of them with minimal tech talk.

 

[Jillbeans]

I think, that they think, they are doing you a favor in bringing you the "artwork".
Therefore you owe them a "good deal"

I don't really have an answer. I do try to dumb it down and use regular terms rather than tecchie ones. Sometimes a visual aid is good. You could have a very small pic of whatever the item is. It might look OK at that size. Then show the pic stretched so that the can see the pixels. Mount them side by side and let the people compare. I dunno.

Myself, I would be infuriated with this customer. All those hours spent and they think they are doing you a favor, and expect a group discount.
Love....Jill

 

[BobM]

Question, "How can I get them to understand the difference and realise that hours of tidying up or digitising into vectors takes time and costs money!!!?"

They will only understand and appreciate what they have to actually PAY for. I often say "garbage in, garbage out". People have come to accept that phrase as meaning what they have won't provide satisfactory results.

 

[visual800]

I usually do a side by side vector vs low res, and try and make them see sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt click

 

[SignManiac]

No getting around the fact that it is our responsibility to educate the customer. I don't expect them to understand the inside working knowledge that we have and use. I find it easier to make the point right up front that we do high quality work and that it comes at an expected price. Once given an estimate and it is accepted, I take over from there and if need be will explain approximately how I produce my work.

I rarely have issues with clients trying to tell me how to do my job and I guess the trust factor plays into it as well. It also helps to be able to pick and choose who you work for. I've never been afraid to say no, or that I would prefer not working with you. Always be the one in charge and don't let the customer turn that around.

 

[Joe Diaz]

Average Joe??? hey!!! What's the deal?

I think like anything, it takes practice to get good at talking to customers about this stuff. I'm not perfect at talking with customers, but I do know that I get better at it every day. It also helps to have a few visual aids at your disposal. We too have a print out that shows a zoomed in picture of a vector graphic vs raster. We also tell them that vector is important for certain applications because certain machinery requires vector line art to produce a design. And that is really the only time you need to spend on that. They don't need to fully understand it. All you really need is to convince them that having both vector and raster is better than having just raster. They can spend their own time researching the exact differences between the two, they probably won't because I'll bet you they don't really care. They just want the best option, and if you are trying to sell them original design work all you need to do is convince them that the best option is a worth while investment if they truly want to be able to use their logo or design.

Also, I think it's easier to get your point across if you have confidence when you talk about the importance of good artwork. You have to know your stuff, and believe it, or at least act like you do LOL. I had this discussion the other day with someone else at our shop who was frustrated that the customer didn't listen to them but listened to me after I was called in. And at that point I think it had to do with confidence. Everyone at our shop excels at certain things, but not everything. However, our skillets seem to compliment each other. When they were struggling to convince the customer that black lettering on their window was a bad idea, I was called into the room for support. I was introduced as an authority on the subject. Which gave me better footing going into the conversation. I said the exact same thing she did, the only difference is when I said it I put less of an emphasis on the explanation for why it was a bad idea and had more of a "this is just how it is" attitude. I was nice about it of course.

If early on you establish yourself as the expert on the subject that THEY are coming to YOU for, they tend to hear you out and trust you on all the following decisions that need to be made. You somehow need to find a way to assure them that it's in their best interest if they listen to you and that it's in your best interest if they make the right decisions, because doing so will make them more successful and if they are successful they will be able to hire you more in the future.

Really, if you think about it, you're not just selling a sign or a design. You are also selling yourself as the expert on the subject and as the go to guy or girl for these projects. Because ultimately you want them to come back for more right?

 

[CES020]

I'm doing a 10' x 4' window front for a design group. 10 graphic designers in the group. They ask me what I need, I tell them I need the artwork in Illustrator, to scale, and we'd get it knocked out of them. Cool. They got it. Had in depth conversations with them about the options and what we needed. They "got it", so I thought.

Opened my email and there was a 150 pixel x 150 pixel jpeg attached with the message "here's the artwork you needed for our storefront".

 

[OldPaint]

i have a church i do work and have done work for them many years. so want to make that clear, i dont want to drive their business away.
one of the ladies there called me the other day, asked if i could stop in and look at a possible banner they wanted done. i went there and was handed a sheet of yellow legal pad paper........with a hand drawn rectangle.......she was not sure of what size it should be, and the KIDS DESIGNED what they want on it!
ill describe it as best i can..................had 2 big stick figures on it........with text above each of them, like they was saying the text. on the other side of the banner was a rough drawn world globe, with a hand under it.like god holding the world.
then she said can you do something like this? WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL....i thought a minute and came up with this idea.
i told her i would order a 3 ft X 8 ft white banner, sorta do a light pencil sketch EXACTLY as the kids did........i would cut the text in vinyl, and weed and tape it and give it to her..............
NOW THE KIDS......... can paint the stick figures, and the world globe and hand........take the vinyl text apply it to the banner..........and call it theirs))))
all i am going to charge the church for.........the price of the banner))))))

