Archival Filing System

[Cynthia Daniel]

Some of you know I used to manage a portrait artist. I devised an archival filing system for materials associated with each painting that was very workable from a marketing standpoint. Since I found that the way I needed to find materials was usually oriented to type of subject, I took that as my cue.

Each painting's materials (negs, slides, transparencies, ad samples) were assigned a category and and a hanging folder created (I color coded each category). I used the following codes:

LB - Little boy
LG - Little girl
W - Woman
M - Man
OM - Older man
OW - Older woman
FAM - Family group

Then I numbered them in time sequence and simply labeled them LB1, LB2, LG1, etc. with number 1 being the earliest painting. Of course, you could set up whatever categories suited your needs the best.

Inside each hanging folder, I keep the materials organized with plastic holders from 20th Century Direct. I found them to have the greatest selection of plastic holders. I haven't checked their web site and it's possible there are more items listed in their mail order catalog.

I then kept a 3-ring binder with a single photo example for each portrait. This photo was a master example for color correction when new photos had to be developed. This gave me a quick way to scan over all the portraits in a particular category and decide what I wanted to send to a particular prospect or use for an advertisement.

By the way, I learned the color codes printed on the back of photos by one-hour photo places so I could better communicate with the developer. I learned to say "two more steps of cyan" because leaving it up to them was very dicey.

Of course, that was quite a few years ago and now I would keep this index to the hanging files on the computer.

I recommend to artists that they have at least the following archival materials for a painting:

35mm negs
35mm slides
4x5 transparency

If you plan to do a poster size print from a painting, then you would also want an 8x10 transparency.

Of course, if you really don't like a painting you've done, no sense wasting the time and film on it.

This type of system could be set up for other types of paintings as well. For example, the artist I managed also did landscapes in oil and watercolor, so I had an LO (landscape - oil) and LW (landscape - watercolor) category too.

I also kept a PR book and archive, but that's for another day.

[Darla Dixon]

Thanks Cynthia! What great advice! I'm going to print it out.

I have come up with a little system of making a manila folder for each client, writing their content information on inside, and then I put a bit of tape on each side of folder to retain the reference photos etc. This also ends up holding the diskette with the scans of artwork on it. I put name of client on each diskette. On the tab of the folder, I put client name and then '00 or '01 for years.

Then I have hanging folders for Current Clients, Past Clients, Possible Clients.

Past Client folders are tucked into a lower (harder to reach) cabinet, and the Current and Possibles are kept in a more convenient file.

This is just a little something I worked out to save sanity. I'm not the most organized person in the world, that's for sure.

I really like your idea, Cynthia of categorizing by portrait TYPE. I need to do that.

Thanks! I'm grateful for the advice on this site!

[Cynthia Daniel]

Darla,

I wasn't as computer knowlegeable then as I am now, plus more software has come out since that time. But, if I were managing a portrait artist today, I would put all the clients and prospects in a contact management program called Act! (the exclamation mark is part of their official title).

They were previously put out by Symantec, but must have been sold off because now it's put out by Interact Commerce Corporation. You can find information at http://www.act.com

It's a wonderful program and very powerful. There's many things you can do with the information for each person once the data is entered. For example, you can create groups for mailings. For example, all the portrait agents in my files are in one group. Clients are another group I've defined and so on. You can also add custom fields. You can setup reminders for when to next contact a person. This is only a small sampling.

It's probably the most popular contact management program on the market.

[Darla Dixon]

Yes! I have heard of that program. Jeffrey Meyer featured it strongly in his Time Management for Dummies book - it showed examples of the program, and it does seem excellent!