Successful Craft Commissions – 2024

succcessful craft Commissions online course – tuesdays 7 may + 21 may + 4 june + 3 live creative interviews

Commissions are one of the best opportunities for designers, makers, visual artists & print makers – creatively, financially & personally.

Commissions are a great opportunity … to create more unique work at a higher price point, using your best skills, and to get paid upfront! To create a truly unique item, often very personal and meaningful to the customer or to be shown in public spaces, offices or museums, is truly amazing.

But … many creatives find it difficult to promote themselves to get those better commissions, to get paid properly for their time and talent, and to organise themselves, their clients and their commissioning projects.

Why? Because managing creative commissioning doesn’t get taught at art schools. In fact there are very few books or courses around this important topic! We launched this practical and in-depth online course 3 years ago and it was very popular. Many of our students went on to get much better commissions and to manage and present themselves better and much more confidently. Yes, this course pays itself back really quickly!

This 12-hour onlinecourse consists of 3 core online workshops spread over one month, hosted by our director Patricia van den Akker on marketing, costing & pricing and managing your craft commissions better. Plus, we have invited 3 creatives to share their experience and knowledge in 3 x 1 hour interviews/presentations. A great opportunity to learn from creatives who manage commissions successfully.

If you want to get individual strategic or practical advice about your commissions and process, you can upgrade and get an online coaching/advice session with Patricia (total 60min) anytime before the end of October.

Can’t make it live? No problem! All sessions are recorded and you will have access to the private course hub until 31 December 2024.

Want to make more of your commissions too? Join our 2024 course below – pay in full or in 3 monthly installments:

The key facts:

• A 12-hour practical online course: 3 x 3hours online workshops on Tue 7 + 21 May and 4 June 2024 (9.30am – 12.30pm UK time) plus 3 x 1-hour expert/creative interviews
• 3 live, online expert workshops in 1 month + 3 interviews in total. All sessions will be recorded and available until 31 December 2024
• Want individual advice? You can upgrade and get a 121 coaching/advice session (60mins) with Patricia by end of October.
• Especially created for: designer makers who want to get better + higher-end craft commissions, charge properly and be more organised.
• Outcome: To have the knowledge + confidence to market yourself better; to charge properly for your time and talent; to have systems in place to manage the commissioning process, yourself and your clients better
• Tutor: Patricia van den Akker, Director of The Design Trust. With 3 successful creatives.
• Time commitment: Depends entirely on your current knowledge level and what you want to achieve in terms of marketing, pricing and management of commissions.

Commissions are truly one of the biggest opportunities for professional creatives, makers, designers, illustrators and visual artists – financially, creatively & personally.

Often with a commission you can charge much more than for your creative products and get paid upfront so they are a great opportunity to make money with fantastically unique work!

But … many creatives struggle to market their commissions, to charge properly for their time and skills, and to manage commissions and their clients, and to set boundaries (especially for themselves!).

Do you want to learn …

How to get better, higher-end commissions? Market yourself, raise your profile, find the right people or organisations who commission?

How to create proposals, tenders or financial quotes for potential creative commissions?

How to get paid for your development time? And charge properly for all the time you put into commissions?

How to avoid problems with difficult clients? How to get them to share their budget or commit? How to stay in touch? Set boundaries?

The problem is … there are very few books, courses or resources about how to market, organise & price creative commissions.

Three years ago we at The Design Trust decided to create this new practical online course (12 hours in total, spread over one month) to help creatives do just that: get better commissions, be more professional and organised, and price properly for their time and work!

PLUS we asked three creatives to talk about how they work with customers and create professional commissions.

We also share very useful tools such as a financial forecast template in Excel, examples of design briefs and financial proposals, terms & conditions, useful commissioning resources, and more! You can download these and adapt them for your own situation … saving you a lot of hassle, time & tears!

“successful craft commissions” – 3 x 3 hour online workshops + 3 creative interviews

This practical online course will be hosted by Patricia van den Akker, the Director of The Design Trust, on Tuesday 7 & 21 May and 4 June. The 3 bonus interviews with experts & creatives will be held in May – mid June.

online Workshop 1: Introduction to commissions & fundamental marketing – Tuesday 7 MAY 9.30am – 12.30pm (UK time)

• AN INTRODUCTION TO COMMISSIONS:
• What is a commission? What’s the difference between personalisation and commissions? What makes commissions special or different from creating a product or art work?
• Why are commissions such a great financial & creative opportunity for creatives? And what are the advantages and disadvantages of commissions?
• And … why do YOU want to do commissions? What’s your motivation and goal when it comes to commissions? Let’s start a plan with your clear goals!
• FUNDAMENTAL MARKETING FOR COMMISSIONS:
• Who are your potential commissioning clients? Who commissions & how can you identify potential commissioning clients (individuals & businesses)? What’s their motivation to commission, and why is that important to know?
• Where to find individuals or businesses who commission? We will share some very useful resources of where to find commissions.
• FAQ: How to get your first commission? Where to start if you don’t have a lot of experience or profile (yet)?
• The pro & cons of working with a ‘middleman’, such as a gallery or agent.
• How to position yourself for higher end commissions. With specific tips to sell to rich clients. (Oh, this is fun and soooo useful!)
• During and after this session you will start to create your own commissioning action plan, with specific steps for you to work on your marketing. You can share your actions with us in the private course hub for additional feedback + accountability!

