 What is up? A welcome back! Do you like to do it? Will they make it? So do we! We have new videos each week, every Tuesday and Friday. This week we're taking on a custom project. Where are we? We get asked to do a lot of custom projects. We get requests through our emails, our workshops, our craft shows, but custom projects are tricky and maybe not always worth it. Question of the week! What is the craziest custom order that you've ever been asked to make? Leave me a comment down below. I want to know. Let's start with some pros and cons. This is like the good news and bad news. But we'll start with the good news first, right? Pros. You can charge more than what you would for a similar product, for the extra time involved for the customization and communication, and for this being a non-typical product. New product ideas. Somebody might come to you with something strange, but then you can actually use that later on and turn it into some other product that you can sell. And if you advertise your custom order that you've just produced for someone, you might get repeat orders from others. Advertising. Everything is content. You can always video this thing that you're doing. It'll help you broaden your base, help you reach more customers across bigger platforms. Put it on social media. Put it on the social media. Make it a TikTok. Maybe it goes viral. That's right. This is the thing that will make you go viral. You never know. Now it's time for the bad news. These are the cons. They're time-intensive. You can't typically batch these out and make multiples because these are one off-type projects. These could also be more expensive. You might have to go get special materials, mix a special color, find a special color, do something that you don't typically do. They're also time-bound. So these are time-sensitive and you don't have a lot of wiggle room. So if something comes up, you still have to complete this special order to get it done in the timeframe that you promised for delivery. Deadline is a deadline. And there's no economies of scale. You're doing a one-off. You can't replicate or reproduce or mass-produce this item. And of course there's additional time with communication. So there's a lot of back and forth around, okay, what is this? How are you going to use it? Here's my first mock-up. What do you think? Applying changes. So there's extra time involved with communication. And with some of that communication you could get a demanding customer. A customer that can never be satisfied. A customer who's always nitpicking and changing the design and has no concept of how much actually goes into that design change. Now that's never happened to us. No. But we hear it happens. And if you don't get good requirements upfront, you could repeat work and maybe not make the money that you had planned to do and even lose money in the end. And without good requirements, you're never going to have a satisfied customer. Which means no repeat business. We've been asked to create a custom order. A wedding wall name sign. Now we know that we can use this as content for our channel because we've been planning to do a specific project to show features of a specific tool. And we think this project will be perfect to demonstrate those features. So we know we can use this as content. Now we need to find out what we don't know. We need to get the customer's requirements. The devil is in the details. And the details are really a good customer design requirements. So we're going to put together a checklist, reach back out to the customer so we can gather all of the info that we need. And without good requirements, there's not a satisfied customer. And without a satisfied customer, there's no money. And we're going to leave that checklist down below. But we're going to walk through each part of that right now. Number one purpose and goals of this project. What is this thing? What is it? Are you going to hang it? Are you going to swing it around your head? What is the purpose of this custom order that I have? We know that ours is going to be used for photographs. It's going to be a big long name sitting on a hedge wall. So we do know what it is. Number two, location and placement. So you're going to think about some of the other things involved and where this is going to be used. So is this going to be indoors or outdoors? What is the space requirements? Where is this going to be sitting or hanging? Or even readability and visibility? Are you going to be able to see this from far away if it's a sign that's going to hang from a distance? We have a great example. I worked on requirements for a custom order for someone who wanted some name standees. These were going to be... For the desk. Yes. So it was a teacher and he was going to give it to some other teachers. And each teacher was going to have their own name standee for their desk. We were doing it several different layers. So they just stood up on their own. We agreed upon six inches tall for all of them. And then the length would be whatever they wanted it to whatever it came out to be. When we cut them some of them were six inches tall and ended up being this long. Well Mrs. Schwarzenegger was hanging off the end of the desk. We just cut them. I sent those requirements back to the guys at the lasers. They cut them. And then when I came out to prepare to paint them, or Garrett did, he came out and said, Hey, where are these things going? These are really big. Okay. Well, I thought six inches tall and whatever the length would be would be fine. But guess what? I was wrong. So good requirements. We had to shrink those down because I knew they were going to fit on a desk and that was not going to work. So we had to make some adjustments. In our case, we know that our sign is going on an eight foot by eight foot hedgewall. So we've got the requirements to make the font that she has chosen fit properly on this eight foot by eight foot wall. We want folks to be able to stand in front of it and take wedding photo pictures. Well, they look good. These are going on Instagram. We have to look good. You have to look good. Step three, design preferences. Ask the client if they have any design ideas, concept or even inspirational photos. Discuss colors, discuss fonts, discuss graphics that they'd like incorporated into this design. Ask about desired style. Are they minimalist? Is it modern? Is it MCM? In our case, our client came prepared. She had the exact color. She had the font with a downloadable