Secure High-Profile Brand Partnerships

1. Introduction: Imagine your artwork being featured in a global brand campaign seen by millions and driving conversations around the world. It sounds like a dream, right? So today, we're turning this dream into a strategic plan. Welcome, everyone. I'm thrilled to have you here as we dive deep into an exciting world of securing high profile brand partnerships. My name is Anna Bucharelli. I'm a professional illustrator from Canada and a top teacher here on skill. Over the course of my career, I've had a pleasure of working with many international brands and creative agencies, producing surface design, book illustrations, and even ads for luxury cars. My longest and most productive brand partnership has been with the Royal Canadian Mint, where for the past ten years, I've been creating designs for Canadian money, the gold and silver coins, featuring various decorative motifs and royal effigies. If you're a creative professional like me, you know that our talent can open incredible doors. But navigating the path to those big brand collaborations requires more than just talent. It demands a blend of very compelling professional portfolio, strategic social media presence, and the courage to approach the brands on your own and using cold pitches to stand out. So in this class, we will explore how to create a portfolio that not only showcases your best work, but also tells a story that brands can resist. We'll talk about building and curating personal portfolios and also discuss hybrid portfolios or so called portfolio aggregators that in my experience, are extremely effective at connecting you to the right clients. We will learn how to use social media platforms to attract the attention of creative directors and agencies. And most importantly, I will share tips for putting together winning pitches that will help you communicate your value and open doors to rations. In the class resources, you can download a handout that I created for your class project. We will use this portfolio checklist together to guide us through the process of curating a successful portfolio, and you can use it to set up a new online presence or to curate your existing website. As a bonus, we will discuss how to communicate with clients effectively with a focus on working with creative briefs, and I will also share one of the best pieces of creative advice that helped me grow my creative practice and build relationships with brands over the years. By the end of our session, you'll have actionable strategies to elevate your brand, to attract high profile clients, and to secure partnerships that will take your career to new heights. Whether you're just starting your career or looking to pivot into a new creative direction, the tactics and strategies we discuss will be very helpful. So I look forward to seeing you in class and sharing my tips, case studies, and experiences with you. 2. Framework for Securing Brand Partnerships: Let's start with a simple framework that will help you think about your creative practice and different strategies and tactics that you can put in place that lead to working with big brands and exciting clients. Before I start, I should mention that everything I'm talking about is based on my own experience and is meant as advice and food for thought. Want to be too prescriptive. I'm simply giving you some ideas and a framework to help you think through some of these challenges, and maybe put some of these things to test in your own practice. Now, my own creative path is rather unique and maybe somewhat non linear. I didn't pursue a full time career in illustration until well into my late 30s. Instead, I pursued a business degree. I have an MBA, and up until six years ago, I worked on the other side, the client side. This is not a traditional path, but it gave me a lot of really good insight into how things work holistically from a brand perspective. Having worked for companies like Procter and Gamble, I was able to get a better understanding of how creative briefs are actually developed, and how brands decide on hiring external designers and illustrators and what actually matters in that process. There are three main components, three pillars, if you will, that we need to consider and tend to, if we want to work with big and exciting brands and enjoy long term successful brand collaborations. I'm talking about your portfolio, your social media strategy, and your No matter where you are in your career. These are the things that matter above all else. And we're going to talk about some of the additional peripheral things like hybrid portfolios that contribute to this ecosystem. Once again, keep in mind that this is meant as a helpful framework for you to think on. In addition to all the tips that I'm going to share in this class, you can always choose to explore these components more in depth and add to this framework as your creative practice grows. Everything starts with your portfolio. This is the cornerstone of everything we will discuss. This is where we start, and this is where all the paths will lead to. I want you to think about it as a business card, a place where you will showcase your best creative self. Now, we often think about it as a static thing, but it has to evolve over time, and there are lots of nuances that we will discuss to help you transform your portfolio from a simple collection of static images to a very powerful business tool that will really appeal to your potential client and help you land your dream project. We have social media and unlike your portfolio, which shows the work that you've already accomplished, social media is all about the things you do on a daily basis and how you engage with the world and creative community as a whole. Of course, there are lots of things that we can do to tweak your online social media strategy in order to make your work more appealing to potential clients. But let's not forget that social media has a broader reach that goes beyond your