nope. the "kustom krew" wanted to know what I could do to make a "sick" graphic for their car club, they may or may not be back later to get the vinyl decals and the rooster was a rooster they e-mailed me and was just a quick silhouette vector, they got 20 decals so I didn't mind spending 10 minutes to vector that for them. the cow skull, customer hasn't seen, neither has randy's logo been seen by randy. basically, on any given week I get about 10 or 15 jobs that I need to make proofs for since the customer may not want to wait the 15 or 20 minutes to throw one together (generally though they don't want to wait in line for their graphics) or they want something custom like the cow skull or fist holding a wrench but don't want to pay the art fee to get it made. I tell them that if they leave me the info, if I can get some free time when I'm not tending shop (the shop is a chrome/graphics business ... so I do occasional stock and customer service stuff) or if I don't have anyone else I'm doing a graphics job for ... I may get around to doing a mock up to fill the dead time. Sadly, in the last 6 months I've had about 6 days that I could do so. After about a month, those mock up requests go in a file drawer in case they come back and have time to do it right then and there. I don't e-mail these out, nor are they just given away ... like Randy's Mobile Diesel Service will pay for the rights to the art, in addition to any work they need done ... standard logo fee for about an hours worth of work. I've never been one to shy away from "spec" work since 99% of the art that doesn't get sold goes in a folder to be recycled into someone's design in the future. Also I've found that asking the right questions can cut my design time in half ... plus there is always the fact that a lot of the stuff I do at this job will never be trademarked and most customers just want something that looks fancy, readable and to the point ... so after 15-20 minutes I can get something to a stage the customer is happy with ... then it's just cut and move on. (that and in the last 6 months I've created a 24x48 panel of examples that hangs above my desk so customers point out what they like I can go from there.
It's actually quite funny, every week I go home with a small wad of tips from customers who think I did an awesome job ... where my predecessor received one tip in over 3 years. So, I must be doing something right
