posted
As always I looked forward to the latest issue of SignCraft arriving on my doorstep. I wasn't disappointed for there was plenty of great eye candy to be seen.
I also enjoyed reading the articles. Dan Antonelli's article titled 'Is the customer always right?' was right on.
Dan expressed his views on our need to do proper design instead of merely sending work out the door 'that the customer wanted.' In these tough economic times the temptation is to simply give the customer what they ask for (or insist on) - grab the money and run. In Dan's article he points out that doing that harms both the customer and ourselves. Do it on a regular basis and you develop a reputation for doing that type of work.
You will be known tomorrow for the work you produce today.
What Dan didn't point out is the harm we do to our creative spirits if we regularly send work out the door we are not happy with. It's BAD for us. We can quickly turn our chosen profession into a mere job in a hurry for there is little satisfaction in doing something we KNOW simply isn't right.
I've lost more than a few jobs this past year because the customer wanted me to craft a purse from a pig's ear... and while I like pork I need more than that to work from. While I miss the income I might have made I firmly believe my decision will serve me better over the long haul.
Thanks for the great article Dan!
Sticking to the high road in yarrow...
-grampa dan
-------------------- Dan Sawatzky Imagination Corporation Yarrow, British Columbia dan@imaginationcorporation.com http://www.imaginationcorporation.com
Being a grampa is one of the the most wonderful things in the world!!! Posts: 8738 | From: Yarrow, B.C. Canada | Registered: Nov 1998
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I was recently dissapointed by a local ad agency that I have a working relationship with. I asked the question how many ideas or concepts they present to their clients when a logo is asked for. His response was we show them a PDF with a dozen or so styles of logos and let them choose the direction. it was simpler to do what they asked for without giving serious input to their actual needs. Apparently the market for local high end brand developement is soft or it is laziness.
-------------------- Bob Sauls Sauls Signs & Designs Tallahassee, Fl
"Today I'll meet nice people and draw for them!" Posts: 765 | From: Tallahassee, Fl | Registered: Jun 2009
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I have to work a lot with sign salesmen and ad agency account execs. I've observed over the years that the ones who know how to put themselves in the position of a consultant and advisor to the customer make a hell of a lot more money in the long run than the "order takers" who don't care what they sell as long as the comission is on the books by the end of the month.
posted
Brent, I know what you are saying, these "order takers" should be selling Kirby vacuums. These people who refuse to stick their neck out and actually represent their customer, can actually take you down with them.
-------------------- Curt Stenz Graphics 700 Squirrel Lane Marathon, WI 54448 Posts: 590 | From: Marathon, WI 54448 | Registered: Dec 1998
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.......an interesting thought. I don't get Signcraft, but before I read this post tonight, I wrote this note to myself........ How I approach my work
If a client comes to me with a specific piece to create…and I think it’s a good plan, I will follow their plan, along with any impute I may have.
If a client comes to me with no plan……….then they have commissioned me to make a good plan, to create something unknown…. and with that I bring years of experience, and a lot of unknowns, and I make something new for me, and for them… I just follow my art. And that’s my work.
posted
I probably sound like a broken record, but I'll say it again anyways.
I love Dan's articles. They are one of my favorite sections in SignCraft. Taking my shop where Dan has gone is my ultimate goal. His articles show me what can be done and push me to strive to do better.
posted
Just another nod to Antonelli. He has taken his work and his business further and in a shorter period of time than just about anyone I know.
Dan is always thinking and always improving. Not many have the artistic ability along with the business savvy that he has. Antonelli actually practices what he preaches...and the results are obvious.
Just drop the check in the mail, Dan.
-------------------- Chapman Sign Studio Temple, Texas chapmanstudio@sbcglobal.net Posts: 6306 | From: Temple, Texas, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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A well written article but I can only agree with it to a certain extent. In Dan's business he is hired to create an image... and he does it well. If I'm hired to produce I don't question everything... of coarse if it's really bad (in my eyes) I'll offer suggestions, but if insisted upon I'll become an order taker and get my ego jollys when I get home.
I don't really care for the new Kodak logo but I don't I don't offer alterations if asked to produce it.
What if a client brings me a Dan design that I don't agree with?(theoretically) Should I offer alterations or refuse the job after the client has paid someone else to have an image created?
For the most part I agree with the premise but I don't think it always applies in the real world.
