Stained-Glass Window Opportunity

You are a stained-glass window artist — trust me, you are — and you and your partners own a little business in Napa. The other day a woman, Bettina Richardson, came into your shop and said that her company is building an upscale housing development out Hagen Rd. toward the old Napa Valley Country Club.

She said the contractor, Better Homes, is building the houses, but her company, Richardson Design, has been hired to provide the kitchen and bathroom design, as well as some specialty windows, which include both skylights and a number of stained-glass windows. The stained-glass windows are meant to copy — directly or indirectly — the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, the famed Midwestern architect. Though he was famous for a number of different buildings, his early fame came from the private homes he designed. He also designed stained-glass windows for the homes.

Each home will need at least eight Frank Lloyd Wright windows. There are going to be 28 houses in the development, so that’s about 8×28 windows. That’s a huge contract. You say to Ms. Richardson that “It would be no problem for my partners and me to do the windows.” (You don’t tell her you’ve never done a job this big before!)

Ms. Richardson says she’s found at least 12 stained-glass window companies in the Napa/Vallejo/Benicia/Sonoma area, and she’s requesting bids for the job. Her company will choose the lowest bid with the best designs. She gives you two weeks to submit the artwork for the windows, along with the total cost to do the stained-glass windows for the entire development.

When she leaves, you call your partners into a meeting to get started, ASAP!

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Checklist of tools you’ll use and skills you’ll practice (maybe not complete):

1. Illustrator for the line art.
2. Photoshop for the colorization of the window sections.
3. Using the Pattern and Texture tools in Photoshop to recreate a stained-glass-like texture to reproduce the windows to look as real as possible. You can capture these textures and patterns using various techniques.
4. Excel will be used to automate the calculations of surface area, as well as other math involved in calculating the costs of producing each window in preparation of your bid on the project. (Mr. Paisley is in charge of this aspect.)
5. Internet for searching for window images. You’ll also use the Internet to find the cost of materials, as well as how to make stained-glass windows in the first place! Yes, I want you to teach yourself how to make these windows, even if it’s just enough to know what materials you need. You’re only going to “make” these windows in Illustrator and Photoshop. Hint: Where would you go to learn how to do something on the Internet? Also, how could you find out the cost of the materials needed to build the windows? Two words: wholesale and retail.
6. Each student on each team will make all four FLW windows shown on the blog, plus ONE OF THEIR OWN CHOICE, for a total of five per student. That means each team will create a total of eight windows — the original four that you’ll all make to practice skills, plus four different ones each of you do separately. EACH STUDENT WILL CHOOSE AN EASIER OR HARDER INDIVIDUAL WINDOW, DEPENDING ON HOW HIGH A GRADE THEY WANT TO GET. It also affects whether Ms. Richardson chooses your team to win the bid or not, because the winners will be chosen on the amount of the bid and the quality of the artwork.
7. Things you need to turn in for the full grade:

• A list of tools and equipment your shop should already “own” in order to produce these windows (you won’t have to add the cost of these to your bid);
• A list of all the materials you need for each window, along with the wholesale cost of these materials;
• Five illustrations per team member;
• An Excel spreadsheet that shows how you costed out the project for the final bid, possibly including surface area and perimeter calculations;
• A final document that presents the final bid (which includes your profit margin).

Update: Here is the extra information I offered to help you on your way. I still want you to discover a lot of what you need to know and master to do well (you can teach yourselves!):

Real-life dimensions of first four windows:

1. 5 ft. 6 in. x 10 ft. 4 ½ in.
2. r=4 ft.
3. 10 ft. 7 ½ in. x 7 ft. 1 ½ in.
4. 5 ft. 6 in. x 10 ft. 6 in.

Steps to follow:

1. Create your scale illustrations.
2. Calculate areas and perimeters of each window piece.
3. Combine like pieces and see if you can put them together to cut from the same sheet of glass.
4. Search for sources, hopefully wholesale, at glass sites on the Internet.
5. Find the total cost of the glass and the other materials needed.
6. This figure is your cost. You need to calculate a bid that includes 30% gross profit.
7. Gross profit – costs other than materials = net profit.
8. Net profits are what you earn and pay income tax on. What’s left after income taxes is what you use to pay your bills and pay for your personal expenses.

Okay, so that’s the new info.

Update 2: The Final Checklist (and actual stuff to turn in to complete the project):

Required Documentation to Accompany the Bid:

1. The bid itself

2. Breakdown of costs plus gross margin

3. Materials list with quantities and prices

4. Tools and equipment list (you don’t need to buy these; you already have them!)

5. 5 illustrations

6. Work flowchart

7. Excel workbook (done with Mr. Paisley)

Okay!

Update 2:

Project timeline

1. Art is due on Mon. Jan. 24^th

2. Materials list (w/ unit costs) & tools and equipment list is due on Tue. Jan. 25^th

3. Completed Excel workbook is due Thur. Jan. 27^th

4. Progress Check (preliminary post-production meeting) held Fri. Jan. 28^th

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