Sponsorship Banners

[Stacey K]

Just received an email for some banners with a total of 34 different sponsor logos...all Jpegs or Pngs. Some I can use, some I have, some I can quickly recreate. How do I handle the ones that I can't use? How do I charge for this? There's probably 20 of them that look like crap. She wants me to provide an estimate for this...clearly, this could be a real time sucker. How do others handle this? Thanks!

 

[greysquirrel]

two ways to handle it...you can print what they supply and then it looks poorly on you or you can look for art or call up companies directly for art and re-create at no cost. They sell these banners at a fixed price to raise money for the club. They are not going to want to incur any costs other than the agreed upon banner price. I use vector magic to re-create art as vector...it works 60% of the time.

 

[rjssigns]

Been there done that. Banners we've done are so crammed with logos they end up super small so resolution hasn't been an issue. YMMV

 

[Stacey K]

two ways to handle it...you can print what they supply and then it looks poorly on you or you can look for art or call up companies directly for art and re-create at no cost. They sell these banners at a fixed price to raise money for the club. They are not going to want to incur any costs other than the agreed upon banner price. I use vector magic to re-create art as vector...it works 60% of the time.

OK, it's for an event and these banners are to thank the sponsors. Gold Sponsorship, Silver, Bronze. I agree with what you are saying. Some of the ones that don't work are from larger companies, they will most likely have a decent file to resend. Thanks, I appreciate your quick response!

 

[Pixels Are Bad Mmmkay?]

One bit of advice I can give is to always look for better logos online before doing any work. I don't know how many times I'll get a scanned business card or other crap files as a 'logo file' and a quick Google search or search for the business on Facebook will turn up much better higher resolution images to work from.

 

[ikarasu]

We do these all the time. Banners, golf tournament signs... etc. Probably hundreds a year -

You can try to find better quality logos - They are out there... But you could be spending hours and hours getting better quality on some banners / promotional items that will be up for a day and then thrown away.

We usually quality check - Tell the customer "These ones are low quality and dont look good - Let us know if you have better resolution ones, or want us to proceed" Sometimes they get them...sometimes they say not to worry about it and print it as is.

I'd say let the customer know what looks bad - Ask them to contact the vendors for higher resolution logos - If its for an upcoming event, they already have a contact at the company thats sponsoring them, and the company can then decide if the logo is good enough, or get their department on finding and supplying better quality.

Customer supplied artwork is kind of tricky... You can only try your best, but if you go down the rabbit hole of finding 35 different vector logos, your quick sponsor job just turned into a week long hunt.

 

[JetPress]

Just received an email for some banners with a total of 34 different sponsor logos...all Jpegs or Pngs. Some I can use, some I have, some I can quickly recreate. How do I handle the ones that I can't use? How do I charge for this? There's probably 20 of them that look like crap. She wants me to provide an estimate for this...clearly, this could be a real time sucker. How do others handle this? Thanks!

Is it 34 individual banners? I don't do the pricing but I know with us every banner comes with 30 minutes of design time. We had situations where someone will send a logo that is not usable and I would have to recreate it. If it is too complicated for me to complete within the 30 minutes we will tell the customer first before proceeding with the order. Either they are okay with the extra charge, go with a more simple design or use the low quality logo.

So far we haven't had any difficulties with companies providing high quality logos. The couple times we did they were okay with logos being pixelated since the banners were being hung up high.

 

[Stacey K]

Is it 34 individual banners? I don't do the pricing but I know with us every banner comes with 30 minutes of design time. We had situations where someone will send a logo that is not usable and I would have to recreate it. If it is too complicated for me to complete within the 30 minutes we will tell the customer first before proceeding with the order. Either they are okay with the extra charge, go with a more simple design or use the low quality logo.

So far we haven't had any difficulties with companies providing high quality logos. The couple times we did they were okay with logos being pixelated since the banners were being hung up high.

It's 3 banners, with several logos on each. The good news is the large banner only has 3 sponsors and they provided great artwork! The other 2 banners each have several sponsors. Most of which will be small. This event does have a lot of other printing type things involved so it would be wise for me to take a bit of extra time and make sure the banners look good. Could be good for business in the future!

