Contact from a Motorcycle Suspension Company

So I woke up to an email this morning from a Motorcycle Suspension Company:

Hi Stephanie,

I hope you don’t mind me contacting you, I came across your blog whilst I was searching for information on Graphic Design.

I own a motorcycle suspension business in York and have been asked on a number of occasions if I provide any training or run courses in this field of work. I’m now doing some market research into whether there would be enough interest from customers to make training courses viable and also the costs involved in providing that training.

At the moment I’m exploring the possibilities of putting together a training manual to help get across the technical details involved, being very technical a lot of illustrations are needed.

A company in the US have written a fantastic book with great illustrations, a link to the company who did the work is here:http://levelfive.com/HTML/Illustration_Portfolio/Suspension_Bible.html

My problem is that Level Five have done such a good job that the companies I’ve spoken to so far can’t see any other way to do it other than doing the same thing but different enough to get around any copyright issues.

I noticed in your portfolio that you own a pencil which impressed me, I haven’t seen a pencil in all the offices I’ve visited, but there could be a good reason for that. Do you think it would it be possible to do those kind of illustrations as a line drawing, the lines don’t have to be perfectly straight and clinical and as a sketch it may be possible to show it as a three dimensional image instead of two. Is the pencil still a viable tool or has the computer made it obsolete?

I believe from the blog that your still at Uni so I don’t know if you’d have the time to be able work on such a project, or even if you’d be interested in working with not very interesting lumps of metal, if it is something you’d be interested in let me know.

It would be a paid commission, I’m not looking to take advantage of a poor student, I’m looking for someone with fresh ideas and enthusiasm rather than what’s the minimum effort I can put it in to get me to the next round of golf.

Best regards,

Gareth Evans
Reactive Suspension

My Response:

Hello Gareth,

Thank you for contacting me, its a pleasure to hear someone still appreciates pencils as much as I do. 

Is what you're asking me, to draw, in pencil, 3D exploded diagrams of the suspension parts which were found in the link provided? 

Do you have the suspension parts yourself that want illustrating, as it will be difficult otherwise to know how they appear 3D. I think the best way to do it, would be for me to pop down to York, if you could cover my travel costs, I could come and see for myself the parts, how they work and fit together, take pictures of them myself, to be able to draw from. This way it will give me a better understanding of how many parts you wants drawn and how long it will take me to do it. I think then I'll be able to know if I can fit it alongside university work.

I'm currently in Leicester and not back in Leeds until next weekend, but if you could send me an email then, of when your free, we could arrange something.

Otherwise, I would like to give it a go and try something different. 

I Look forward to hearing from you soon

Stephanie Lawson

Haynes Manual