-------------------- Compulsive, Neurotic, Anti-social and Paranoid ... but basically Happy Posts: 2677 | From: Rochester, NY, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Thanks for all the comments above. Out of all the articles I've written, this has generated the most emails to me with other sign professionals who share my viewpoint.
Mark, producing something, as in say, what a printer would do is somewhat different. To a printer, its ink on paper - regardless of the design. If you are merely playing this role, than you are a 'producer' and not a creator. And those are really two different businesses. I'm not familiar with how you present yourself and your business to your clientele, but much of that factors into what their expectations are of you as a professional.
I think, as Dan S mentioned, you always need to be mindful of protecting your own brand. And part of protecting your brand, and your brand's reputation goes along with the quality of work you put on the street and are known for. On a much larger scale, this is why Apple doesn't put into the marketplace crap products. Because it tarnishes their brand.
Someone said 'good enough rarely is.' I may be obsessive about things, but I'll be damned if something's going to leave my office that I'd be embarrassed about anyone knowing I was responsible for. I'm serious when I tell them NO ONE will care as much about their image as I WILL. Why? Because I created. Obsessive? Yes? Should I move on with my life and forget about it? Maybe...
Working under a signpainter when I was 15 - I learned this very critical lesson - and that was - to make sure everything that left the shop was good enough to be in SignCraft. It didn't mean everything was super creative - but it meant to make sure it adhered to fundamental design principals.
We were doing a web site just this week, and for various reasons, I was a little out of the loop more than normal with my lead designer and project manager on it. When I went through it, I was not happy at all about what I was seeing. For 95% of the people who may have seen it, including the client, it was fine. For me, so much of it was NOT good enough, and instead, I redid much of it myself, and probably put another 12 hours of design work into it - to get it be from GOOD ENOUGH to GREAT. Was it worth it for me to invest another $1500 of billable time into a six grand web site? You bet. Because I don't get the six grand site, without making sure my best work is out on the street.
Least that's how I see it my own little 'real world' here. I think so much depends on where you're going with your business and how you choose to get there.
What I have here IS a business FIRST, and a passion a very close SECOND. It's when you have no passion, and instead the bottom line drives your business decisions, that make it hard to for that business to reach it's full potential.
"Some are born to move the world, to live their fantasies. But most of us just dream about the things we'd like to be." - Rush Posts: 1192 | From: Washington, NJ | Registered: Feb 1999
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Like I said I got nothing against the premise.
Obviously when someone comes to you they are looking for creative input... that's why they come to you, that's the business you're in.
I'm a sign guy... I don't have to agree with every design. If design is what is asked for I give it all I got. If a client needs their business card graphic on their truck and aren't open to suggestion I give it all I got. If I'm handed design regulation book, un-homemade logo or a blueprint I don't question it because obviously money has been spent to get it to me to produce.
I don't think because I can switch from concerned designer to producer to make the client happy makes me less professional or drags down the business... I could be wrong but whatever.
I can't remember a slow time in the past 20 years I've worked at this shop so we must be presenting ourselves ok... yeah, I know I need a haircut.
This week I designed a wayfinding/donor recognition system for a new hospital facility (which I will eventually have to produce), slapped some red vinyl on coroplast and printed some but ugly t-shirts. (among many other things) Everybody's happy and I get my creative balance when I get home because whether or not I have to be creative for a client... it's still work.
I did enjoy the article, as I usually do.
-------------------- Compulsive, Neurotic, Anti-social and Paranoid ... but basically Happy Posts: 2677 | From: Rochester, NY, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Mark, you sound like a hard worker and an asset to your employer. Consider for a moment, if you were the owner instead, what might you choose to do differently in order to not have to go home to get that creative balance?
The tough thing about being successful (ie. you've been busy for 20 years) is that it breeds complacency. Why are so many small businesses resistant to a logo change? Well, they've been 'successful' for so many years with their 'crappy' logo - why do they need to change it?
There are plenty of small businesses - whether they're sign shops or otherwise, who let that complacency kill their business. The bottom line, in my view, is while it's great to busy today, what are you planning for tomorrow, assuming of course you've charted an actual destination for your business and where you want to take it.
Without a plan, you're sort of like a ship without a rudder. Sure, you'll float, but you may or may not ever arrive at a destination.
