Changes coming to Graveyard Graphics

Creepy Cruiser

Sliders
Site Sponsor
Founding Member
Location
6 Feet Under
Well, it's that time of year again.

Time to do business taxes, (hooray, lol), take inventory, time for evaluations on everything from: customer service, to profit and loss, to how efficient everything runs around here, etc...

This is where I’ll post all the changes that will be happening around the shop here. (I'll keep it updated as we go)

Now, we all know nobody likes change, lol, but sometimes every so often, it all works out for the best, lol.

First things first: One thing that will never ever change around here is: Paid orders will always ship out ASAP. "On time every time", is top priority around here, just like always. Most orders ship in about 24 hours, (with exception to weekends, holidays, etc...), because that's just how we roll around here, lol.

So we sat down and have been evaluating the whole last year and everything that was good and the few things that were not so good, and came up with a plan for a few minor changes around the shop

Change #1: Business hours: As many of you know, the best time to get a hold of me seems to be about 2am at the shop, lol, (because it seems I'm always here at that time, lol). Well, that has got to change for many reasons (family, health, just plain sanity, lol). 2-3 hours of sleep every night, is just not enough, lol. I've poured my life and soul into this and the fab shop for so long, it's time to have a life for a change. So starting immediately, the shop is going to keep normal business hours (or as much as I can anyway, lol), and close at 5pm. Now I’ll still be checking in here and there after hours, (working on other personal projects in the shop), so email me all you want anytime, and I'll still respond when I have a minute. Now, I'm not dropping of the face of the earth, (last time I posted something like this, everybody went all crazy, lol), I'm just going to be spending a lot more time with my family and such, (since that's the most important thing in life).

Shop Hours:
Mon-Fri 9am-5pm
Sat-Sun Closed

Change #2: A whole new web site: We've been working on a new site for some time now, but it got kicked to the curb since I've been working too many hours. So I'm going to get back on track on this. The new site will make it so we can finally update it much quicker and easier, so new designs will go up right away, instead of having to always email me to get stuff that's not posted yet. This will be one of the best new changes ever, lol.

Change #3: Custom art times: Since I won't be sitting behind the computer 20 hours a day anymore, expect custom artwork to take a little longer as we tend to get a bit backed up from time to time, lol. Don't worry though, we will get to everything as soon as possible, and feel free to check up on progress as much as you want. And always remember, once the art it approved and the invoice is paid, the order will ship out right away as usual.

Change #4: Custom art fees: One thing that we found during our evaluation was, we've kinda been a little too relaxed on the custom art fees around here lately, lol. We've been doing so much of the little stuff and not charging for any of it, (but it still cost me overhead and wages), that we got really upside down in that department this year. Totally my fault though, we were having so much fun doing it, that we totally forgot the fact that at the end of the day, this is still a business with expenses. So just so you know, there will be small fees here and there (not on everything though), on the art time for new stuff. Some of you might remember, a couple years back, we used to charge a little bit extra for the first decal of a new style, and then they would go cheaper after that. That's how it will most likely go back to. We're not talking huge fees here, just a few bucks here and there, unless, it's a long project, then it will be billed accordingly. Never any hidden fees though.

Change #5: Adding new products: We plan on adding some new style products this year, as we have many new ideas coming.

Change #6: New tire kicker policy: Unfortunately, we have been getting quite a bit more tire kickers lately, and this has started to take away from our great customers like yourselves. I never wanted to have to take non-refundable deposits, because I hoped that we had better customers than that, but it's starting to get out of hand. We have had too many people that we spend a bunch of time producing artwork for, and then they say “That's perfect, I'll pay for the invoice on Friday when I get paid.â€￾, and they never do. It's a total waste of everyone’s time, and time is very valuable around here, lol. Luckily, the Xterra and Frontier community has been great, and we haven’t had too many of these, so we are going to keep the deposit very low for you guys at only about $10 (we felt this was very reasonable). Other random customers on net will be much higher, lol, so try to remember to tell us you're from this community when you make the request. I'm hoping this will just insure the people making custom requests are a little more serious. Each request will be judged on a job to job basis, so quicky little alterations may not have a deposit at all, but bigger in depth designs will require more. When you make a request, we'll let you know right up front. Again, I really hate to ad this stuff, but unfortunately, it has become a necessary evil.