link. And she even had inspirational photos showing us pretty much exactly what she wanted with the hedgewall and everything. Number four, content and messaging. You want to make sure that you have the correct information on your sign. You need the correct spelling. You need the correct logo. You need any specific disclaimers, images. You want to make sure you have the right information. So you're doing this right the first time. In our case, our client has provided us an email with exactly the text that needs to be on there and the correct established date. Never retype anything. Always copy and paste. There's a good chance your fat thing or something. Hey, maybe you correct a grammatical error that wasn't a grammatical error. Maybe you correct somebody's name for them. Maybe you take the tee out of Johnston. Who knows? Or in our case, maybe you go find the logo for them. You find a nice, perfect, high resolution image is way crisp. It's perfect to use so that we can create this sign. And then guess what? Wrong words. Wrong word. Yes, it was so we had the logo was the same. But and all the words at the top were the same. But the words at the bottom were a little bit different. It was just I think it actually came down to like one letter difference. No, I don't think it was that small, but but it was a whole we did. Yes, we did create the entire sign, paint the entire sign and went to delivery. Mm hmm. And then guess what? It was wrong. Nobody caught it in proof or anything. Nope. And I even showed it to Garrett. Garrett look at this. Is this to say I held them up was like, are these exact same? And yes, yes, they are. But no, it wasn't. So our lesson learned for you. Save some time and money. Step five materials and type. So what type of sign is this? Is this illuminated? Is it non illuminated? Is it layered? How many layers? Is it just vinyl? What's the thing going to be made out of? Is it going to be metal wood acrylic vinyl? In our case, she's familiar with MDF. She's been to a couple of workshops. She knows what the MDF is made out of. Now, I don't know how it's going to hang yet. So I don't know if it's just going to be MDF is going to be multiple layers of MDF to try to strengthen it up if it's going to hang from the sides. What if it's attached to the wall, then it could just be a single layer. But I think if it's going to hang, I might need some kind of stabilization bar in the back, maybe a little piece of aluminum. Yeah, you know what things sagging. Yeah, I don't want to. I don't want the sign to start giving me a V right in the middle of the photos. And it makes me look bad. It makes you look bad. So I need to know what materials are actually going to be in this thing. So I know what costs will be involved. Number six, budget and timeline. You need to establish the client's budget right up front, as well as timelines for the project, including deadlines for design, production, installation. In our case, we know that the client's wedding is in October, and we have plenty of time to have proper communication, design, agreed upon changes, as well as production and get this thing ready for the wedding. Yeah, you know, there's going to be back and forth on get that proof. Oh, I wanted a little bit bigger. Oh, I was thinking maybe we remove the Mr. and Mrs. So many things could happen in that time. Give yourself plenty of time. Number seven, constraints. Constraints are like outside requirements, requirements that we don't have control over. It could be things like copyright material. I can't use that because that's copyrighted. Or it could be something like, you know, a six inch letter strung together with 20 other six inch letters could go past the constraints of the teacher's desk of a desktop sign. Or maybe don't know your material costs right up front. And it's something you're going to have to produce. And the budget may change based on how much material is consumed. Yeah, these are these are outside requirements that may add to the cost or timeline that the client needs to be aware of upfront. Number eight, installation and maintenance. Again, we'll discuss where this item is going to be placed. Is this thing going to be indoors, outdoors, wall mounted desktop? And then doing it? Who's installing it? Is it me? Is it you? Yes, yes, yes. And then also, is this going to be something that needs to be durable? Does it need to last? Is it going to be outdoors? So in our case, this hedgewall? Is it going to be outside? Is it going to be inside? Do I need to worry about potential rain, humidity? We want this thing to stay in there and stand the test of the time of the wedding. Only has to last the wedding. Nine mockups and approvals, we're going to create some design mockups and proofs so we can send them off to the client so we can get some feedback and revisions allow plenty of time for revisions. There'll be some go back before you can actually obtain that approval. We're going to use AI to create a 3D version of our design. Then I'm going to use Photoshop to put it on a hedgewall so it'll look as close to real life as I can get it so she'll get a good understanding of what we're going to deliver. Speaking of Adobe Illustrator, did you know that we offer monthly Adobe Illustrator design sessions over on Patreon? We go from a blank canvas to a cut file in about an hour, as well as monthly zoom calls, design files, a super secret top tier Facebook group where folks share their tips, tricks and motivation. And there is a ton of small business information flowing in that group. So come join us over on Patreon. Number 10, payment and contract. Once we have all of the requirements ironed out, we will send over a detailed estimate or quote that has all of the information we discussed, including timelines, labor, materials, all of the costs. In our case, we're about ready to send over an invoice that contains all of that information to get payment up front before we begin any work. Using this checklist will help you gather requirements to ensure a smooth process from initial consultation through completion of the project and ensure a happy customer. Big thanks to all of our patrons. We love you guys. And we have all of the information we need for this project. So challenge has been accepted. Join us in the next video for part two build phase. And remember to hit that like button, subscribe if you're not yet subscribed and tick that bell to be notified of our new videos each week every Tuesday and Friday.