#dearartdirector

Anonymous - it's okay to ask for deadline extensions!!! In the future, if you're on a tight deadline, ask the AD to respond to you within a certain timeframe. For example, "In order to meet the deadline of (DATE), I need feedback from you by (DATE). Looking forward to hearing the team's thoughts on these sketches." That way, you're letting the AD know what YOU need in order to meet the deadline. It's a polite way of putting the ball in their court.

If they don't send feedback by the date you asked for, a good AD will offer you a deadline extension. If they don't, it's okay to ask for one. "Because of the delay in receiving feedback, a deadline extension on this would be really helpful for me. Would it be possible to move it back to Monday?" An extension might not always be possible, but it doesn't hurt to ask. A good AD will not think less of you for asking. An AD who takes forever to respond, won't budge on the deadline, and gets mad at you for asking, is a crummy AD.

-Agent Thumbnail

Is it normal? Depends on what you mean by “normal” and let me elaborate...

Is it “normal” as in are they right? No. It’s not right that a collaborator should immediately jump to accusations when an artist asks to alter a contract or adjust a working agreement. I don’t know enough specifics here to know whether they could pay you more or if they could have worked out limited licensing terms that worked for everyone, but regardless the answer is not to fly off the handle with threats.

Is it “normal” as in does this kind of thing happen frequently? Yes. There’s a few things at play here. 

A) Intellectual Property Law is very confusing and intricate and instead of admitting that they don’t understand the nuances, people with insecure egos try to intimidate other folks into backing down. 

B) The Restaurant Biz is full of these types of toxic egos, and depending on whether you were dealing with the food folks or the book folks directly that could be a factor. If they are a legit publisher they should have been able to explain their stance on rights to you, and either there would have been room to negotiate or not, but it shouldn’t have been an anger-causing situation. Lots of companies have perfectly understandable reasons for wanting the rights they do, and they should be able to explain why. That’s why I suspect either you were dealing with an inexperienced publisher or directly dealing with the restaurant side folks.

C) Our society, especially in the US/UK, where I am assuming this happened, has steadily underfunded and eroded not only Arts education but also the role of Artists in society. Thus the knee-jerk responses that Artists are always going to be poor and lazy. This is so prevalent that even creative folks themselves sometimes internalize this hatred and it lashes out at other creatives. I see this all the time when Artists are furious if anyone steals their work but are infuriated by the idea that they should be paying to use the music behind their time-lapse videos (just a recent example). That instant fury is a clue that someone is not reasoning rationally, that you’ve tripped over some internalized bullshit. Unfortunately you’re not their therapist and the best way to deal with that is not work with them again.

All in all, the answer you’re really looking for is yes, you were right and justified in discussing terms and even if you were asking for wildly too much, or if you did not understand the business situation (I’m not saying you did, just saying worst case scenario) it should have started a conversation not be responded to with threats and intimidation.

In industries where the final product is going to print, the general rules are:

1— Work in RGB, at at least 300dpi at double the printed size (or 600dpi at double the size) unless otherwise noted. Deliver in RGB. The folks in-house are going to convert to CMYK to their profiles set and synced with whatever printer they’re using, and that can vary wildly. Also, everything that’s print still ends up online to sell on a website or post on social and the colors always look better in RGB.

FYI: if you have someone ask you to deliver in CMYK, or you’re going to send something to a printer yourself, keep it RGB until the very last moment, then group it and convert the group to a smart object. This will preserve the layers, but look like it’s been flattened. You can convert that file to CMYK, but if you double click the Smart Object then all the RGB layers are editable. Magic! Obviously this is in Photoshop, but the other programs have versions of this as well.

2 – You can ask what general color profile they’re using, there’s a ton built into most art programs, and all adobe programs. But honestly, there’s so much color correction done in house before something goes tot he printer that we don’t expect an illustrator to know. You have to set DMAX (Maximum Ink Density) depending on what paper and lamination you’re using. Then you also have to know matte lam makes things tend pink, gloss lam makes things tend towards yellow and more contrast. The grittier the matte coating the less dense the blacks, etc etc. In other words, it’s fine to ask, but the answer is probably going to be “don’t worry about it, work in RGB” because you’d never expect to send something from a freelancer straight in the same file to the printer.