Well that's it for now (see, that wasn't so painful now was it? Lol.). I'll keep this 1st post updated as things change.

Let me know if you guys have any questions.
 
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RATTFINK

XN OG Admin.
Founding Member
Location
Conroe, TX
Sounds good Creepster!! Anything to keep you sain and in biz.

Can't wait to see the new site! B-)

We truly appreciate everything you've done for the community, thanks.


Sent from a Galaxy SIII
FAR FAR
AWAY
 

gamecock257

Skid Plates
Location
Clinton, SC
We can all understand the family thing man. Just to let anyone reading this know, I ordered from Creepy a while back, got the red X sticker done in a smaller size than listed on the site and he had it to me in no time. Great quality and great to deal with.

Btw, I'm going to email you about an order soon. Is it still gyg at yahoo?
 
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Airmapper

First Fill-Up (of many)
Just out of curiosity, if I design my own stuff in CAD, is that something you can take and use directly? I can export in many formats of course, but dxf and dwg, are the most common formats I use. Is svg something you use?

I have been meaning to get some stuff from you, but Ive been distracted with other mods for the time being. A new website would be really nice, I know you have more than is on there.
 

TN4x4Xterra

Suspension Lift
Location
Knoxville, TN
I was about to have a heart attack when you said you weren't gonna be available as much as you used to be!

Kidding.

Glad to see the changes for you and your family!
 

J Everett

Suspension Lift
Founding Member
Location
Houma, LA
Looking forward to seeing the new site. Take care of yourself, mate. You can't stay in business long if it burns you out, so take some time to relax now and again. :D
 

Creepy Cruiser

Sliders
Site Sponsor
Founding Member
Location
6 Feet Under
Thanks everybody for everything.


Just out of curiosity, if I design my own stuff in CAD, is that something you can take and use directly? I can export in many formats of course, but dxf and dwg, are the most common formats I use. Is svg something you use?

Yep, (svg, ai, eps) all usually work just fine.


Good for you man! Can wait to see the new site as well. No more geocities!! (I kid I kid)

I can't wait for the new as well, lol. It's still very much in the works though, so it will still be a while.

I think I actually built the original GG site even before geocities, lol. It's all built in the original html editor of frontpage, (old school baby, lol)


I was about to have a heart attack when you said you weren't gonna be available as much as you used to be!

Kidding.

You probably remember the similar post a few years back on CX, lol. That was crazy funny. People were freaking out


Looking forward to seeing the new site. Take care of yourself, mate. You can't stay in business long if it burns you out, so take some time to relax now and again. :D

Yep, I think 25 years of insane hours is long enough, lol.
 

02Xterra

Wheeling
Location
Central VA
Good to hear that you'll be spending more time with the family!! That's always good man. I can't wait to see what comes next!

I remember that post on CX.. people were flipping out!
 

drbandkgb

Titan Swapped / SAS'd
Founding Member
Nice... Dude your still the best on the Web... No matter if they take a day or two longer or the price needs to be a couple pennies more ;)
 

dhyde79

Titan Swapped / SAS'd
Founding Member
Location
Amarillo, TX
do you have the means to do high quality black and white graphics/stickers that won't fall apart after being on the vehicle for a few months? I need more of my logo stickers, and, certainly don't want to go back to prosigns or whatever the local chain is, their "stickers" sucked...

I can provide the high-res PSD that was used last time I had them printed...
 

Creepy Cruiser

Sliders
Site Sponsor
Founding Member
Location
6 Feet Under
One again I'm here to let you guys know some other new changes that are happening around here, in order to better serve you guys.

We just had a big shop meeting, and went over some stuff that needed to be addressed.

