gdbee gdbee
5 Feb 2018, 17:59

@smceccarelli Without giving out any specific details, I'll try to describe. Thanks for asking!
I was contacted to illustrate a childrens book by a large publisher. It was super exciting and great timing as I just went freelance in 2016. The career I had before freelance was design-based and I was used to "design by committee" approaches and multiple passes needed, so thought it would be no problem. The art director was incredibly nice and accommodating, but eventually the design by committee was kind of wearing me down, especially with waiting on a reply for weeks and changes to the look of the main character and such almost a year into the project (did not know that it's kind of normal in book publishing). They just weren't liking anything I was putting out and eventually I wasn't liking it either, and that showed. They suggested I just scrap and redo the entire book art from scratch which sounded like a good idea, but there was a major eye surgery coming up and it wouldn't be wise to do it with that going on at the same time, so I asked to be taken off the project. Looking back, it was very embarrassing and I genuinely hope I wasn't a major headache to work with!
Another publisher contacted me a little before and after the surgery was complete, so I used all the knowledge and pitfalls from before to work better with them. Communication and getting feedback was much easier and quicker this time as well. I would say communication from both sides can really make or break a project!