• HOMEWORK: Start a list of potential commissioners. Our marketing mantra ‘People only buy from people they know, like & trust’ is essential if you want to get more and better commissions. What will you do to build your profile, credibility & trust with the right people? An important first marketing step!

online workshop 2: marketing commissions, onboarding & common mistakes – tuesday 21 may 9.30am – 12.30pm (UK)

• MARKETING COMMISSIONS:

• Patricia will share 14 (!) creative opportunities to market yourself & your commissioning services. Really practical marketing tools and specific marketing activities to promote your commissions to potential clients, including how to use SEO/keywords, case studies, email marketing, blog posts, PR and other creative marketing tools to get better creative commissions. All with great examples of case studies and pitch letters. Throughout this workshop you will be creating your own marketing action plan to get better & more commissions.
  • The importance of following up after the commission, how to get great testimonials and stay in touch with clients to get potentially more or bigger commissions in the future.  Repeat business and word-of-mouth is key with commissions!
  • ONBOARDING:
  • Create a friendly but effective onboarding process in 6 steps for your commissions and create a pipeline. This is partly marketing and partly professional customer care, but will also help you to become more effective and organised and manage your time better, stop the time-wasters and get paid for your design concepts!
  • COMMON MISTAKES:
  • This session will finish with the most common mistakes & problems with managing commissions; how to help your clients make decisions and stay in touch, so you won’t have to worry if they will like it at the end of the process! This will help you to get ready for our final workshop on finances & organisation.
  • Again, you will create your own commissioning action plan, that you can share in our private course hub for additional feedback and accountability.

• HOMEWORK: Create or improve a commissioning page on your website + write and publish 3 commissioning case studies. Share with us on the private course hub for additional feedback.

Workshop 3: How to manage commissions professionally & charge properly – tuEsday 4 JUNE 9.30am – 12.30pm (UK).

• HOW TO MANAGE COMMISSIONS PROFESSIONALLY:

• How to organise your commissions and set boundaries for yourself & your clients.
• Patricia will take you step-by-step through the 4 stages of the creative commissioning process, which will help you to break down the project for your own time management, and help you to create more accurate financial forecasts and commissioning proposals.
• COSTING, PRICING AND THE PAPERWORK FOR COMMISSIONS:
• How to charge properly for your commissions with 6 different pricing strategies. You will create a financial forecast, terms & conditions, and a financial proposal, and learn how to avoid the biggest pricing mistake … !)
• How to create a design brief, internal financial forecast, a quote/proposals, and terms & conditions. Patricia will share examples of each with you that you can download & use for your own commissions.
• FAQ: How to make money from small commissions? (below £1,000?)
• FAQ: How & when to talk about money and the budget with your client openly & more confidently (or find out what their budget is) and get paid upfront. How to negotiate with your client at the start of the commission.
• We will talk about the legal stuff around commissions, including contracts, insurance, copyright & licensing, health & safety.
• And you will finish creating your commissioning action plan.

3 BONUS INTERVIEWS WITH CREATIVES & COMMISSIONERS

The 3 online core workshops of 3 hours each, hosted by our Director Patricia van den Akker will give you the theoretical foundation of how to promote, price and manage your craft & creative commissions better.

But you will learn so much from successful creatives who will share their knowledge and experience with you! We are really excited that as part of this course we have invited ..

Hanny Newton, a contemporary hand embroidery artist who explores a contemporary approach to historical goldwork techniques that date back 800 years! She works from her studio in the North Shropshire Borders and specialises in large scale interior projects, with recent projects including commissions in Serbia, America and London.  In 2022 she won one of the QEST Scholarships.

In this presentation Hanny will share in detail how she has created new planning systems and paperwork in her business since doing this course two years ago. She made some big changes, and now earns much more and works a little less hard. Very insightful.

We have also invited furniture maker Nick James to talk about his commissions, and how he promotes and manages multiple projects at once. He will talk to us on Tuesday 11 June from 1-2pm (UK time).

Further speakers will be announced shortly.

