High Roller clients

[3Deep]

How many of you or how many clients do you have that come in and have a large budget on art, lets say 200 to 500 dollar range.  I only have two clients that don't ask questions about art price, but they get alot of shirts and the art has to be on point.  I was just taken off on  the madartist post about cheap art, just had an old freelance artist come in the other day asking about doing art, he is real good and could really boost our biz printing his art , but our customer's spend the amount he charges now for one piece of art  for there entire shirt order.   This has nothing to do with cheap artist from China, more of they just don't want to spend 2 to 3 hundred dollars on a shirt order of 36 to 150 shirts, most my customer are willing to part with 25 to 50 dollars on art, and that's why I break out a butt load of clipart and just rearrange it,  or redraw it a little.

D

[Frog]

To answer the question, I have less than a half dozen a year who willingly pony up $100 or more, but mostly cater to clients with small jobs On the other hand, I have dozens who initially prefer the pilfered low resolution versions of commercial internet clip art who never even realize that the real file is often less than $20, and usually less than it would cost to clean up their attempt at piracy.

[dirkdiggler]

We have 2 full time artists in house everyday and all they do is art.  And we don't charge 1 penny for it!  Its part of the package.  Its one of the reasons we can beat our competitors.  I look at it like emulsion or ink, without it you can't print, without art you cant print, so we just do it.  Don't think I have EVER charged for art.  All my jobs though, I would charge if I were doing contract printing.

[tonypep]

Just had a client that paid $500 for an 11 color sep of an old painting. 50 shirt order. It happens but very infrequently of course. Joe D on seps. Will post pin later in the wk

[AntonySharples]

Nobody will pay for art past $35.  I don't ever charge for it as an itemized list but I do wrap it up in the shirt price if need be.  I have tried to hire freelancers as full time workers, but usually they are happy as freelancers and scraping by and trying to charge a month's pay into one project since they don't know when the next project will be.  I prefer some stability, but to each his own.

[bimmridder]

Art is built into our pricing also. We're a little different market than most though.

[GraphicDisorder]

We rarely have a print job where we didn't charge $150+ for the artwork.  Many jobs are in the $300-600 range with any drawn cars. 

[Sbrem]

We do a lot of contract work, $60.00 per hour. They can get it done on the cheap and send it to us, and it looks cheap, or they can pay and get better art. We have a full time artist, and her costs are figured into our pricing, as is our full time screen guy, plus we charge for art and screens... You can get it if you try, or at least have the right customers. A couple of weeks ago an old customer came in with 2 pen and ink originals so we could scan them. We are the one who will color them in, so we get our hourly rate for that, and this customer doesn't bat an eye. For what it's worth, my full time artist and I both have a lot of skills, and move pretty fast through jobs.

Steve

[mimosatexas]

I charge $25 an hour for art with a $25 minimum.  The only people who don't pay something for art are people with high res one color stuff already ready to go.  The art charge also applies to sep time.  On average I would say people pay $50 for me to create simple one or two color spot designs (this is most school stuff) or $50 to sep their 3-5 color spot stuff.  On the more complex art that I create and sep, people usually are paying around $100 and rarely more, and I usually probably undecharge for those jobs, but also typically try to use them to learn from (either new techniques in PS/Illy or in the actual printing process) so I am ok with that.  I don't think I've ever charged anyone more than $150-$175, and those prices are pretty much for hand illustrated stuff that I am outsourcing at least a bit.

Honestly, most of my clients either provide art or are on a budget, so they are willing to pay for seps or for something simple, but rarely both.  I pretty much discount the complicated stuff not so much to win bids or whatever, but more to actually have those kinds of prints come through my shop.  If I didn't, I would rarely get to actually print the challenging fun stuff.

[AntonySharples]

I charge $25 an hour for art with a $25 minimum.  The only people who don't pay something for art are people with high res one color stuff already ready to go.  The art charge also applies to sep time.  On average I would say people pay $50 for me to create simple one or two color spot designs (this is most school stuff) or $50 to sep their 3-5 color spot stuff.  On the more complex art that I create and sep, people usually are paying around $100 and rarely more, and I usually probably undecharge for those jobs, but also typically try to use them to learn from (either new techniques in PS/Illy or in the actual printing process) so I am ok with that.  I don't think I've ever charged anyone more than $150-$175, and those prices are pretty much for hand illustrated stuff that I am outsourcing at least a bit.

Honestly, most of my clients either provide art or are on a budget, so they are willing to pay for seps or for something simple, but rarely both.  I pretty much discount the complicated stuff not so much to win bids or whatever, but more to actually have those kinds of prints come through my shop.  If I didn't, I would rarely get to actually print the challenging fun stuff.

That last part is why I don't.  My market will not pay for it, and I get so much work away from others because of my art.  I like the challenges.  Can't stand printing the same boring stuff all the time.

[mimosatexas]

Yea, I have a set of clients who pretty much let me do whatever I want with designs and I charge them less than those designs are actually worth. Basically those are my portfolio pieces and my learning experience pieces and I am just getting paid the minimum to better myself. For the guy off the street and the school/nonprofit/government jobs I just do whatever is quick and looks solid and keeps it cheap. I do have some clothing brand type client who keep thing interesting but they often provide nearly completed seps and have everything nailed down artwise.

[GraphicDisorder]

Artwork is it's own revenue stream if you work it right.

[tonypep]

Like Dave, we are in different markets. Since have our own apparel lines, obviously we design our own merch and that's a built in cost. For the faith based side of the biz, more and more is customer supplied. We just clean it up as needed. However we have amassed an enormous amount of templates and techniques which can quickly slap together.  Usually NC unless they want to look at different concepts. Then its on a case by case basis. For outsourced high end seps we pass that on with a little mark up

[3Deep]

Reading thru some of what you guys have posted I can see where a full time artist on board could be a plus rather than having a freelance artist who charges by the piece.  If I didn't have to do the art myself i would go the route of not charging for art but still would build some money for it in my pricing.

d

[ebscreen]

Here in Techlandia it's rare that we get an order that doesn't already have vector art with Pantones called out and fonts outlined.
Seriously.