—Agent KillFee

If this is a picture book, then having the illustrator’s name and bio (but not necessarily photo) is standard. If this is just a book cover, then usually the illustrator’s name is mentioned on the back cover and the copyright page, nothing more. If the case is the latter, and the client is still insisting on your photo and bio, politely let them know that that’s not “industry standard.”

If this is a picture book or a graphic novel or something, well, it IS industry standard to include the illustrator’s name, and if you insist on being anonymous then you’re the one making things weird. That’s like asking your date not to tell anyone that you’re dating. They will, understandably, be insulted.

The good news is that, unless this book goes viral or becomes a bestseller, it isn’t going to define your career. You don’t have to put any of this work in your portfolio or post about it on social media. (Unless that’s part of your contract.) Having one project out there in a different style won’t determine your career forever, but you’ll have to course-correct by producing new portfolio pieces that ARE in your preferred style. Eventually the “a bit weird” book will drop down in the Google search results and in your memory, like that person you once dated who was also “a bit weird” and you’d prefer to forget.

-Agent Thumbnail

IT DOES! THANK YOU.

Seriously, folks. 2020 is hard. For everyone. And so many people are scared & angry & taking it out on people on social media. Unfortunately people are much more likely (about 10x more likely) to post negative comments than positive ones, even if they feel positively about more things. So take a moment, go out and send someone a positive comment or note when you can. It’ll make social media a kinder place.

—All Agents

Well that certainly does not seem sustainable!   To me, it sounds like either a very inexperienced team, or a stakeholder with a lot of power changing their minds about what they want.  If this is something they do a lot, it won’t be the first time an artist has left mid-project.  Who knows, maybe they’re used to in-house artists who can iterate eternally if salaried. 

What does your contract say? Depending on your contract, you might need to consider this a hard lesson learned and not be paid at all. Some contracts have a maximum number of revisions before additional compensation is required, but many do not.  In either case, letting them know that you are out of time to work on the project and will need to stop work now if the original brief and style requirements are changing abruptly is not unprofessional.  Be respectful with your phrasing, and you should be fine. If you are feeling especially generous, compromise with “I can make the following alteration, but then I’m done regardless of approval state”. and leave it up to them. 

Sometimes projects spiral, and especially if the vision and direction keep switching, sometimes leaving a project is necessary. It happens. Be proud of yourself for recognizing the situation and doing what you need to!

-Agent Critique

For brand new shiny ADs, absolutely! If you could do everything, you would...do....well, you wouldn’t have the time to do EVERYTHING. But nobody (nobody reasonable, anyways) expects an administrator to be an expert in all areas they administrate, especially at first!  

I should qualify this with saying that the phrase “Art Director” means something different for every industry, and darn near every company and studio. Since you’re dealing with both 2D and 3D I’m assuming you’re in video games or animation, so Imma roll with generally how those industries are put together.

As no doubt you’ve discovered by now (and so many new ADs are surprised at this), there is often very little art making in art direction. It is, very VERY often, a COMPLETELY different skillset from creating art.  (Congratulations on surviving your first year of flinging your body on the most dangerous metaphorical fire to put it out, hey!) Most Art Directors spend the majority of their time communicating, clarifying, and mediating the big picture vision and things like timeline expectations and budgets with the other teams and the stakeholders to manage expectations and clear obstacles so your people can do their jobs without all that back and forth getting underfoot. You’re an ambassador, the voice of your team to other teams, and the voice of everyone else to your team.

Because of that, clarity of communication, being able to define the goalpost and not keep moving it, not necessarily the technical knowledge of how to do every little thing, is what is required of you. So it sounds like you’ve got a leg up; an AD who listens to their team is a great thing!   

-Agent Critique

We get a lot of questions here about price lists and such, and the problem with price lists is not that IT’S A BIG SECRET (which is what everyone thinks) it’s just that pricing is complicated. It’s a Venn diagram of what size the company is, how experienced you are, and how much time there is to do the job. That’s why we can’t spit out prices easily, and why all “Standard Pricing Manuals” never really help all that much. There’s too much variation. If I knew what company it was, what your work was, and what the deadline was, I could ballpark you a number, but we can’t just toss prices out into the void, they’re not really useful.

—Agent Moneypenny