"Some are born to move the world, to live their fantasies. But most of us just dream about the things we'd like to be." - Rush Posts: 1192 | From: Washington, NJ | Registered: Feb 1999
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..... however (always somebody with a "however" stirring up trouble), to Mark's point about just giving the customer what he wants, there are many businesses that are crazy successful (I'm talking so successful that the only thing holding them back from making more money is that they are just happy making the oodles of cash they are currently making) and they don't give a flip about fancy signs or logos. Heck, I know a couple of them who have made their own signs out of a piece of scrap metal and spraypaint and they can still buy most of us a hundred times over.
Then to Dan's point -- there are some businesses where it would absolutely BEHOOVE the owner to get a better sign. And yet with these people, you can never convince them that Algerian isn't the best font ever made and dark red vinyl on a blue background just won't work.
Anyway, both points are good, both points apply, and sometimes they are both enough to drive a signmaker crazy.
-------------------- Michael Gene Adkins The Fontry 1576 S Hwy 59 Watts OK 74964 Posts: 845 | From: Watts, OK USA | Registered: Jun 1999
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Parts of this summary bring up a quandry I'm in at the moment with one job:
A local club has an honour board almost full up with names.
I've been asked to update the last five years Presidents' names. It's originally in a microgramma/eurostyle gold speckled vinyl.
They won't all fit- so three years' worth will go on a new board just made. It will need a heading.
Should I do as they ask, and duplicate the ugly all caps condensed Caslon/Times look, complete with grammatical errors (misplaced apostrophe), or make something nice. I sort-of have to replicate what they have (two rows, all caps- each letter about 1" wide & 2" tall) ...but I'll fix the grammatical blip.
Given a choice, I'd rather do an entirely new heading, but they don't really care, except for some uniformity between the boards.
Good article, Dan A- thanks!
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
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Ian, I feel that pain, and maybe there is some advice available here.
I have three or four local clubs who bring me honors boards every year to add names. All are high-dollar clubs - but these boards were donated and made in some member's basement workshop, and are uniformly junky and amateurish.
As they fill up, they need new boards - but here's the dilemna: If they purchase a well-designed, professionally built board, they risk having an unflattering comparison made to the old one, and potentially insulting the member (or their descendants) who made it (and these are serious matters in these clubs).
On the other hand, if they replicate the junk they have, they just get more junk. Since it is inevitably cheaper to replicate junk, and doing so doesn't "show up" anyone, that's the route most often followed.
The results are painfull to see. I've been to high-end yacht/golf clubs where they've spent big money on the facility - top-grade woodworking, tile, granite bar-tops, first class everything - and up there in "pride of place" are honors boards that look like a middle school shop project made by the kids who ride the short bus. It's embarrassing, they all no it, but nobody dares mention it for fear of insulting the donor.
Any advice?
-------------------- "A wise man concerns himself with the truth, not with what people believe." - Aristotle
Cam Bortz Finest Kind Signs Pondside Iron works 256 S. Broad St. Pawcatuck, Ct. 06379 "Award winning Signs since 1988" Posts: 3051 | From: Pawcatuck,Connecticut USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Complacency is probably the reason I exhaust so much energy trying to keep my passion somewhat separated from my work. It's what I have to do in my head to keep the destination from ruining the journey.
While I may not have the same passion towards a job that I don't quite agree with (yes, there are limits), I will still do it to the best of my ability (grab the money and run). If in some peoples eyes that makes me less profesional so be it.
-------------------- Compulsive, Neurotic, Anti-social and Paranoid ... but basically Happy Posts: 2677 | From: Rochester, NY, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I had the same problem with a roadside sign for the local vet that has all the vets' names on individual boards underneath the main sign. When all the boards were full, what to do when two more vets moved?
Sinc I had built the sign originally, I pulled off all the name "plaques" and replaced it with a sheet of dibond. Then I had all the names digitally printed on separated sheets of laminated vinyl.
When a vet leaves, I rip off the old name. Yes it will leave a blank, but if that bothers them they can pay for newly printed names and scoot everybody up one. What about a new vet? add one more name to the blank spaces strategically designed into the panel. And if they take on too many vets and the panel fills up? Change the size of the space for the name, change the font proportions or the font itself and clean it all off and start over again. It's all controltac, so removing the vinyl should be simple.
There's no easy, economically feasible answer in these cases, but it does go back to Dan's original idea of trying to make it look as nice as possible to put your business in a good light and to Mark's idea of making it as painless and inexpensive as possible so you aren't just pulling out hair and going broke on the time and effort.
