If a customer walks in to your Shop, placing an order for, say, shirts for the school's football team, with no art to provide- do you say "I'll get my artist to sketch something up!"

     IF so, you are usually making it MUCH harder on yourself. WHY?
The artist, if good, can conjure up near endless ideas, often resulting in thge never-ending " I LIKE that idea, BUUUUUT what if.....?" and the growing amount of time it takes at this point, delays you getting paid, and usually makes it harder to reach a looming deadline!

     INSTEAD, try: "I'll get my artist to sketch something up! Do you have an art budget- want a really nice design, or do you just want to have something OK that's just thrown together with some clipart, as most do?"

They MAY respond, since we live in a WalMart society: "But my OLD printer NEVER charged me for the art!"

Your response could be: " We always do- time HAS to be covered- unless they just threw clipart together. They, as most, probably hid the art fee in the overall printing cost. But, I understand; money's tight, isn't it? (Calms them down. Let's them open up, and think about the art.)

Continue: We want you VERY happy with your printing, so we perefer to come up with the best design possible!
Do you have any concepts in mind , any specific elements you'd like to see? Any particular style- such as cartoon, abstract, or realistic?"

(Allow a response so that you don't lay TOO many questions on him at one time.)

Finally: So, do you HAVE an art budget, or should be just do the best we can with this?

Many will say "Just do the best you can"- and you're on the way to your clipart files...
Yet, if they ARE willing to pay for custom art, you have gotten as much info as you can that is a TREMENDOUS help to your artist,
you- with your order and accounts payable- and ultimately your customer. 

So, remember, try to avoid just saying "I'll get my artist to sketch something up!", unless you have plenty of time and money to kill!