Commissioned Work

Here is a design I was commissioned to do last week for a woman who had advertised on the Cafepress forum that she needed a graphic designer for a t-shirt design she had in mind. I replied to her post and after a few exchanged e-mails and negotiated price, I offered to do it and she accepted.

In one of her e-mails, she described in detail what the design was that she had in mind. Her literary agent was taking a bunch of his clients on a retreat and she wanted 30 t-shirts for the event in two weeks.

Her concept was to do a caricature cartoon character of her agent, standing in a wide stance, clutching a fistful of money in one hand and cradling a book in the other. She provided me with an attached photo of her agent in an e-mail to do the caricature. He also had to be wearing a utilikilt and sunglasses and she wanted text to read "Secret Agent Man". Also, the name of the book had to be titled, "Pork Rinds On My Mind by Team Barry". If you are like me and wondering what a utilikilt is, have a look here.

After getting all the details, I proceeded to commence designing. I should point out that originally, instead of the book, she wanted a bag of pork rinds. I had already designed the bag when she e-mailed with the design change. Fortunately this was not a huge revision and I was easily able to make the switch. Because of her vivid description, I had a good mental image of what I thought she wanted and after a few hours, I had a first draft. My next step was to send her a copy for her (hopefully) approval and to go ahead with placing it on the t-shirts. When I sent her the image, I nervously awaited her reaction. Shortly thereafter, this is the response I received from her:

"OMIGOD I LOVE IT!!!!! It is all I wanted and more. By blind
wonderful luck, we stumbled on JUST the right designer. You rock!!!!"

"Oh, it's absolutely MORE than we hoped for. It's awesome! I'm sure I'll
have you do other fun designs for me in the future, if you're up for it!"

I was real happy that she was really pleased with the design. She did have a couple of small suggested revisions that I happily made and then had a final draft to place on t-shirts. Once the t-shirts were designed, I sent her a private link and by the next day, she ordered 30 t-shirts.

This job was a pleasure to do because the client knew exactly what she wanted and described in vivid detail what it was she wanted. This is extremely important when you need a designer to do a job for you. The more info you provide, the better the chances are you'll get the image you had in mind. Help your designer help you and everyone ends up happy.

If you or anyone you know is in need of a Graphic Designer for any type of job, please feel free to get in contact with me. I would be more than happy to discuss any project ideas you have and my price is always negotiable.