After soliciting my wonderful Twitter followers for a blog topic yesterday, I received a brilliant suggestion from @garment_cat. In her own words: "I have a blog idea...How to solve design conflicts, ie: creative vision vs. technical limitations/budget. The intersection of ‘What I Want,’ ‘What's Possible’ and ‘What Can I Afford?’ Not always easy!"

So, what we have here is a situation that I'm absolutely certain most of you have faced at some point in your careers as decorators. You've all had an unreasonable customer with impossible requests and an infinitesimal budget. If not, count yourself lucky and be forewarned, and thus forearmed, by the remainder of this post.

Rather than simply make a list of approaches to this sticky wicket, I'm going to share a specific case with which I recently dealt and show you how I handled the order.

The good people at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta (AIBF) found themselves in possession of a fairly large amount of blank jackets from their previous decorator, left over at the end of last year's Fiesta. Rather than allow them to molder, AIBF decided that those jackets would be great to give away for this year's Public Safety volunteers. So, they have the jackets, all they need now is a full-back design and the stitching itself. Sounds like a simple job for Black Duck, right? Maybe not.

The first thing to know is that AIBF is very well known for big, elaborate jacket-back designs and that the jackets they produce are kept not only as mementos, but as collectibles. They have high standards to maintain. The second thing to know is that this little venture wasn't originally on the books, so we've got a shoestring budget. The third thing to know is that the design and execution must be approved by committee, so the look, price and stitch quality will be heavily scrutinized.

We've got a large area to cover, not much money to spend so not many stitches that we can use, and it has to knock the socks off of a stiff jury of very interested parties. So, the outlook is not as rosy as before, right? Not necessarily. Now it's time to get informed and get creative.

I covered some measure of this in my post entitled "Opening a Window (Before You Close the Door on a Sale)" but I can boil that post down into the first step to getting yourself out of this quagmire.

Find out what the customer really wants. Prioritize. In my case, the garments were already selected, but in your case you might need to consider that when negotiating with a budget in mind. If the garment is not key, go less expensive, or even change the nature of the garment itself – go from a heavy jacket to a fleece vest. If the decoration method or design integrity isn't key, go less elaborate, go smaller, eliminate a location, or even consider using printing to make the process cheaper per impression. Ask the tough question: What is the minimum garment, design quality and detail that your customer considers acceptable? Get a baseline.

For AIBF, the minimums were simple, but daunting. You must cover approximately a 9" square area of the jacket back, and design elements must include the public safety badge and two balloons (one specifically from the new art for this year). You must also include the official AIBF logotype, stay under 38,000 stitches, and have NO APPLIQUE.

As you might imagine, that last item took the wind out of my sails at first. I will say, however, that it was that stipulation which lead to a great design. Once you have the baseline, you know what you can and can't do. I knew that I had to make sure that the logotype looked great, so no skimping on density there; thus, I knew it was time to get creative with layout and execution of the balloons. Luckily, this wasn't my first go-round with low-stitch, high-coverage designs.

I played with techniques, making sure to observe, line, shape and color while eliminating everything that I could without losing the integrity of their vision. I made the badge into an outlined background element, cutting out large parts of it with the balloons in the foreground, and used light lines of stitching to give dimension to the balloons while maintaining my stitch count. Here’s a picture of what I presented to AIBF.

To their credit, though they had wanted a more traditional full-coverage design, they saw the quality of the design work, the execution of their new "candy cane" balloon design, and decided that the look, though not what they had originally imagined, was in keeping with their vision and more importantly, with their budget.

All of this may seem complicated, but the success of job is simple to achieve: Simply remember that you must start by feeling out what the customer really wants the garments or promotional products to achieve. They've likely not considered all the decorating options you offer, nor the wide range of products you have at your disposal. They likely didn't take into account the costs of printing vs. embroidery or three locations vs. one, and it's even less likely they took into account the stitch count or complexity of the design they have in mind.

This is where you as an expert become more than a decorator, but a consultant. Find out why they are ordering, what they intend to use the garments for, and what they really want to see from the decoration. With that established, you'll be positioned to help them rethink their request and get what they actually need. Help them figure out how to make the most of their dollar and give them the best you can. After all, if you make it seem impossible for you to find them a solution, they have two choices: forget the order or find a better problem-solver.