1) Temporary suspension: Right now we are so super slammed with building and shipping normal paid orders, (this is our busiest time of year), that I've had to pull designers over to the production side, just to make sure every order ships on time as usual. Unfortunately, this leaves very little time to work on custom art proofs. We have gotten way behind on the designing side, and I very much apologize to anyone waiting for a proof right now. So to solve this minor issue, we are going to temporally suspend new custom artwork requests for the next 2-4 weeks. People can still send in their request like normal, but we will not start on them until we are all caught up with the requests we already have on the books. All of the people that have already given us their request before now, will still be being work on during this time, so can get caught back up to a normal turn around time. Again, I very much apologize to anyone that has been waiting on a proof, hopefully this will allow us get back on track, and we'll be getting you that proof as soon as possible. (again, this is only temporary for now).

2) New tire kicker policy: Unfortunately, we have been getting quite a bit more tire kickers lately, and this has started to take away from our great customers like yourselves. I never wanted to have to take non-refundable deposits, because I hoped that we had better customers than that, but it's starting to get out of hand. We have had too many people that we spend a bunch of time producing artwork for, and then they say “That's perfect, I'll pay for the invoice on Friday when I get paid.â€￾, and they never do. It's a total waste of everyone’s time, and time is very valuable around here, lol. Luckily, the Xterra and Frontier community has been great, and we haven’t had too many of these, so we are going to keep the deposit very low for you guys at only around $10 (we felt this was very reasonable). Other random customers on net will be much higher, lol, so try to remember to tell us you're from this community when you make the request. I'm hoping this will just insure the people making custom requests are a little more serious. Each request will be judged on a job to job basis, so quicky little alterations may not have a deposit at all, but bigger in depth designs will require more. When you make a request, we'll let you know right up front. Again, I really hate to ad this stuff, but unfortunately, it has become a necessary evil.

On a plus note, lol.: The new website is coming along slowly but nicely, (being so slammed has not given us much time to work on the database lately), but hopefully we'll get it launched in the not to distant future.
 

Muadeeb

Nissan al Gaib
Admin
Location
Dallas
If you weren't so demanding about working normal people hours...:lols:

Seriously, thanks for what you do for the community. It's unfortunate about having to do a deposit for custom work, but so many people want something for nothing now a days that it's a necessity.
 

Diadaga

Suspension Lift
Founding Member
Location
Virginia
Honestly I don't see an issue with the deposit all it means is you have already paid a little toward your decals when they are done. It's not like you're asking for full payment up front before they ever see the product.
 

dhyde79

Titan Swapped / SAS'd
Founding Member
Location
Amarillo, TX
Honestly I don't see an issue with the deposit all it means is you have already paid a little toward your decals when they are done. It's not like you're asking for full payment up front before they ever see the product.

see though, I'm on the fence over that part, if I'm not happy with what they can do, and I paid a $10 deposit for a design that I've already done, or paid to have done, but, I can't get the product I want, I've spent more money to get nothing. I understand the whole "don't work for free" though. With the custom work, are you sending images of the proofed product or are you actually sending a cut proof for inspection and check up to see if it'll work? if the latter, I wholeheartedly support a deposit, because even if they walk, they still had some form of a product that they'd paid for...
 

Diadaga

Suspension Lift
Founding Member
Location
Virginia
see though, I'm on the fence over that part, if I'm not happy with what they can do, and I paid a $10 deposit for a design that I've already done, or paid to have done, but, I can't get the product I want, I've spent more money to get nothing. I understand the whole "don't work for free" though. With the custom work, are you sending images of the proofed product or are you actually sending a cut proof for inspection and check up to see if it'll work? if the latter, I wholeheartedly support a deposit, because even if they walk, they still had some form of a product that they'd paid for...

