When working with a client on a commission it is vital to communicate clearly to each other otherwise there will be a lot of confusion and mixed messages. Often if a company is in experienced with working with illustrators there will be a lack of communication and the illustrator might do something that the company didn't exactly want because they didn't communicate clearly enough. Things like this should not happen with commissions because everyone involved has to be 100 percent clearly informed so everyone knows what is going on. For example your employer might want a full book done in 6 months but the illustrator might think that is too much for the time period but if this is not communicated back to the client then the work wont get done and you might not get paid so everything should be made clear from the beginning.
Commissions:
Commissions are very important for illustrators because this is generally how they will make most of their income if they are working free lance. A commission is when someone agrees to pay you to create something for them, they set the brief and all of the correct measurements and formats. It is basically a written down explanation of what the client wants.
Briefs:
This is the document that contains every detail of what the client wants from you. The brief should be read very carefully and constantly referred back to, to make sure you are doing everything that the client asked for. The brief should be clear and if anything on it is mis understood the client should be asked and the issue cleared up straight away.
Contracts:
Another thing that is very important when taking on a big brief is to get a contract written up so that you have a legal bond that can not be broken. this protects the illustrator against getting taken advantage of by companies. contracts should state the amount of work that should be done so the illustrator doesn't end up doing way more than they will get paid for. It also legally insures that you will get paid and if a payment is not made then you have written agreements to back you up. It often happens that an illustrator will do some work without a contract and not get paid at all, you always want to make sure that you can avoid this happening.
Payment :
when taking on a job it is good to ensure there is some kind of payment or deposit before the job actually begins just to ensure that you will receive some sort of money for the work begins. This is because clients often try to get away without paying the full price or the company you are working for could go bankrupt before the project is finished leaving the illustrator with no payment at all.
