1- What is vector art?
All you need to know regarding vector art as a buyer is:
⦁ You can resize it without loosing quality
⦁ Print friendly
⦁ Provides a huge variety of uses (shirts, mugs, branding)
2- How long will it take?
It’s important to address that you can’t put a time on art, sometimes a master piece takes 10 years, sometimes it takes 3 days. But that’s not what you are buying. You are buying custom art, and the definition we have is: “art that serves a purpose”. This means that as long as it serves the purpose it’s good to go. This does not mean that you should slap every 5 minute doodle on your website and call it branding. No, quality requires perfection, planning and a process. A reasonable amount of time to wait for art will be dictated by the professional artist, as they have mastered their process and their tools and are able to estimate the time they will take on any project. Be wary of artists that have flexible deadlines, as they might not deliver. We were part of this problem at some point, but we learn and we grow.
3- Can I print this?
You might need a special permission from the artist if you don’t have the Commercial Use for the image, but if you do. The answer is yes. You can print it.
The question you should then be asking yourself is, if you have the right files for your project. If it’s a hobby thing, and you’re just printing with your ink printer, any file will do as long as it’s 300dpi or bigger. If this is a serious project, make sure you have the vector files (.ai) (.eps) this file will ensure that you can use the images as long as you require on as many things as you need.
4- Can I sell this?
Do you have the Commercial Use? If you do, then yes. If not, ask your artist for it. They might charge you extra or depending on the artist you might have to agree on a royalties payment. Personally at the moment all our packages offer Commercial Use included in the price of the package.
5- What is fair pay for an artist?
Ask them. Professional artists, will have the prices clearly displayed in their shops but if they do not have it (this should be a red-flag) and you still would like to buy their work. You should ask them, do not come to them with a specific budget. You do not go to Walmart with $20 and hope you can get a $50 product for $20. Same with art.
6- How detailed should my project’s description be?
Details are most often than not superfluous. It’s not really about being detailed with your brief, you can write a description of a character’s underwear but if it’s not seen you have lost the opportunity to use that text to be clear of the character’s motivation or emotion. When you are describing your project, be clear and concise. Tell the artist what you need, how you need it and why you need. Always remember to add visual references, this ensures that everyone is on the same page.
7- What are your rights as the artist?
We are only talking from experience here, but this is a question you should ask specifically to your artist as some artist have different rules and regulations for their work. In our case we own the images but you retain all rights to the Commercial Use of your product. This means you can sell it as many times as you like and to anyone you need but we retain the right to use the image in our marketing by ways (but not limited to)branded portfolio images that we post online.
8- Will you lower your price for us?
NO. That is a bad question to ask, a better question would be. Is there anything you can do to help me fit this within my budget? Some artist, run year long promotional plans with special offers and discounts on their services. If you are lucky you are looking at a possible discount because you happen to purchase within the day the discount is valid or at the very least you’ll be handed information on when a possible discount date might happen, and you can hold on to your project till that date.
9- Do I have to give you credit?
We do not require credit, but it’s always a good thing to do. It’s good karma, you link to our facebook page, we link to yours. Now your project has the support of two pages working for it. The more you do it, the more the support grows. So why not do it?
In our case, just tag our facebook page or our handle.
facebook.com/mabsarts
@AntonioMabs
10- Do you offer other services?
This is a great question. Due to the life artists lead, many of them are constantly experimenting, learning new techniques and new skills that destroy the boundaries of human knowledge. You might get an artist that also is a dentist. By asking them if they offer any other services, you tap into the different sides of this artist, and that can benefit you with more services that you might require in your life.
MabsArts 