It has long been said that to a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The HeadBuilder may be the biggest hammer around -- especially HeadBuilder 3.0! -- but we're the first to admit it isn't always the right tool for the job.
Here's the most important thing to understand: the design you create is the design you receive. If you build a design with a black background, your head will have a black background — even if you selected a white head. (In fact, we'll probably switch you to a black head so it looks right.) That's a feature, not a bug: no surprises, no waiting on proofs. But it means the responsibility for the design is yours.
Leave It To Us instead when:
- You need to approve a proof before we print. Designer orders don't include a mockup — what you build is what prints. If you need sign-off from a band, a school, a label or a committee, use Leave It To Us, which includes a mockup and a revision.
- Your artwork is a format the designer doesn't accept — Illustrator, EPS, TIFF, PSD or vector PDF.
- You want an advanced material — sparkles, holographics, mirror chrome, carbon fiber, diamond plate. These aren't printed finishes; they're specialty materials we apply by hand.
- Your artwork is extremely low-resolution — a logo pulled off a website or lifted from social media. It'll place. It won't necessarily hold up at 22 inches. Our AI-powered print pipeline and image enlargement suite is INCREDIBLE in what it can do, but it's not perfect. If you provide a 1" x 1" image at 72dpi, even the best tools and processes we use may not be able to salvage it.
- A subject needs cutting out of a photo. One click removes a flat white or black background. Isolating a person from a busy stage shot is retouching, and retouching is a human job.
- You want several images combined with real masking, blending or shadow work.
- You need a logo redrawn or vectorized — that's a redraw, not a placement.
- You want custom lettering — hand-drawn logotypes, distressed or vintage treatments, or effects beyond arcs, outlines and gradients.
- You're not sure you have the rights to the artwork. The designer can't know. Our terms mean you carry that. If there's any doubt, talk to us first.
Leave It To Us is the same high-touch process we've run since 1997: place your order, send us your artwork, and one of our designers takes it from there. We've worked with most of them for decades. They know what works on a drumhead and what doesn't.
And if what you want is genuinely beyond both — a one-of-a-kind illustration, say — reach out for a custom design quote and we'll tell you honestly whether it's something we can do.