Thursday, October 18, 2007

Most Challenging Project

Amy sounds like she had quite an experience with that mural project! My most challenging project was quite the opposite actually - it was very small! Over the years I've done a number of local and state level assignments for various magazines and organizations. About 8 years ago, I had an assignment for a campaign for veterinarians which sounded like a blast! I was to illustrate a scene for their "Vets to the Future 2000" campaign and show a couple of vets with a couple of vets taking off in a Jetson-like spaceship. Sounds like fun, right? Well, it was and I loved my initial drawing. But the client decided that they wanted more pets...OK, so I added a few more pets. Then they wanted more vets...getting crowded now but fine, I added more vets. Now, keep in mind this was not for a poster or anything like that. This image was to be used on things like stationary, meaning it would be reproduced very small!Then they decided they wanted to see the inside of the "spaceship" including knobs and buttons while showing several vets, many pets, and everyone's faces even though now they would be taking off away from the viewer... ?! I tried to explain that by having soooo much detail in this drawing that it would look cluttered, busy, and confusing after being printed so very small. Needless to say they did not care, they wanted what they wanted and so I finally was able to come up with something that they loved... but I hated!! So my solution for future issues that come up like this? Make sure you know exactly what the client is looking for before you begin and before you get yourself into something that will drive you nuts! :)

-Gina

3 comments:

Ginger*:) said...

Gina... an incredible story. I cannot even imagine such a project. And I agree with your last statement...make sure you know what you are stepping into before you get stuck where you don't want to be.

But good for you for finishing it....and learning from it too!

Amy C. Moreno said...

Gina,
Yikes...sounds like a story in the making.."Too Many Pets" or Too Many Pets and Vets" That is crazy to try to cram in so much into one image. It sounds like they just didn't know what they wanted, and decided to try to have it all. What a hard thing to work on.

Kathleen Rietz said...

That's funny! I mean, horrible, but also funny because I can relate. I have also worked for people who visualize in fragments - or simply cannot visualize - and expect a miracle from us artists! Oh, I feel your pain! Uuuggghhhh.... Wish you had posted the final product. I'd love to see how that all looked.