To all of our clients who call and ask us to produce art and or color seps for them to print elsewhere. I've had a reputation of marketing my art available to anyone who was willing to pay me to do it for them, and I will continue to do so as long as it does not adversely affect my printing business. As you all may be aware I do the majority of my own design and seps here and those clients who are in our schedule for printing will come first, but if my schedule allows I will tell you up front to the best of my ability how long it will take to do your work and how much it will cost. If you agree to pay for that creative time (I usually require 50% down) I'll schedule your work into my work flow and try to accommodate you in a professional manor. I can not always do artwork on demand or in less than 24 hours, but if you ask up front and I'm able to accommodate you I will. I look forward to hearing from you.
Oh one other thing. I /we adhere to the Graphic Artists Guild, Pricing And Ethical Guidelines established in their yearly publication available through any book seller. The Guilds Ethical guidelines are fully based on legal enforceable standards in all the United States. A buyers reproduction rights to original art we produce here is limited to what is outlined on the invoice you pay against. It is currently understood in the United States and many countries abroad that an Artist owns their work from the moment of creation unless produced while in full time employment as an "Artist", in which case the company who employs the Artist owns the work from the point of creation. These laws are outlined and simplified in the Guilds publications but are in all points detailed in the laws supported by the Library of Congress of the United States of America. If you have any questions about this or any other legal points please check out the Guild's publication or speak with a copyright lawyer.
For Pricing please read over these guidelines and if they are acceptable call 770-978-2854 and David or Brian will e-mail you the pricing based on your expected annual printing quantities.
1. First off, a contract print buyer should qualify as a "business”; they should have a business license and a tax-exempt number. This will authorize them to buy printing tax-free by the state for the legal purpose of reselling to their customers. If the buyer does not have a tax-exempt number then as far as the state is concerned they MUST be charged sales tax at the time the goods are paid for.
2. Secondly, a contract print buyer should provide their own garments to print on, and should be delivering them at least 24 hours before the scheduled print date. If they do not, then there isn't time to count them and alert the buyer to any shortages that the distributor may have caused. If the print price is based on a specific quantity and the order is short of that quantity because the distributor shorted them and the buyer didn't allow time to rectify it, its really the buyers fault and pricing should be re-addressed based on actual quantity. A GOOD BUYER on the other hand delivers the goods two or more days in advance and has all ready counted the goods and provides accurate written documentation to boot.
3. Thirdly contract print buyers who "EXPECT NO ART CHARGES" should be providing excellent, clean art and in some cases clean registered film to boot that actually works like its supposed to 99 percent of the time. Contract print customers should not be bringing napkin sketches made with lipstick or one inch by one inch jpgs for a large full front print without expecting an art bill of some note.
4. Fourth, contract print buyers should provide written documentation detailing all pertinent aspects of the print job to allow it to be done correctly the first time. If there is a potential for confusion, be on the premises to provide guidance during the strike off / approval stage. Contract print buyers who do it on time and don't hold up production are doing their job, not doing the printer a favor. (No printer likes a contract customer who expects miracles, and mind reading and refuses to pay for mistakes they clearly could have prevented by simply doing a better job of communicating).
5. Fifth, contract print buyers should always be clear on the PO what they expect to pay for the job. Clear up any confusion about pricing BEFORE the job is printed. If the contract print buyer understands the pricing then the contract print buyer should be able to provide a PO that is accurate 99 percent of the time. If a contract print customer has issues over a bill after the job is done no one is going to be pleased regardless of the quality of work or turn around time.
6. Sixth as printer we understand and we expect a contract print buyer to understand as well, that a misprint allowance of 3% is industry standard. We do not charge for printing misprints, although we do count them as part of the quantity price break factor. As long as the misprints are within the 3% allowance we do not replace them nor do we charge for printing them. If they exceed the allowance then we replace the goods, if there is time to do so without missing the deliver date. If there is NOT time to replace the goods then we credit the cost of any goods over the 3% allowance against the bill. A GOOD contract print broker should ALWAYS buy a few extras if the quantity is critical and ask the printer to replace misprints from those extras as needed if the quantities must be precise. Blank unused goods can always be returned for a refund to the distributor so there is no excuse not to do this. In addition if the broker were shorted for failing to provide extras then a re-run of the job to fill in shortages would be billed as a separate job at a price relative to the quantity being re-run. (In the years 1995-2009 our average misprint rates have been below 1% on average.)
Our contract pricing is based on monthly average volume, timeliness of getting paid and the professionalism of the print buyer.
In my years of handling contract printing these 6 rules have proven to be the very best guidelines I have used. All of my better clients are fine with these guidelines and when we all understand each others requirements we are able to offer very consistent, high quality screen printing, faster turn around times and more aggressive pricing. Timeliness of getting paid is often the biggest factor in choosing to do work at better pricing so if your volumes are high and your cash flow is good we can be very aggressive with price.
Thanks David Robison
PS: If you wish to purchase contract printing and these guidelines seem to much for you to accept we are not the printshop for you and I wish you well seeking alternatives.
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