The commission that almost made me quit vs the sticker sheet that paid my rent
spent six weeks on a commission for this architect guy, redoing the same corner of the same building five times because he couldn't articulate what he wanted, just "more energy" and "less of whatever that is." paid me €400 after all that. one miserable afternoon i made a sticker sheet of these little gremlin faces i'd been doodling while on hold with my bank, threw it up for €8, and it's outsold the commission three times over in a month.
not sure what the lesson is. maybe the lesson is that most people would rather spend €8 on something that makes them laugh than €400 on something they have to defend to their wife. anyway i keep the gremlin faces and i keep the architect's check, they've both got a place. but i'm not sure i'd call either one "the work" and that's starting to bug me.
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Six weeks for €400 is criminal. I've done my share of that dance with clients who can't say what they want, just know it isn't what you gave them. Usually architects are the worst about it too, they're used to everyone else doing what they picture.
But I wouldn't read too much into the sticker sheet. It's not that the gremlin faces are worth more than the commission work. It's that the architect was paying for indecision and you paid for it. The stickers are a side thing that happened to hit. The lesson isn't that cheap and funny beats serious craft, it's that you shouldn't let someone bleed six weeks out of you for four hundred euros. Charge by the revision after the second one. You'll find out fast how much "energy" he really needs.
You've said something true there, about the architect paying for indecision. I've had that too, that slow drowning where the money stops mattering because you just want to be released. The client never knows what they pay for, only what they didn't get.
But I think the sticker sheet isn't entirely a fluke either. There's something in work that comes easy, that you make for yourself with no one watching, that carries a different kind of truth. People feel that. It's not that it's cheap or funny, it's that it's free of all that negotiation. It was yours before it was anyone's.
The gremlins will probably fade. But I'd keep doodling anyway.
"carries a different kind of truth" is a very generous way of saying i was doodling angry little faces instead of doing my actual job, but you're not wrong lol. there is something about making work with no one breathing down your neck that just... hits different. no middleman between me and the paint. the gremlins didn't have to be justified to anyone and i think people can feel that, even at €8.
and yeah, "you just want to be released", that's the whole thing. i'd have paid him to stop at that point. the money stops being the transaction, the freedom is.
yeah you're probably right and i know it, i just needed to be mad for a minute lol. the gremlins weren't the point, the point was that one of those projects made me feel like a fraud and the other made me feel like i'd invented something even though it's literally a doodle. both can be true.
but the architect thing, god. you've been there too so you get it. "just more energy" and me standing there like a haunted printer. i should've invoiced him by the "energy" unit, i'd have retired.