 

[Boudica]

I deal with this practically every day. I'll build the banner using their provided logos, and when I send the proof, I let them know which ones look bad (too pixelated because it's a png from a website) and ask them to try to find a better logo. I also do what you do - I just might have a good logo from a different sponsor banner or project- or go online. Brands of the World is pretty useful. It amazes me how the sponsors just don't care to provide an adequate logo for things like this. write a check, get some recognition but don't follow through with representing your brand.

 

[Billct2]

Yep we do a lot of these and always have issues with logo files. I start by telling them up front what to get from the clients. Then I go through the received files quickly and flag the ones that need replacement. After replacements are sent any that are bad I do a quick check for better versions online. Any that are still bad are given one last chance for replacement then used as is.

 

[2B]

this is a guarantee with ALL sponsorship banners.

love the ones who take a photo of their computer screen


we do a quick check and before we start any "design" we tag the ones that are questionable and send the list back.
Here is what we created to show the quality of the provided file.

 

[chester215]

Artwork Quality

 

[iPrintStuff]

Usually if it’s a decently well known enough company, I just do a PDF engine search and try get some corporate stuff, open em all up and hope for a vector logo somewhere lol

aside from that, best to just contact the companies.

we just got a huge contract for signage and one of their specs were that we were to use their supplierdjpg logo file. They actually have a marketing dept too so god knows how a crappy little jpg ended up being the best they could find.

 

[2B]

Artwork Quality

So much for Quality checks ........

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

this is a guarantee with ALL sponsorship banners.

love the ones who take a photo of their computer screen


we do a quick check and before we start any "design" we tag the ones that are questionable and send the list back.
Here is what we created to show the quality of the provided file.
View attachment 145426

I do something similar but with less options.

To the OP...
I don't waste a second of my time looking up or redrawing logos. I put the control and responsibility in the hands of who is ordering. I tell them to ask their sponsors for "Vector Art". I give them one of three ratings for the logos they submit...

• Prints Clear with good quality
• Print is poor quality but might be passable
• Too bad to print

If they can't get a logo from their sponsor the alternative is black text.

 

[bannertime]

We do quick searches for some logos, recreate others. The rest we tell the customer to try one more time for better logos. If not, I do Preserve 2.0 in Photoshop and call it a day.

 

[Signature Graphix]

Just received an email for some banners with a total of 34 different sponsor logos...all Jpegs or Pngs. Some I can use, some I have, some I can quickly recreate. How do I handle the ones that I can't use? How do I charge for this? There's probably 20 of them that look like crap. She wants me to provide an estimate for this...clearly, this could be a real time sucker. How do others handle this? Thanks!

My first go-to with situations like this would be brandsoftheworld.com They may have the logos if the companies are corporate. A quick Google image search with a couple tweaked settings for search results is usually a winner as well (Large Size/Transparent Color)

Chances are IMO is the customer will say something to the effect "this is temporary or one day, so just go with what you can" rather than spend more money. Make sure to get the customer sign off on a proof before you print anything in these situations.

 

[Jeremiah]

Is it 34 individual banners? I don't do the pricing but I know with us every banner comes with 30 minutes of design time. We had situations where someone will send a logo that is not usable and I would have to recreate it. If it is too complicated for me to complete within the 30 minutes we will tell the customer first before proceeding with the order. Either they are okay with the extra charge, go with a more simple design or use the low quality logo.

So far we haven't had any difficulties with companies providing high quality logos. The couple times we did they were okay with logos being pixelated since the banners were being hung up high.

If you give 30 min of design time , then production time and materials .. how much do you charge for a banner ? Price gets up there .

 

[jimbug72]

Any that are not high enough quality to use as is I would do a quick Google search for a better version. If nothing turns up , I would explain the quality issue to them, offer them an estimate on what I would charge to recreate them or tell them they can attempt to get a better version from the sponsor or they can run as is and hope for the best.

Don't offer to try to get a better copy from the sponsor yourself. That back and fourth often takes longer than just recreating it and they usually end up sending you stuff that is no better than the original garbage you received.

 

[Evan Gillette]

Are they local businesses or larger companies? I have found it can be worth the time (depending how many) to just quickly call the sponsor and explain what you are doing. If they are local companies and you can get their logo files to save along with a contact it could easily be enough of a relationship to get future business from them if you follow up every once in a while. Some you will find don't actually have any good files, even decently big companies, this is also an opportunity to upsell and build customer base.