I get an email on Tuesday in the wee-hours, it’s a work related email at 7:15am. (I know, I suck for checking my email that early) I’m thinking to myself, WTH? Nobody ever emails me that early and to top it off I went to sleep some time between 3:30-4am that morning. Yeah, them late nights kill me, but it is what it is. Somebody’s gotta keep the info flowin’. Things gotta get done, right? So anyways, the email was from the BOSS, not my Creative Director, not the Project Managers—I’m talking about the guy that pays him, and me and everyone else that shows up to work. I was pretty surprised seeing as I never really communicate with him. The company is pretty small, but it’s always just “Hi” and “How ya doing?” when we pass eachother in the hallway or on the street. The email was fairly simple and straight forward:
The most important part of the email:
“Do you have any time today to work on a rush project for me?…”
Uh…who the hell ever says “No.” Of course I had time. Anyone in their right mind and not strung out on crack would make time. So, I obviously felt some pressure going in to work to discuss the project he wanted me to contribute to. My assumptions going into “rush projects” are always that:
1. It’s due by End of Day Not tomorrow morning or the next day. Not concepts or sketches or ideas. I’m talking full color, in layout, near finished with a couple of different color options for EACH concept.
2. It needs to be different (creatively) than what the other designers have had a couple of weeks to come up with. That’s always tough because by now they had gone thru a number of concepts and revisions and coming in this late stacks up against you.
That’s never really any fun. As he sits there describing the project, the mandates, the client requests, the guidelines, along with an abbreviated briefing of the ultimate goal and the fluidity with which this all needed to be executed, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed. I mean, WTF was I gonna come up with in 6.5 hours?!
At times like that, some work well under the stress, others simply crack. Luckily, this time around I wasn’t wearing my Humpty Dumpty suit and I wasn’t falling off the wall. After a couple of hours things started crackin’. By end of day I had submitted something that the BOSS was more than pleased with…YeeeEEE! I included a detail shot for the post image. You like?…My BOSS did, so I guess that’s all that matters.
Later,
GREEDY
Newborn Apple™
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