Part Two of a Two-Part Series.

Earlier this year, I received an email from a woman who was impressed by specific samples she had seen on my website, and wanted to hire me for an illustration project. Her company was developing proprietary technologies and needed a drawing of a prototype village that showed how these technologies could be used to operate a self-sustaining community. I called her and she said my drawing style was perfect, but as she described the project to me, I got a sick feeling in my stomach because it reminded me so much of the Aspen job. It sounded very interesting, however, so I agreed to meet with her and discuss the details. I needed money to get my house painted and this job would just about cover the cost.

Her company was local, so we were able to meet at a nearby coffee shop. She was a very pleasant and bright young Chinese woman (lets call her Beth) who was very excited about the project. Beth brought with her a mountain of papers and research which included a rough sketch of the village layout as she envisioned it. As we talked, I began to realize that many of the technologies she wanted me to illustrate did not actually exist in a practical and usable form, so I would need to visually conceptualize most of the drawing myself. This illustration would be a crucial component of a larger presentation made to government officials of the Peoples Republic of China, so it also needed to include English and Chinese captions and was highly confidential (hence the grayed out image). Did I mention she needed the finished art in 3 weeks? I had no real idea what I was getting into, but it all sounded pretty cool and I really needed to get my house painted. I agreed to take the job and work up a price quote.

The Beginning

I tried to recall and avoid the mistakes made on the Aspen job, but issues materialized that I could not have imagined. I decided to charge $4000. The dimensions of this job were much smaller than the Aspen poster, only 16”x20”, so I felt the price was fair (and it was the magic number of dollars needed to get my house painted). I presented my proposal, but was informed that the price was too high, so I renegotiated to $3000, figuring I would simply compromise the detail of the drawing to save time (first mistake). I also asked for an extension of the deadline, half up front and the balance due upon delivery before beginning the project. She agreed, gave me another week, a $1500 check and…we’re off.

We met a second time so I could get specific information on the timeline, layout, positions of buildings, people, etc., so I could make an accurate sketch. Most of my time is usually spent during this phase of development so I wanted to make sure the sketch was right the first time. The meeting ended and I thought I had all that I needed, so I got to work. A week later I presented a very tight sketch and, though I did everything she asked, Beth was not impressed. Apparently, it was not what she envisioned and she wanted to move everything around. As it turns out, she had expected me to come up with ways to illustrate various mechanical and technical processes of which I knew nothing about. Although the sketch looked great, it did not communicate how things actually worked. So, to make sure it was accurate, I needed to sketch out each specific process throughout my imaginary village right in front of her. Many processes were so confusing that she actually asked me to come up with solutions on how to make them work. I was now an assistant engineer. This turned into many late night meetings until I felt I finally had enough information to do a revised sketch.

The Never-Ending Project

One week later I presented a second sketch that worked much better. Beth presented it to the CEO and he approved it with only minor edits. After another solid week, I finished the final ink and watercolor art. I was then presented with an onslaught of descriptive captions and was also asked to integrate additional colored arrows, lines, information keys and codes into the illustration. I didn’t think it would take that much time since I could easily do that in Illustrator and overlay it on a scan of the original illustration. I cheerfully agreed (second mistake). I was now painstakingly working in Illustrator, drawing colored lines, bars and arrows and trying to translate Chinese MSWord text using Mac Asian fonts. Not all characters were translating properly and it took forever to find an Asian font set that had all of the characters that I needed. Then it took even more time trying to squeeze English and Chinese captions into an already overcrowded drawing, but I eventually completed every task, and it was final over (or so I thought).

I scheduled a meeting to present the finished art to the Beth and Mr. CEO in person and had expected to meet them in some sleek high-tech office. After finding the address, I arrived at what appeared to be only a temporary residence: a dingy apartment with a computer in the corner. Mr. CEO was an impatient and disrespectful old man/scientist with limited social skills who proceeded to make changes on the final. I mentioned that the job was finished based on his sign-off and that any additional changes would be billed at my hourly rate. He became angry and asked me how long it would take. I said up to 10 hours or more, but was not sure. He snapped a few remarks at me, but said OK. It was back to the drawing board and I hated my life again. It became the job that wouldn’t leave (but at least I was getting paid for it this time).

After taking more than 10 hours to make the changes, Beth asked me to enlarge the size horizontally to accommodate about 12 paragraphs of bi-lingual descriptive text, because the final art was looking so cluttered and confusing. I made the adjustments and capped my time at 15 hours because I did not want to make “The Boss” angry again. I drew up the invoice and it was finished. Then, Beth asked me to burn 4 CDs and make 15 color printouts for the client, which took several more hours. Sometimes, I’m just too accommodating, but it was finally over and they owed me over $2500.

I arranged a meeting with Beth at a location other than the scary temporary residence to exchange the art for payment. She called last minute and said she couldn’t make it to that location and that we should meet at the scary residence instead. I finally freaked. “It’s a Communist plot”, I thought. “They are luring me to this rattrap to steal my drawing, wrap me up in duct tape and throw me into the river…without paying me”. I called my wife to give her the address where I would last be seen, then proceeded to the meeting. I left the original art in my car and brought only the CDs with me (some leverage, just in case). I entered the building and seriously did not know what to expect when I walked through the elevator door. As I entered the “office”, there were no terrorist thugs waiting for me, just Beth and Mr. CEO. I felt like an idiot when I said I wanted the check first before I handed over the drawing. They both sneered but, hey, you never know. I worked so hard on this piece and I wasn’t going down without getting paid. We made the exchange, said our goodbyes and I went to cash the check as soon as I could.

What did we learn today?

Here are a few more tips that will hopefully make your next job a more pleasant experience:

1. See Part One for Review. I always make the same mistakes at lease twice, so it helps to look back and see what you missed.

2. Don’t Be Too Nice. Beth was a great account person and we had fun at our late night party spots, but I was too accommodating (I did a lot of stuff for free). You will need to judge for yourself how much you are willing to give away in the name of “customer service”

3. It’s OK to Ask for Payment Upfront. I know this can feel awkward, but unless the client is established with reliable payment schedules, I make it a policy that first-timers pay half up front and the balance upon delivery of the job. Net 30 terms come with the second job.

My house now has a fresh coat of paint, and is one of the more colorful homes on our street. It’s an inspiration for me to keep at it, because the rewards of a design career far outweigh the challenges.

Read Part One of From Dream to Nightmare here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Design Careers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.