educating customers

[curt stenz]

I have found that as time goes by, I am required to educate clients more and more.

Years ago you were just required to ply your trade, based on your abilities to execute the finished product weather it was a showcard, lettering on some truck doors or whatever. The digital world has changed all this.

Asking a client to supply some logos for something they want you to produce becomes a chore in itself. Today while trying to explain why a rasterized .eps file will not work, please do not send a .jpg, and what is needed is a vectorized file instead, this guy was just clueless.

Also I now find that I sometimes must educate a new customer as to what hand lettering is. It seems that anyone younger than 30 just has no comprehension what hand lettering is. Sometimes it is easier to just cut it on the plotter.

If I really am feeling like doing it by hand, I muster the energy to educate. I enjoy what I do, but I wish life was not as complicated as it is, and I could just get to work.

[Doug Fielder]

I too believe that educating the customer is harder now, but I think it is just because they have no idea how anything is done anymore. Growing up, I never saw anyone out painting a sign, lettering a truck or even knowing how they got those tiny letters of a car dealership on the backs of cars. However, I wanted to learn and met some people and saw how it was all done, now I do it too. I feel people are getting lazier and lazier and just think that a computer does it all. I am 30 yrs old and have only met a couple of other people around my age that know how to handletter. I feel it is sad, and though there are people who still value craftsmanship, most other people just want it as soon as possible, no matter how poorly designed and executed it is.
I even dated a girl and she asked what I did, and she said she didn't know people did that for a living. BUT, every girl I have dated, has been educated and know what was done by hand and what hasn't and how to tell.

Have a great day.