At the end of this course you will:

• Know where and how to find potential commissioning clients, and how to approach them professionally and creatively.
• Have started to create your own marketing action plan to get better and more commissions, with specific strategic improvements in positioning yourself, and practical marketing activities to get more commissions.
• Know exactly how to create a financial forecast, proposal & quote for a potential commission.
• Be more confident in promoting yourself and charging properly for commissions.
• Know how to avoid the most common commissioning mistakes, including how to get paid upfront, and how to avoid that people ask you to copy a more established creative at a low cost (very cheeky! And not ethical at all!)
• Learnt from other creatives & experts about how to promote, take on & manage commissions.
• Have access to useful downloadable templates (for design briefs, financial forecasts, time sheets), handy checklists and a list with commissioning resources to make your commissions more professional and easier for you to manage.

This course will give you a lot of really practical advice to get better and more commissions, and it will save you a lot of time too!

Who is this course for?  

This short online course (of one month – 12 hours in total) is extremely useful and has been created especially for designer makers and crafts people, but is also suitable for visual artists, photographers, print makers, illustrators etc who want to get more or better creative commissions, charge better fees and manage their commissions better.

You might be a creative who is thinking seriously about taking commissions on in the near future, or you might already do commissions but want to become more professional, reposition yourself or charge more.

Note that this course is especially aimed at craft & creative commissions whereby a ‘product’ or art piece will be created for an individual or business, rather than commissioning of design services such as interior design projects, editorial illustration work or graphic design/branding projects. Although much of the advice might be relevant for these design services projects too.

This course will focus mostly on private & corporate commissions rather than public art commissions, which are often much larger in scale and scope and have much more legal and health & safety issues.     

faq click the question to get the answer on these common questions about the course

• I am a very new creative. Is this course for me?

  This course is aimed at both creatives who are new but serious about wanting to do craft & creative commissions, and creatives who have done commissions already, but want to improve the marketing, organisation and financial side of their commissions.

  However, if you are a very new business then it might not be very realistic to take on big commissions. How ready you are to start taking on commissions is up to you … and of course we all have to start somewhere!

  Doing this course might help you to learn from ‘best practice’ example of how to promote yourself, build your profile, credibility, how to charge for your time and how to organise yourself and your commissions.

  This course will save you a lot of time, money, energy and will help you to become a more professional creative sooner as you will learn from creatives and experts, rather than having to learn from your own mistakes.

• I can’t make it live on the course. Is that a problem?

  No, not at all!

  The 3 live workshops with Patricia and the creative interviews will all be recorded, and you will get access to our private course hub till 31 December 2024 to access the recordings of the 3 workshops and the expert/creative interviews, the presentations, homework exercises and the useful downloads.

• What about design or surface pattern commissions from businesses?

  Great question!

  This course focuses especially on craft and ‘art product related’ commissions e.g. where a unique art work or piece of jewellery will be created, rather than a design service.

  However we believe that many parts of this course might also be relevant to you if you provide design or creative services to businesses, especially the marketing and the management parts.

• Can I get extra individual advice or support?

  Yes you can!

  If you join this Successful Craft Commissions course then you can upgrade to book a 60mins private & confidential online expert coaching & advice session with Patricia.

  You can then ask any questions, share your financial proposal or quote, or discuss your marketing materials or website, or any other aspect of your commissioning process with her. This session will need to be booked by end of October 2024. Note that once you have started the course there are no refunds, incl. your coaching session.

• Can I get a discount?

  Money a little tight at the moment?

  We offer a 15% discount off this workshop to all our Business Club members (see the Business Club homepage or the weekly emails for details)

  You can join our Business Club today and get access to over 180+ online recordings on a wide range of small business topics – for details about our Business Club click here.

  We share the discount code that you need to use on The Business Club homepage.

  Please note that you can also pay in 3 monthly installments – one today, one in 30 days’ time, and one in 60 days’ time.

• Can I share this course with a friend, students or with colleagues?

  Sorry, you can’t.

  When you purchase this course it’s for you only. You purchase a license for one person.

  If you work in a partnership with one partner then you can share it, but please do not share with others who have not paid for this course.

  Like you, The Design Trust is a small creative business and this specialist course is based on our 25 years+ experience. It’s full of our proprietary knowledge and copyrighted strategies from ourselves and the 3 creatives.

  Please do not share it with others. You wouldn’t like it either if somebody would steal your copyright. If we find out that you have shared this content without permission then we will immediately remove you from the course and we will not allow you to join any future courses.

  If you infringe our copyright then we will take appropriate legal action against you.

  We can provide access to this workshop in bulk or as a group course. Get in touch with us at [email protected] to find out more.

• Can I get a refund if it’s not for me?

  Yes! We want you to be completely happy with your purchase. That means that if you decide this course isn’t for you, then you can claim a full refund any time before Tue  7 May 2024 at 9.30am (UK) when the course starts.

  All you have to do is request your refund in writing to [email protected] before that date.

  If you suspect you might change your mind about this workshop, then please make a careful note of the date.

  Once we have started the first session we are unable to give you a refund on the course or your upgrade for private coaching.

  Remember that if you are unable to attend the live sessions or if you have any technical or digital issues then you can catch up with the recordings in our private course hub till 31 December 2024.