-------------------- Michael Gene Adkins The Fontry 1576 S Hwy 59 Watts OK 74964 Posts: 845 | From: Watts, OK USA | Registered: Jun 1999
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unfortunately, in the historic economical times we are witnessing, some people must put pride aside and be in the business of making money instead of satisfying their own person design peeves.
Others (Apple) with larger bankrolls backing them can afford to nuture a "brand" and make a stand that may benefit them down the line.
when the babies need new shoes, the customer can have exactly what they want rather than what I think they need.
-------------------- Bruce Evans Crown Graphics Chino, CA graphics@westcoach.net Posts: 910 | From: Chino, CA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Mike, it's interesting that there's such a turnover of vets- here they tend to join a practice & stay forever!
My dilemma with the honour boards is minor really- I just wanted to add it as an example of being obliged to follow suit, when someone led first with with yuk-of-spades.
It looks like the original was either done by a quicky sticky shop or one of the oldest sign shops around with one of the first plotters, and only eight fonts (helvetica, clarendon, microgramma, times...). Otherwise, you seldom see microgramma these days- and it's an improperly extended version, so that the letter O is like a landscape shoebox lid- ugh!
Cam, you're right- we really shouldn't go making the original donor look cheap...
An alternative I had to deal with six months ago was an honour board that started with hand lettered gilding, (in a niceish psuedo optima), degenerated into lettered gold bronze paint that tarnished repidly into brown, (looking like a matchstick was used to drag the paint on), then that was updated with vinyl in a times bold, and some years later updated with vinyl in arial and varying seriffed fonts- and successive lines became more crooked- I don't know why I didn't photograph it for the academic visual torture.
All I could do was to imitate font of the line above, and try to slowly straighten out the crookedness and unsquash the 'condensedness'. There's still a lot of scope on that board- but the gold degenerating into bronze was slightly worse than the varying vinyls.
Looking at it, I'd say someone just phoned up a sticky shop and said I need these names in gold:...when can I pick them up- and probably the cleaner or janitor at the club applied them. Three years later someone went to a different sticky shop for some more names etc- easy scenario.
(And they know it's awful, but no, they don't want to pay to have it 'fixed'.)
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
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Luckily, the vet wanted it fixed-!!! they were out of space for names, and the bright, new, painted & lettered panels were making the older ones look really bad-!!! Plus they are adding vets and dropping vets all the time. This sign was built in 1997 and it's just about time to replace the main sign itself ... It was done on soffet (soffit?) board, and so far it looks pretty good, if you don't count the black lichen growing on it.
-------------------- Michael Gene Adkins The Fontry 1576 S Hwy 59 Watts OK 74964 Posts: 845 | From: Watts, OK USA | Registered: Jun 1999
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Great article Dan. I made a client read it yesterday. He was not pleased but at least then he understood why last week I said no I can't do your display that way. And it was far more professional than the words in my head which were a lot less elequent and frankly a little vulgar.
-------------------- Deri Russell Wildwood Signs Hanover, Ontario
You're just jealous 'cause the little voices only talk to me. Posts: 1904 | From: Hanover, Ontario, Canada | Registered: Dec 1998
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"Some are born to move the world, to live their fantasies. But most of us just dream about the things we'd like to be." - Rush Posts: 1192 | From: Washington, NJ | Registered: Feb 1999
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Great article,Dan! I could visualize everything you were saying in my own circumstances. We also need to understand and heed to Mark's comments that an even balance needs to be maintained to prevent severe burn outs that could wind up being irreversible. I went through one recently and now I realize I need to separate my profession a bit from my passions every once in a while. Maybe that's what vacations are really for. Super magazine. I love it.
-------------------- David C. Petri Flying Peach Custom Paint Green Bay, WI 54302 cell 920-246-7821 Posts: 79 | From: Green Bay, WI | Registered: Jun 2006
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I try and avoid burnouts by spending the rest of my time with my family, and my other passion, which is cycling (racing). It's amazing what 100 miles a week on the road does for your mind, or 35 miles an hour packed inches apart from 40 other guys.
"Some are born to move the world, to live their fantasies. But most of us just dream about the things we'd like to be." - Rush Posts: 1192 | From: Washington, NJ | Registered: Feb 1999
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