Deadlines

I fist became acquainted with deadlines working as a manager for Jab Art Enterprises.

Every job we shipped had a tight deadline that could not be missed. Work crews would most often be at the destination site and scheduled to hang the art on a specific date. 

Year in and out I hit those dates though many times I might be the last one there, loading a truck at 11:00 at night.

Later as the art director at Jack Nightingale Artworks I was responsible for scheduling our workload and getting the art out on time and also making sure it was good art. 

The business JNA was in is competitive and there was always lots of good art for the buyers to choose from.

Glacier Point Illustration by M Francis McCarthy Copyright Jack Nightingale Artworks

I never missed a deadline at JNA in the thirteen years I was there and we put out some great stuff on razor thin time margins. 

Deadlines can actually stimulate good work even though time is tight. I feel that this is because our subconscious mind becomes more fully engaged in an emergency situation and works double time to provide us with needed answers quickly. 

The ability to access that part of our minds when it would help most is one thing that separates the winners from the losers in commercial art. Personally, I found it annoying when the other artist there Rico would tell me that I could receive art from him fast or I could have it good. 

What utter bollocks and completely untrue. 

I saw the work that other artists were doing in our field and I knew damn well from chatting with some of them at trade shows like Magic in Las Vegas, that their schedules were just as full and the times just as tight as in our art department. 

I'll blog a bit about Magic some other time but for now I'll say that its the worlds largest apparel trade show and that I attended it every year from 2000 to 2009.

If your looking to produce more work and of an often higher quality, set yourself some deadlines and stick to them. 

You'll be amazed at what you can accomplish. 

Also if you, like Rico thinks it can be fast or good, hopefully I've disabused you of that misguided attitude and you can now start getting the art out a bit quicker and stop farting around.

Cheers,

A bit about "Glacier Point": This is illustration number 1001 I did of Yosemite's Half dome .. Just kidding, but I did illustrate half-dome at least 100 times in different ways, shapes and colors. 

I was always fond of this design. I think the illustration is real nice and I also like what Jack did with the type here. Jack was and probably still is great with type. We could be a great team as he was strong with design and I was with illustration. 

Unfortunately, sometimes he would lay some real stinky designs that I'd be forced to send out. He was the "Creative Director" after all, not to mention being one of the owners of the business. 

I did my best to polish those turds...