Another Menu Board Question

[CrazyPainter]

Actually I'm looking to ask people who have used both at some point or another.

Basically, did anything change when you changed from one to the other?

I have a pretty neat and professional looking menu board that categorizes Cute Faces, Cool Faces, and Super Faces. Cute is your standard butterflies and princesses etc. Cool is stuff like skulls and vampires. Super faces are actually superhero/comic book themed.

But it is only a word list of suggestions....about 12 for each of the 3 categories. I'm only trying to point them towards suggestions. I'm afraid if I go with a picture board or catalog, I might get locked into the design on the board. (I have a number of different princesses etc, and don't care for the idea of the kid saying she wants that exact one.) I like the idea of surprising them with something cool. Not to mention avoiding a scenario where proud mama picks (for example) the frilly, swirly and awesome glamor-girl mask for her 3 year old who won't even keep her head still long enough to sponge the base on, let alone through elaborate teardrops designs.

Anyone had experiences with both? I'm leaning towards keeping it a words-only menu. But I also want to be able to display my work too. I'm at a bit of a loss here.

[FUNFACTORY]

you could stay w/ your word list - and have a book of examples ,more for parents that ask about parties and such - I am thinking of going to a wod list for bigger parties that only hirer me for two hr. so I can keep my line moving.

[artyfacesbyluz]

Definitely pictures sell more than words, I used to have a word board, with a huge font letter for "tattoos" I never sold any, I started selling them when I put pics, and then people only pick the ones in the pictures, even when I have a wide selection, so I started tattooing myself, taking pictures and adding them to the board, I am working in an exclusive tattoo board, I made a face painting board for boys and another for girls with 20 pics each, I am getting bored of the same designs but it really has more pros than a word board. ( faster - you get better every time), the cons are kids can't decide when you give them so many options.

[AngieAnders]

All I can say is... if you were the customer and were paying for a design, would you want to know what it looked like before choosing it?

As artists, of course we want to leave ourselves wiggle room for design changes, keep things interesting for ourselves, etc. But as business owners, we need to show our customers what we will give them for their money. I'm sure there's a healthy balance in there somewhere.

From personal experience, when I go to a job without pictures, I find that kids almost always choose a face I've already painted at the party. Because they would rather have the known than the unknown, and they already know that the one I did on that other little girl looks nice. So instead of being stuck with 20 designs to do over and over again, I'm usually stuck with 2. LOL.

This is an issue that artists really differ on a lot. I've heard artists accuse kids of having no imagination even, in situations as mentioned above. But really, it's not that they don't have imagination - it's that they don't know what we are capable of doing. And how could they, since they can't see any pictures of what we've done. I don't know... our biggest selling point on websites and at events is our art. I don't understand how we can SELL our ART if no one can see it beforehand. But that's just MHO!

[Mug Shots]

I have a notebook and am just starting with it, but in it I put that all designs will have small variations, and on my butterflies, I let them know as I paint them that there are no 2 butterflies just exactly alike, so I try to paint them all just a little differently too. I let them choose the colors, etc, and just go with it. Haven't had a complaint yet and it keeps me from getting too bored. I don't know if that would help you or not. Of course on skulls and super heros you only have so much wiggle room! lol

[CrazyPainter]

All I can say is... if you were the customer and were paying for a design, would you want to know what it looked like before choosing it?

I don't know. But the people standing in line to get painted don't seem to have issues. I'm pretty sure no one's walked away because I didn't have pics up.

See for me its not even about "artistry". (I don't even buy into what I'm doing being an art form) It's about the "wow" moment, and being able to deliver more than they expected. That's also good business.

I sometimes wonder about putting up a board of my "middle of the road" work, just so they can be surprised that what they got was better than the picture.

[FUNFACTORY]

I don't think I would go to a PPF w/o pics. but for when I am going to be paid my hourly rate and free to the public it would be ok to just have a word list- my last gig I took my full board and was very busy wish I would have narrowed it down or had a word list so I could have done a quicker verion.

[Tash]

You can easily get around this problem with a little sign on your board that reads " Each design is as unique as the face it is painted on".

This works nearly all of the time for me. I really dislike having to copy a design to the last detail but occasionaly you get that one kid that has taken in every detail of the design while they were waiting and just has to have every little detail and will come back if they don't get it... arghhhh *sigh*

Last night I had 4 teenagers who wanted to look exactly the same with the same eye design that I had put there as an example of an eye design. The first one I just did as I liked and the teenagers were not happy... had to do the last three exactly as the picture was... which I did on myself and was not thinking about so it's just a bunch of random teardrops and stuff.. but no they had to have the exact amount of teardrops exactly where they were in the pic.... grrrrr
- I seriously don't understand this mentality - even when I was a teenager I wanted to be original.... I just don't get it.

Back to the design board - I find that because of my pure laziness at taking new pics and changing them up then what they get is usually much better then what was on my board - so the wow factor is always there.
That and they are always surprised that you can actually paint like that..... yeah I know I know you would think with the pictures and all that it is obvious that you can... but for some reason people don't believe it till they see it.

[AngieAnders]

My pics are all pre-glitter... so when I add the glitter there is always a huge WOW factor.

[Lynnie]

I have over 50 pics laminated and cut into cards. I have room on my board for 40. I get to change out whichever ones I don't feel like painting whenever I want. When the child hands me the card, I gesture towards my paints and tell them they can have any color they choose. Sometimes they change it up, sometimes they don't, but either way...I don't get bored.

I also have a personal challenge. I am trying to add at least one new design every other week. Trying. Depending on time.

[Sponsored content]