During the eight years I’ve been a professional organizer, I’ve learned that every person has their own unique organizing style. Creative people are especially known for having a non-traditional approach to organizing.
Today I’m going to explore this theme by interviewing a caricature artist, Victor Dorobantu.
GERALIN: Welcome, Victor! Would you mind telling us how your studio is organized?
VICTOR: I am VERY organized. Three years of military service will do that to anybody! My friends say that I am too organized, but I like to be that way. I take everything I do very seriously and have no time or space to waste. I have 106 subfolders in my email. I have over 50 rules set up to filter and direct every sent and received email to its specific folder. I can find almost any email I sent or received in the past 5 years in a matter of minutes.
I learned to keep a copy of EVERYTHING from my father. He was an old school diplomat and a big believer in “you never know when you’re going to need it”.
I have a copy of every order I have ever done for a customer. I backup my emails since I first had email. I have 10 boxes of paid bills from the past 8 years in my attic.
Having to archive thousands of files and being able to easily find them if needed, I came up (from start) with an alphanumeric system that allows me to know (by the order number) what kind of order it is and the source of the order.
The first letter in an order number stands for the order type (B for business card, P for postcard, M for magnet, L for logo, S for single – one person caricature, C for a couples caricature, G for a group caricature, P for a pet caricature etc). The letter is followed by a sequential number that started with 0001 (my first order) and it ends with another letter that stands for the source of the order (M for MyCaricature.com, U for UCaricature.com, CO for CaricatureOnline.com etc). For example, on order number B2768CO, B stands for business card; it is my 2768th order, and was placed on CaricatureOnline.com (CO).
GERALIN: Please tell us about your work environment.
VICTOR: I run my business and my website from my studio/home office in South Windsor, CT. I work with 9 artists (as of today) and I don’t have much time to “be the creative one” myself. A couple of years ago when the business really took off in a pleasant but unexpected way I needed help and started to look for it. In less than a month I had 3 freelancers working for me almost full time. I then realized that my experience in marketing is far more important than sitting at the “drawing board” and since then I hired more artists and designers.
GERALIN: I’m sure my readers would also like to learn about your work as a caricature artist. Can you describe how people want you to correct or highlight what Mother Nature gave them – is that difficult?
VICTOR: In many cases my customers want their caricatures to be cute and funny with little or absolutely no exaggeration of their features. This is what differentiates MyCaricature.com from most caricature artists. We don’t want to insult our customers, we want to make them feel flattered.
GERALIN: How do you decide on background colors, objects and body positioning?
VICTOR: When we receive custom caricature orders the customers are very specific (sometimes too specific) about how the caricature should be drawn. Sometimes I wish they would let our imagination and creativity do this for them and I enjoy when I am being told “do whatever you think looks good,” but that doesn’t happen much.
GERALIN: Do you always start with the same feature? In other words, do you always draw from the top down? Starting with the forehead and working down to the eyes, nose, mouth?
VICTOR: Caricatures are always starting with the head. It is the most important part of a drawing, and it takes longer than anything else. As soon as the head is done, the body is drawn and placed over the background. Digital caricatures are much easier to work with, just because of the ability to work in layers. That is the reason for the much shorter turnaround time on a digital caricature as opposed to a hand drawn one.
GERALIN: How do you know when to stop? When are you finished?
VICTOR: Stop? I don’t know what it means to stop. Finish? I go to bed when I am close to falling asleep on my keyboard. My customers are amazed how sometimes they receive an email from me at 11 pm and a follow up email at 4:30 in the morning. I believe in hard work and honestly, I love working. I enjoy every minute of it.
GERALIN: If a business owner hired you to draw all their employees would your primary concern be making the employee or the business owner happy?
VICTOR: Many businesses are ordering group caricatures with their employees; the largest one we drew was for a law firm that requested a 75 people group caricature to be printed on their Christmas cards. The biggest concern is always to make the person paying you happy, and that is usually the person placing the order – the business owner. However, you have to make sure that all subjects are pleased with your work. This type of business is all about word of mouth and every pleased subject becomes your unpaid salesman.
GERALIN: Do you advise people on how to achieve a specific look?
VICTOR: I do. I like to give my input on every order. I love talking to my customers over the phone and sharing my expertise. The better I understand what they want or need, the better the caricature will look. When I deal with business caricatures, or caricature logo projects, very often it happens that the whole idea or concept the customer had suddenly changes to something completely different after a long phone conversation.
GERALIN: What is your background?
VICTOR: My background is graphic design and marketing. A combination that works great for me and my business.
GERALIN: What are your favorite illustrators/artists/museums?
VICTOR: Salvador Dali and The Met.
GERALIN: Just for fun now, what is the last song you downloaded on your iPod?
VICTOR: Beggin’ – by Madcon.
GERALIN: What kind of phone do you use?
VICTOR: iPhone (I am the biggest Apple fan). Since it was “born” 3 years ago I have always bought the latest model on the release day.
GERALIN: What is your favorite app?
VICTOR: The app I like most is Trillian because it keeps me connected to my artists, clients, friends and family through IM even if I am out for lunch, and I can organize my IM contacts in custom categories.
GERALIN: Do you save or collect anything?
VICTOR: I collect Zippo lighters. I started smoking (I know… bad, very bad habit) when I was 16 and I bought my first Zippo lighter when I was living in Stockholm, Sweden where my father worked at the Embassy. Since then I have collected quite a few, especially some limited series.
GERALIN: Do you call yourself an artist?
VICTOR: I call myself a good husband. But besides that, I am an entrepreneur with a creative mind. I think I can call myself an artist, because I create.
GERALIN: Victor, thank you so much for taking the time to visit with us today. How can readers learn more about you and your business?
VICTOR: Please feel free to visit my website, www.mycaricature.com. You can also follow me on Twitter, where I am @mycaricature.