potential clients. So we're going to talk about some of the things that we have to do and some of the things that we can do if we want this part of our social presence to work effectively and to help us land the jobs that we want. Finally, the third pillar is pitches. In other words, actively reaching out to potential clients, either simply with samples of your work over e mail or doing something more elaborate. And we will also talk about some of the things that we can do. Now, this part is the most intimidating, but it's also very effective. So we'll discuss that as well As we're working through this framework, don't forget that I've prepared some handouts for this class, and you can take these checklists and use them to help you work through your own assets like your portfolio or your online presence and see where there might be some opportunities for optimizing your content, for tweaking your strategy, and maybe some of the new ideas that you hear are very, very simple, and you can incorporate them right away or make a plan for yourself or how you can optimize say your portfolio over the next couple of weeks. 3. Understanding Your Target Audience: So now that we have a framework, let's talk about each component separately, starting with your online portfolio, which is different from your social media strategy. And this is actually a common mistake I see people make. We often tend to think about our social media as our portfolio. But these are two different things with two different audiences. Though there might be some slight overlap, but for the most part, the audiences are different and our strategies therefore need to be different when we think about these different components. At the end of the day, and I can't stress this enough, it all comes down to understanding your target audience and understanding how effective these different channels that we have at our disposal, how effective they are at actually lending us the work that we're interested in, and the clients that we want to And the key distinction I want you to make is that your portfolio, for the most part, will be viewed and appreciated by potential clients, decision makers that can actually reach out and hire you. And your social media is oriented at a much broader group. That is not to say that you can't lend clients through your social media, but that happens a lot less often than you might think. I'm going to give you a simple example based on my own statistics just to drive this point home. On my YouTube channel, I get anywhere 10-20 thousand views every day. It might be even more on my Instagram if I post something exciting, like a really engaging real. Now, in my entire career, there's only been a handful of times when a potential client discovered me on social media. In comparison, I get 400-500 visits to my website on a monthly basis. And yet the majority of projects I get to work on, the majority of brands that reach out to me, find me through my portfolio, even though the number of visits seems rather low compared to what I get on social media. In fact, most of my clients often have no idea that I have a large social media presence at all. And you may wonder how I know this, Well, I always ask them about how they discovered my majority of them come through my portfolio. Oftentimes through portfolio aggregators, these hybrid portfolios that we're going to talk about in a minute that are incredibly effective because they attract people who are looking to higher potential creatives. When they come to your portfolio, they come with a project in mind. They're not coming to be entertained. A that is to say is well, social media might give you very broad reach and lead to some exciting collaborations. It's your portfolio, and by extension, these hybrid portfolio aggregators like Be hands that we're going to talk about in a minute that are a crucial step in helping you lend the work that you want. That is because people that come to your website are not coming there to be entertained. They're not coming to pick up tips on painting a particular subject like they do say on YouTube or Instagram. But they're coming to your portfolio with a very specific thing in mind. They're coming to look at your skills in the context of your completed projects, and they're coming with their own creative problems, looking for people like you who might be able to help them solve it. Are the creative directors, the brand managers who have big budgets and creative briefs and the vision for something they want to build, be it a series of book covers or maybe an entire brand identity redesign or maybe an advertising campaign that needs an illustrator. They're very much on a lookout for someone with a very specific set of creative skills who is also reliable and nice to work with. Keep in mind that these are busy professionals who are going through multiple portfolios at a time, when the timing is right, when they're on the lookout for that illustrator or designer, and it's your portfolio that is the proof they need in order to feel confident to reach out and explore this working relationship with you. At the end of the day, your portfolio, not your social media, it's your portfolio that gives you the most concise way if you do this right to show someone at a glance that you do have the right set of skills and invite them to reach out. With this in mind, every visit to your website is worth so much more than a follow on Instagram or even a viral techo. And that is not to say again that your social media strategy is not important. They go hand in hand. But at the end of the day, your portfolio is the cornerstone and that important piece of the puzzle that actually lends us the work that we want. 4. Portfolio Strategy #1: Quality vs Quantity: So let's talk about what makes a successful portfolio in the context of what we just discussed. The fact that people who are coming to see our work have very specific creative needs in mind, and it is our responsibility, our challenge to convince them