Learning When To Say No

I was approached by my director and was asked if I would be interested in illustrating a children’s book. I was very excited to hear this because it’s on my bucket list of things I want to do in life. I told him I was interested and I was soon contacted by the client. The client introduced me to another artist who I would collaborate with to help me design and complete the book. However, as she was briefing I was unamused by the information she was giving us. From the beginning, she was asking for too much work to be completed in such a little time frame. I was contacted by her on a Wednesday afternoon and was asking for us to complete a 48-page children’s book by that Saturday. I spoke with my collaborator privately and addressed my concerns, after that we both agreed and told the client we could not work within that time frame, for us to effectively create a children’s book in a reasonable amount of time would be at least 3 weeks. The client told us she would get back to us within the next 48 hours. In the meantime, I created a spreadsheet to keep my collaborator and me on track and made a Pinterest mood board for inspiration. She came back and told us that she could only extend the time frame to one week. I was saddened to hear the news. I currently have other priorities in my life right now and I genuinely would not have the time to complete such a project. I parted ways with the client and my collaborator soon followed. I went back to my director and asked for another project to work on. I was told to design a Newsletter Cover for May.