 

[Trip59]

Well, here's how I explain it (read it like a dialog with customer nodding their head):

There's two types of graphics, vector and raster, ok? Ok, now, raster is what you see all over the internet and on your computer screen, it's made of pixels, which are just little squares of color, ok? Ok, so, pixels are really small on the screen, your facebook profile photo is let's say 100px by 100px, now, when you look at it small, it looks ok, because there's 10,000 little colored squares in an area around 1 square inch. Now, if you were to blow up that image really big, there would STILL only be 10,000 squares, they'd just be bigger squares and you'd look like Super Mario, ok? Ok, now vector on the other hand, there's no pixels, there's nothing of any real size. What you have is specific points and these points are X number of units away from each other. They could be 5mm apart or 5 miles apart, the software doesn't know the difference, just that they're 5 away, ok? Ok, now the line connecting them isn't really a line, it's all math, just like back in algebra class, so remember when you could plug in different numbers for X and Y and the lines would change, same thing pretty much. So, if it's a JPG, PNG, etc. that you have from the internet or your computer, it will only ever have as many blocks of color as it started with, if we try to make it bigger, they just get bigger, like trying to zoom in on a pic from your old camera phone 10 years ago. Vectors on the other hand, could look great on a business card or a billboard, because there's no pixels, just points and math. Now, the machines that are used to make what you're ordering don't see colors or squares, they can only see the math, so to take the pixels and be able to use them, I have to re-draw the whole picture.

Then once they have a look of understanding, they still usually send me crap artwork, but at least they somewhat understand why it costs what it does, because no one likes algebra

 

[J Hill Designs]

Average Joe??? hey!!! What's the deal?

1 thing I know for sure - you are NOT the average Joe

 

[nashvillesigns]

i have a pixelated "Demo" sign in the showroom.
home run every time.



even the ones who don't speak a lick of English.......

Mosher

 

[Gino]

Trying to explain the difference of vector vs. raster is never easy. Even dpi, pixelation, fuzziness and what's involved in cleaning up or re-creating it is out of their realm. Heck, when I started in the sign industry, that stuff wasn't even invented, yet. I had to learn it as it came out. Sure to some degree it was around, but not a spoken language like it is today. Now, you want some average street person to understand this when you throw terms and pictures around and expect them to pick up on it in a few minutes ?? Basically, we're talking perspective in one sentence and then readily useable artwork in the next. Two entirely different issues, but it sounds like most of you combine them, because many of you don't know the difference, either. It's hard to fool a customer when the person doing the teaching isn't very clear.

I wouldn't expect a 'Show & Tell' session with a customer to end well, if the teacher was sending cross signals.

The easiest way to demonstrate this is to have a short written description with a picture or two to reinforce the copy for raster vs vector vs good artwork vs lousy artwork.
Perspective is easily solved by instead of using a 2D paper to get your point across, but by showing them something written at one inch tall and showing it to them from 15' away, then walking 60' away and having them stand still, and try to read it again. Distance will clearly be a seen, felt and proved answer in two minutes or however long it takes you to walk 60'.

Having done this 100's of times, with a pretty good success rate, you might pick up the verbiage to do it without the props and sound scholarly, but a picture speaks 1,000 words..... and then some.

 

[TammieH]

Unfortunately its part of the business,

years ago we had to blow up business cards with a projector, now we use computers.

things haven't changed except for more complicated art.

Do what you can with what you have

If nothing else let the customer know upfront, that it might cost X amount of $$ extra, if her/his art is not good enough.

Or simply figure it in at the get go.

 

[WCSign]

the best are the people who actually have access to PS or AI

hey have a jpeg and you ask for "the original pdf or illustrator file" and they take the jpeg and save it as .ai or .pdf.

 

[p3]

You have to give them something relatable. Usually find out what their profession is and try to make a comparison that way. People don't know what they don't know. The video game comparison is good though.

 

[p3]

This is a great read and explains how to solve these very problems - explaining things to people so they understand.

Made To Stick - ​http://amzn.to/1jfdAtohttp://

 

[Bosh]

The best I've been able to come up with in terms of explaining "vector vs. raster" to customers:
It's like the difference between an MS Word document and a picture of a page in a book. In a text document you can change fonts, sizes, move things around, and words don't get fuzzier if you increase the font size. With a picture of page from a book, I can't change the spelling, font etc. Get it? They usually kinda do. . . but still send bad "artwork".