Art Wortd Coop

"Haley Quinn" © Rebecca Collins / artpaw.com

 Haley Quinn's Project:
This is Miss Haley. She was an amazing fighter and cancer survivor. Sadly she did leave her people for the rainbow bridge while I was working on her project.  I am very honored to have been given the opportunity to create some artwork for this sweet and pretty girl.  Before I started on this project I mocked up a quick layout of the first photograph sent over, erasing the background. The client decided she wanted me to work with a full body photo since her girl's 3-legs are an important part of her story and who she is. She sent the photo above over and I started again, you can see the first proofing round by clicking here. I think I did a pretty good job on the artwork part of the project, but things went awry on ship day.

I Make Mistakes:
I am feeling very bad today because we ( I ) dropped the ball with an address change on this print and it has gone to the client's California home and not the Arizona residence. I called fedex a few times the day it shipped to get it rerouted and it still went to the wrong location. They are trying to get a driver out there today to pick it back up and send it to the correct address.  I hate it when I mess up and I do my best to make things right as quickly as possible. I did promise my client that if anything goes wrong while the package  is in limbo we will reprint and reship quickly free of charge.  Clients often finalize or change their shipping addresses by e-mail when they approve and I do usually double check for changes before I hand off the paper work to Lola. I just totally dropped the ball and then fedex dropped the ball with me.  Hopefully they will  reroute today as originally requested.  My client is being very understanding and very patient, but I still feel terrible. Such an important project and I fumbled at the end.

What To do Going Forward:
I think this is a sign that I need to slow down, and quit trying to turn things around so fast with so many clients.  Either that or I need a better system for proof approvals. Maybe I should look into web forms and create one where my client types in their approval number and then types in their address a final time. That web-form gets printed out and handed off to Lola before she stretches and ships.  Something like that might work.  I know a lot of artists have like 3 or 4 month turn-arounds on commissions, but I think that would totally kill my business. I am just going to have to get better at the office management side of things. It needs to become a top priority and I need to look at it as a creative challenge.