Remember back when you, as an art student, were given an assignment to do a landscape in watercolor, 8X10. Say you did the MOST marvelous 24X30 oil painting of your mother in a colonial kitchen . . . you got on F. The quality of the work was not in question, but you did not follow the assignment specifications. It was nothing personal. It didn’t mean you weren’t incredibly talented or a nice person. It meant you didn’t follow directions. When you are getting paid to solve a visual problem for a client with a deadline you had better follow directions.

Most projects come with a set of guidelines. For trade picture books this may be minimal: a manuscript with the directive to "have fun" and make a 32 page book in perhaps 6 months or a year. Of course there will be a suggested deadline for the thumbnails, one for the sketches and a finish. Eventually, with your help, there will be a trim size, a layout for type placement, color direction, character development, page flow etc. But a good deal of all this may be primarily, and happily, up to you.

The other extreme is a 24 page 7X9 soft cover educational book with tight specific thumbnails already done, specific characters already developed, specific page art boards included, and a very specific six week critical due date that has NO room to move! A long list of "does and don’ts" will come with this: "work at 100-150% but not larger than 8.5x14," "no racism, sexism or violence etc.," "contemporary fashions," "do not sign your name in the art area," "5/16" bleed on all sides," "do not use fluorescent dyes," "text can NOT overprint art" etc. etc. Each and every line of these Guidelines is specific. If you miss anything you jeopardize the client’s satisfaction, project success, payment, and the chance that they’ll EVER call you again.