Many people think artwork approvals are only done once, when you get that reorder it’s just yelling down the aisle, like you’re working in a diner to reorder. But what if, your customer referred to another “Previous Order”? This could become rather costly. In this article, I’m going to share with you Four Main Lessons I Learned (the hard way) about approving and reapproving art.

First Artwork Approval Lesson Learned

Do The MockUp After it Becomes an Order

In the early months of when my sister and I had our embroidery business, we utilized the process of doing a sew out swatch to get the customer to approve the design so we could “get the order.”

We learned very quickly the reasons not to do art upfront. You need to protect your time, prevent misunderstandings, and ensure the artwork process adds value — not wasted effort. When they have committed to the process first, the art mockup in its proper flow will also prevent the customer from taking your already mocked up design and going somewhere else.

Second Artwork Approval Lesson Learned

Record the Details of the Design

I had digitized this great design with 5 colors and the customer loved the shirts we did for them; so much so that he wanted to repeat the shirts. Problem was, I never wrote down the colors that I used to run production with, nor did I log any of the info about backing, the needle I used etc. Ugh! We had to ask our customer to bring in one of the shirts to compare the thread colors to, so that we could run it again. Thankfully, he was a super nice friend but that kind of made it more embarrassing for me.

Third Artwork Approval Lesson Learned

Always Give a Proof

Another lesson learned right away, was to always give the customer a proof. No matter what! 

We had a customer that had approved their logo once, and we just kept repeating it for them. Then one day they called and said, “you put the wrong website on our logo”. What?!?!?! This was the design that we had done a hundred times before! How could this happen?!?!

The owner Rob said, “We sent an email out to all our vendors announcing our new website last month. We figured you would update the design knowing our website was part of our logo.” In my head I thought, “Sorry, Rob, I’m just not that into you.” But I unfortunately couldn’t say that to the customer. Nonetheless, we ended up having to compromise with them and split the difference on the order.

I was not even going to attempt the stitch eraser on a polo, although my sister (the money person) did suggest it. It was then, that it became a policy to always show, at minimum, a paper proof of what the design would look like and get whoever placed the order to approve what we were putting on the apparel items, with a signature.

It takes two minutes to email a proof out of Teesom and about that long for a customer to approve it. It is your insurance factor and should be part of your process, no matter what.

Fourth Artwork Approval Lesson Learned

Use A Hold Harmless Agreement

Now, if you do decide to repeat orders without showing a customer a proof, I would advise you to have them sign a “hold harmless agreement”, up front, that says something to the effect of, “we agree to allow ABC Company to repeat orders without an approval and hold them harmless should they repeat art on an order that has an incorrect logo on it.” This really gets them thinking and it makes the decision theirs not yours.

Remember, you really are not saving time by not getting an approval. If the order is done wrong, it’s done wrong. There goes the 4 minutes you saved by not using the artwork approval process.

When you just make it a policy, that this is what we do, your customer will come to appreciate your diligence and they’ll be able to confidently recommend you to others.

But don’t take my word on how important a proces is, watch this.