We just added 573 of our best selling stock designs to your BlingFORCE account, free!

These are designs created by us over the years, and now they are available to you, without any design fees.

Find stock designs from your Account homepage.

 

There are many, many creative ways to utilize our stock designs in your business. Additionally, you may find them useful as shortcuts in times where you would have had to invent your own custom design, for example, for a generic birthday shirt. Now you can check our stock designs first and many times potentially avoid the additional time and cost of having something custom designed.

 

We’re introducing a new system for Design Fees that’s fairer to all.

Effective August 1, 2016, we will be modifying the way in which we determine the one-time design/setup fees that apply to each new Design Request you submit. The Design fee is still assessed regardless of whether or not you ever place an order for product using the design.

What’s changing?
In a nutshell: The way we calculate the fees. It’ll be $25 per hour going forward.
For years we’ve used a structured pricing system where the design fees start at $10 and go up depending on if there are mixed materials used (such as glitter + rhinestones), or if there are > 1,000 stones. Feedback has told us time and again that that structure is too complicated and can be too expensive.

Under the new system, all design fees will be simply based on the time spent by our Designers in creating your bling design, preparing your proofs, and communicating with you. It will be a flat rate of $25 per hour and will no longer depend directly on what materials are used. While there’s no mandatory minimum cost, we anticipate the lowest possible cost on a very quick, basic, small design should be 15 minutes ($6.25). Up until this point, our minimum design charge has been $10.

How does this affect me?
In a nutshell: Your overall design fees may go up, they may go down, or they may not effectively change.
BlingFORCE Clients who send clear specs and/or art in their design submissions may enjoy significantly decreased design fees on average. Some Clients may see no overall change, while others who provide poor detail or art are likely to see overall increases. It mostly depends on the complexity of each design and the quality of the info you give us upfront. We studied dozens of past projects and determined that, when GOOD QUALITY art and/or design details are supplied, the average project took about 30 minutes to complete. That’s $12.50 in design fees. And that’s about the average we’ve been charging up to this point based on the structured system.

What can I do to pay the lowest fees possible?
In a nutshell: Provide Detail.
We don’t want you to pay big design fees. In fact, design work is a money-loser for BlingFORCE, and not something we profit from. We want to work together with you in the most efficient way possible.

The clearer you are upfront about what you need us to create, the more efficiently we’ll be able to work, resulting in minimal time spent and the lowest cost to you.

That means:

• Providing starting artwork whenever possible;
• Supplying quality artwork that does not require labor-intensive redesigning/fixing before converting to bling;
• Clearly stating the details of the project when the request is submitted, including which colors are to make up which parts of the design, if a multi-color design and it’s not obvious from any artwork you supply;
• Including font names in the design request if you know them, or detailed descriptions/attributes of desired font styles if you aren’t providing art or font names. For example, any of the following are helpful descriptors of text style/fonts: bold, tall, block, varsity, script, elegant…
• Specifying the desired size if you have a certain size requirement. If you don’t know the width AND the height, just providing one of these is still very helpful.

What Makes Good Art?

 

How can I know what to expect?
In a nutshell: You can check a box on the form and we’ll quote you first.
We’ll be changing our design submission form on Aug. 1 to accommodate the new fee structure, and at that time we’ll add a feature enabling you to request a quote estimate after you submit the project but BEFORE we do any design work on it.

Does the change in fees cover BlingFORCE’s actual design expenses?
In a nutshell: No, not by a long shot. But we’re OK with that.
Design work will still be highly subsidized, and almost half of the actual average cost will continue to be covered by BlingFORCE. Project triage/Project Management is a significant expense that can cost as much as the actual Designer’s time. We don’t plan to charge for the project management time, just that time spent by the Designer working on your individual project.

In other words, we realize that in order for you to be willing and able to create custom designs for your Clients “on spec,” we need to share the design costs with you.

 

I hope this new approach serves to simplify the process, encourage well-thought-out submissions, and reward Clients who provide high quality art and details with lower prices. As always, I welcome your feedback and questions.

-Brian

8 years ago when were were shopping for our first automated rhinestone setting machine, Molly and I flew up to Canada to demo this one series of machines. The guy running the company was totally scammy and just really shady. BUT – we were taken aback by the quality of Korean rhinestones he used in his own shop, and to demo the machines (one reason would have been that he wants the machines to perform well, so you want to use really good, round stones for the demo).

We’d been using only Korean stones since 2006, and the quality was good, but these were great. The color, consistency, clarity, shape and facets were like none we’d seen outside of machine-cut stones (which are too expensive to use for everyday jobs).

We weren’t really impressed with the machine, and wanted to find out more about the stones. Of course, Mr. Man wouldn’t divulge his source, but promised to give us the name of his supplier in Korea if we purchased a machine.

And we did. For $40,000 after all was said and done, including shipping from the East Coast, where it was residing at a trade show at the time, to Los Angeles.

And even though we hardly used that machine – mostly as a backup – we don’t regret that decision one bit. It was our “foot in the door” to the next level of rhinestone & stud quality, and it really made a difference to our business.

We’re mighty proud of the rhinestones & studs we carry. They last the life of the garment (often longer) and just function great, day in and day out.

And while we don’t plan to share our supplier’s identify (we were offered $10k once for it), you can rest assured that what you buy from BlingFORCE will use these incredible stones. You should share the same pride with your customers as we do with ours.

-Brian

Nobody likes weeding glitter or matte vinyl. Well, actually, Kellee here at BlingFORCE really does like weeding, calls it therapeutic, can’t believe she gets paid to do it, and just can’t get enough. But for the rest of us, it’s not a pleasant activity.

It doesn’t have to be a bad job, and I certainly don’t want you to avoid vinyl-based projects because of this step.

Not sure if you’re aware that BlingFORCE does offer a weeding service as an option when you buy vinyl transfers. About half my Clients have used the service.

But I’m not here today to sell you that service.

Below is a video showing three methods to use heat to temporarily release the bond between the vinyl and the carrier sheet, to make the scrap much easier to pull off (weed). This works great for all of the types of vinyl we sell, and can increase your speed by 50-100%.

Here are links to two of the products mentioned in the video:

1. Rubber mat on Amazon

2. Stahls’ EZ Weeding Table

I hope this technique helps you reduce your time and costs, and helps you sell more vinyl projects!

-Brian

As of today 3/15/2016 we just added a full range of fluorescent (neon) colored rhinestones to our offerings!

Available in 6 colors and both common sizes (2mm and 3mm), you are welcome to start requesting these colors in your new projects right away.

Colors shown in this order:

Fluorescent Purple, Fluorescent Pink, Fluorescent Orange, Fluorescent Yellow, Fluorescent Green, Fluorescent Blue

Cost? We charge the same as regular studs for these new colors.