Anyhow, my customer gave me a layout of a banner that looks absolutely terrible. It has about six different fonts in about 50 different sizes (maybe only 15). I personally don't want to make the sign the way the customer wants but I don't want to walk away from the sale.

Has anyone experienced this same problem and if so, any suggestions?

p.s. This is a great site by the way, especially for someone new in the business.

Thanks

I find myself educating customers on design efficiency, cost, longevity, etc. more often than not.

Your confidence in your design & its viability will go a long way towards selling the job.

Personally I see a big difference between designing crap and doing a job as the customer wants it (even if it is crap)

I know some will scream about "building your reputation" being hurt by one crappy looking banner.
I work for a high production shop and "produce" others crappy designs all the time ... the majority of the designs coming from the ad agencies ... people charging top dollar to design crap.
The "MSWord designers" are much easier to sway with a proper layout.

Right on, Mark. There is a difference between designing crap and producing crap.

We do work for a myriad of customers that sometimes insist on doing their own layouts. Sometimes customers want to have a bigger hand in designing their stuff, too.

While my ego screams bloody bejeepers at them, my wallet says "take their money and move on". As much as I would like to not do some of the jobs we do, reality rears it's ugly head and real life takes over.

The different layout is a good idea. If they insist on crap, give them crap. Every job need not be a show winner.

I would say that 90% of my customers go with what I say....

But I had a guy in here the other day that MADE me do his truck lettering in ALL RAPIER SCRIPT.

eeeyyuck...I told him "Hey, it's your truck." Then I charged him extra for pain and suffering....

heheh

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As discussed above, it is a good idea to show them their layout and also show them something that you think looks good. About 80% of all customers will see the improvement and go with your recommendation.

The other 20%, well, they get what they want. We jokingly considered making labels with the name of the local one day sign store and putting them on these banners.

One approach, in the case of a sign with too many sizes and fonts is to say to the customer "Gee, all those different sizes and fonts is going to cost a lot. I could save you some money if you're open to a few suggestions...?"

ok, now the ramble:

Sometimes you give them what they ask for.
Sometimes you turn them down.
Sometimes you ask if they want suggestions.

What you do depends on what kind of business you want to have. You need to decide if you are in the communications business or the commodity business. If you are a communications designer, then you owe it to yourself to at least TRY to help the customer out. (You also need to be aware that sometimes the customer really knows best - maybe he WANTS to look cheap and confusing.. who knows?).

IF you decide to offer some help, tread carefully. Maybe his sweetheart did the design and he doesn't want to rock the boat by making a change. So, first ASK if he's interested in some suggestions.

Warning -- if you're going to start re-designing the layout its going to take some of your TIME. you SELL time (and vinyl). maybe the customer doesn't want to PAY for the design time. do you want to be known as the shop who gives them what they want, or the shop that does free design work?

As you become a good salewoman, you'll learn how to offer them some "suggestions" that will translate into you getting paid for design AND making the customer feel they got what they wanted.

There's not much more that I can add here, just make a couple suggestions to them on a slightly different layout but if they don't seem receptive to it, don't push the issue. Just do the job and enjoy the trip to the bank. Don't let creative freedom get in the way of supporting yourself financially cause one day you will want to attend a letterhead meet and you wont need to split a hotel room with a stranger to save yourself $15.

BTW: I have no idea how you guys have the time during the day to post all these messages. I must be doing something wrong with my sign business. I barely find time to take a break to go to the little girls room. The only time I can sit down and use this board is REALLY late.

I agree with most of the above.

The customer is not always right... but they are always the customer. Without customers we wouldn't be eating very well.

Make suggestions when needed, but always give the customer what they are willing to pay for.

This guy with a "Tex-Mex" restaurant called me about a new sign. I went to visit with him and check out his location. He had an idea of what he wanted the sign to say, we agreed on his placement of the sign on the building. He was in a position where most of the local traffic drove right towards the face of his building, so of course I started throwing ideas at him on how this would look.

He told me that he "DID NOT WANT THE SIGN TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE HE MADE A LOT OF MONEY". He felt that if it looked like he spent too much money for his sign, his customers would assume that he was ripping them off. I don't know if he was for real on that or just trying to get me to give him something for nothing. He was killed in a car accident the next day. That really creeped me out.

I think it all depends on how much extra work you want to throw into bidding a job or making a proposal. Most of the time you will be able to look at any idea and figure out a way to enhance it in some way, whether it is a crappy idea from your client or even your own design that you have struggled with for a while. Some designs are "no-brainers" while others are something that you want to use as portfolio material. Most of the time when someone gives me an idea I try to give them 2 designs. 1 is not so many frills, 2 is frills galore... usually the customer wants something better than cheap and not as much as the frills galore. Once you have the basic layout idea and a few tricks in your bag, coming up will something "better" (and more expensive for your customer) is pretty easy.

I like the GET THE MONEY idea, but I also like to think that while I'm geting the money I'm figuring out a way to get MORE with a better design.