After seeing what the guys did when I had them make the Fallen Soldier Crosses I have complete faith in those guys to make anything. They literally went off of me sending them real life pictures and were able to recreate em in decal form. When he sent me proofs he emailed these:

New school
fallen1Custom.jpg


Old school
fallen2Custom.jpg
 

dhyde79

Titan Swapped / SAS'd
Founding Member
Location
Amarillo, TX
After seeing what the guys did when I had them make the Fallen Soldier Crosses I have complete faith in those guys to make anything. They literally went off of me sending them real life pictures and were able to recreate em in decal form. When he sent me proofs he emailed these:

New school

Old school

Well, ok, allow me to rephrase, if I'm submitting the artwork that should be the finished product, there shouldn't be much work involved, thus no need for a deposit, but, if I'm having them do all of the work from scratch, I fully support deposits for truly custom work that requires then to do all of the design work.
 

Creepy Cruiser

Sliders
Site Sponsor
Founding Member
Location
6 Feet Under
Creepy, I sent you a PM on ClubX the other day in regards to an order and I was wondering if that was OK or if I should send the request to your email on your site?

Yep, I PMd you back to please email me the request. It works much better for us that way, (like idratherbe mentioned).

Well, ok, allow me to rephrase, if I'm submitting the artwork that should be the finished product, there shouldn't be much work involved, thus no need for a deposit, but, if I'm having them do all of the work from scratch, I fully support deposits for truly custom work that requires then to do all of the design work.

I totally understand. If you emailed me totally ready to cut vector art, or if it's just a minor alteration to one of our already made up art, there would be no deposit.

The small deposit is only to weed out the people that aren't really serious to begin with, when having custom stuff designed. It's only required for custom design time. We've just been having way to many unpaid invoices lately, and it's been wasting time that we could be serving our real customers better.
 

dhyde79

Titan Swapped / SAS'd
Founding Member
Location
Amarillo, TX
We've just been having way to many unpaid invoices lately, and it's been wasting time that we could be serving our real customers better.

Come to think of it, all of the local shops that do anything like this, if it's purely custom, they issue a quote, charge a 50% deposit to start work and if you're unhappy with the result, they refund all but 10% of the deposit....
 

Creepy Cruiser

Sliders
Site Sponsor
Founding Member
Location
6 Feet Under
Yep, that's about normal. We just don't like to take that big of a deposit unless it's a big job. They also won't usually even talk to you, if it's not at least a $50 job, lol.

I've been doing decals for over 20 years, and I can only think of maybe 2 people in all those years that didn't like the the artwork that was done, and only because what they wanted wasn't actually physically possible to do in vinyl, lol.
 

drbandkgb

Titan Swapped / SAS'd
Founding Member
I hate ll the art ;). That's why creepy does nXm, and XN and has been awesome for me to deal with.

Todd was the 1st person "out of the know " I asked to come to XN..
Todd has alway been more than fair with his prices on stickers.. If you go to a local shop and ask them to make "1" sticker based on your ideas or a sketch you would be paying 20-30 for that sticker..

Creepy is a made man in the Nation.. ;)
 

dhyde79

Titan Swapped / SAS'd
Founding Member
Location
Amarillo, TX
Agreed, pricing is quite agreeable...I guess it's a case of the words "non-refundable" throwing red flags just like "no more unlimited data" does for so many people.
 

Creepy Cruiser

Sliders
Site Sponsor
Founding Member
Location
6 Feet Under
BTW, I'm working from out of town right now, (with limited internet access), so my guys have the whole shop to themselves for the first time ever. We'll see how everything turns out without me cracking the whip around there. I feel pretty confident that they can handle whatever, and orders will ship out on time as usual. (although custom art is put on hold until i get back)

I just hope they don't throw to big of a "the boss is away :bmmd:" party, that the cops show up, lol.
 

Creepy Cruiser

Sliders
Site Sponsor
Founding Member
Location
6 Feet Under
A quick little update:

Well, things went so well at the shop when I was working out of town a couple months ago, (my guys didn't burn the place down anyway, lol), that next week, I'm going to attempt to take a little staycation. I'll still be in and out of the shop here and there, but I'll be spending time with family most of the time.

Like always, orders will still ship on time every time, but custom artwork will be put on hold for the most part, till I'm back in the shop. (unless it's just something quick and simple)

This will be the first time in a long time for something like this, so wish me luck, lol.
 
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