The Process of a Commission
We love getting to work on custom commissions for clients and more often than not we get asked how the process works. With that in mind we figured we’d outline the general process of a commission to give an idea of what to expect with a general timeline.
Day 1: First and foremost comes the inquiry. How else are you going to get a commission going? Let’s say that the request for the commission is for a poem in calligraphy. Great! We always need a few more details after the initial inquiry so we’ll respond as quickly as we can with a list of questions and request a phone call. Some questions can include:
How many words in the poem?
Where will this poem live?
How big does it need to be?
Will the end result be in color or black & white?
Would you like us to source the paper to be used?
Day 2: Let’s say you need some time to think this through so you take a day or two to respond. Since you are very committed to this commission, you respond the next day to all the questions and would like to chat the following day to go over details.
Day 3: We have a chat and dive into details of what it is you are looking for. Through our conversation you realize you want to incorporate the color blue and have some gold guilding on a few letters throughout the poem so that it spells “LOVE” if you are only reading the gold letters. A beautiful touch to the piece. With all this information we now have what we need to be able to give you a quote and a turnaround time.
Day 4: Once we compile all the details, we spend some studio time crafting the quote. We look at our schedules to see who will be working on the piece and how it fits in to the three to four open commissions we generally have open along with our event performances. It takes us a couple of days to respond with your customized quote.
Day 5: We send over the quote by email and you agree to it! We are all excited to get this beautiful piece of art work going for your loved one! Our standard turnaround time is two weeks which works great for you because you don’t need this immediately. If you did, we would look at our schedule and let you know how soon we could have it done for you. This would incur a rush fee anywhere from 25% to 100% depending on how soon you need it versus our availability.
Days 6 - 20: Throughout the process of working on your commission we’ll first send over a few concepts of the direction we can go with your artwork. Once we agree on a concept, we’ll flush the idea out a bit more to make sure we are on the same page. After we are all in agreement, we’ll put pen to paper (and gold in this case) and complete the commission.
Day 21: We’ll send the commission out to you via your preferred mail carrier.
Day 24: You receive your heartfelt commission that we were very honored to have worked on!
I hope this helps give an idea what it looks like for a commission to go from start to finish. Commissions are honestly some of our most appreciated types of work because of the meaning they come with. Having our clients frame our artwork and send us images of it makes what we do so meaningful to us. If you are interested in exploring what we can do with commissions please reach out, we’d love to talk!
