Art Charges...

[Ron Pierson]

I hope I have posted this is in the right area and am taking a general concensus...

I'll get straight to the point. I'm s contract printer. We get all kinds of art from brokers. We get some VERY usable stuff from EXTREEMLY EXPERIENCED ARTISTS and/or artgroups that are involved with those brokers or ASI groups that we just check quickly and go to film with it. Some art from other brokers is usually a JPG for us to "recreate" to make it print ready. The "recreate" stuff comes to us in many forms and is usually a concept, web page JPG, created from a word doc or worse, ect. We recreate the work in our usual format so we can process the order and get the job out the door as quickly as possible.

My question...Do all of you charge a seperate line item on invoice to "recreate" the unusuable stuff for a broker or do you "just do it - get it done - and go to press"?

Thank you all for your answers in advance!!
 

[Frog]

I'm not a contract printer, but I (and I'm sure many of the other small shops represented here) face the same mix of submitted art as you.
Bottom line is, time is money, and needs to be charged accordingly.

Fact is, however, I constantly short change myself in this segment.

[Dottonedan]

Good topic.  (I love topics about art charges). 


I have had a few people provide me feedback on how they bill the customer. From what I see, most have various pricing for art.  Some don't bill for basic type setting etc. Most do have the standard art fee of $25-$60.00 production art charge for preparing the file clean up etc.  All of the standard stuff involved.


As needed, most will discuss and bill separately for "above average" type of re-work or design work or especially when the customer knows that the printer needs to send the art out for special attention like a (simulated process color separation fee). Most all bill that separately (from what I've seen).

[Mr Tees!!]

...my contract price list specifically states all art MUST be provided in a vector format. I cant justify giving wholesale prices to a customer and having to do ANY extra work. In fact, when they do need art, I usually point them to maybe a vectoring service or something like that. Its all part of educating the customer, really.

...if you eat that charge, they will start to rely on it. And if you do it for free, it devalues us all.

[Dottonedan]

I think you can do contract printing (and profit on art).


I've never understood why people offer art for free and do not profit on it. Some have a art department of 1 -5 people and do not charge.

[royster13]

Over the years I have sent out 1,000s of jobs to contract printers.....And it is standard for me to provide production ready artwork.....And probably 99.9% of the time my files are good to go.....If not, I expect to pay an art charge, however, sometimes it is waived in consideration of the volume of work I sent to a particular contract printer....

Now as far as how I price my orders, I rarely show an art charge....Most clients are only interested in the bottom line, not the way I got there....I usually build a few$ into each quote (internally) and then for the odd file that I need to hire an artist I have enough cash to do so.....I would say these days that not more than 1 file in 10 requires any work.....So the 5.00 I add into each quote covers the money I pay out....

[Homer]

we have art requirements spelled out to the T, if they do not follow these guidlines, we bill @ hourly art rate. We have had vectored art sent to us that was still unusable, you know the type - the ten million parts to a piece of clipart. So we learned the hardway to bill them seperatly. Make it known they must follow your rules to work with you. Sure there are other printers out there but when people get comfortable with a printer, they seldom like to change. . .

[JBLUE]

For our contract customers art must be ready to go. All we should have to do is add reg marks and print. PSD files need to have everything in spot channels. If it takes more than a few minutes to tweak they get charged. It's part of the contract process as a contract customer to provide print ready goods. We do let a few get away without charging due to their volume but it's not too often.