that we are the right person for the job. And I will give you four pieces of advice, and I encourage you to download the portfolio checklist. It's a resource that I've prepared for you as part of this class and review each point to see how it might apply to your portfolio. You might already have an existing portfolio online. You might be in the process of setting one up, or just starting to think about designing one. So use this checklist as a guide to help you on your journey. See if there are any opportunities to change things up or maybe try a different approach, fine tune some of the things you already have, or maybe plan to include some of these things that we're going to talk about in your future portfolio, regardless of where you are in your creative career, all of these will apply. First and most important piece of advice is to curate for quality over quantity. You really want to showcase your best work, not all your work. It's very likely that potential clients will have maybe a minute to appreciate the body of work at a glance, and they will make a very quick decision about whether or not they want to explore further, simply by looking at your home page. So you can see how it's better to have just a few striking outstanding pieces on your home page, rather than a whole variety and a Mish Mash of different styles and projects that you worked on that somebody would have to scroll through to find the gems. Now, depending on where you are in your career, you might have a whole library of projects that you can showcase, and I recommend selecting only those that highlight your strengths and align with the type of work you want to attract right now. My recommendation is to come up with a grid. Limit yourself to maybe six maximum nine projects at a time that you can rotate throughout the year or maybe update every couple of years, depending on the body of work that you develop. I know it might sound really harsh, but it does pay off to be selective, and I want you to really get rid of anything that doesn't fit into the vision of the type of work you want to attract today, and let's say in the next two years. Example, and I'm going to make this very, very concrete because I made every mistake in the book. Early on in my career, when I didn't have a lot of professional projects, there were a lot of sketchbook work that I was very proud of and I wanted to showcase. I've populated that sketchbook with lots of watercolor fish and flowers. I was very proud of it. In fact, it did really, really well on social media. But as we discussed earlier, social media has a very different audience. And so for the longest time, I've included my sketchbook shots on my website. But after having a couple of portfolio reviews myself and consulting with some of the more seasoned designers that I know, I decided to get rid of it because it wasn't communicating anything of extra value to my potential clients, other than just another reason to look at endless variations of different flowers that I really enjoyed sketching. A much better approach was to highlight the real projects that I've done. Also, some of the concept projects, what I call dream projects, which we will also discuss in this class, and curate my portfolio in a way that shows my potential clients exactly how I can fit in into their ongoing projects rather than showing them the type of creative explorations that I do on my own time. 5. Portfolio Strategy #2: Expertese vs Versatility: My second piece of advice is to emphasize experience over versatility. In other words, you need to niche down. And you may have heard this before for a reason. It's because this advice works. Now, of course, it will depend on where you are in your creative journey and how strong your sense of style is. If you're a seasoned artist, you might already have developed a very cohesive body of work. For example, one of my favorite illustrators in the whole world, known by the name of Merdinara. If you go on her website, you'll see a variety of different projects, but there's a common theme, a common style that runs through it, and it instantly tells your potential clients whether or not this particular illustrator fits into their vision and the type of work they're looking to hire an illustrator for. But more often than not, especially in the beginning of your career, you might still be in the process of discovering your style, and you might be tempted to show a wide variety of different styles, maybe hoping to reach a broader client base. I've done this, and this is totally normal. I found from talking to my clients over the years and just intuitively realizing from the type of work I was getting is that it is much better to niche down and show one maybe two maximum three different styles to make it easier for your potential clients to understand what it is that you really specialize. Believe me, you will be much more successful at attracting clients that are looking for that specific set of skills rather than trying to please everyone. For example, in the beginning of my career, I used to show five different types of work in my portfolio, and it was probably extremely confusing because even though I was quite good in some of these mediums, it didn't really show me as an expert in any of them. I had guash, I had watercolor. I had digital folk art. I also had black and white drawings, coloring pages, surface design, children's illustrations, digital ads, and a few Canadian coins. To be completely honest, it was a bit of a mishmash and a bit of a mess, and I wasn't doing myself any favors. So as I got more experience under my belt, I really had to take a hard look and ask myself, what is the type of work I want to attract? What are these two maybe three styles that I really want to pursue going forward. At the end of the day, I decided to get rid of anything that lacked color, which is my strength and what I want to focus on. For example, I removed my projects that had to do with coloring books, black and white advertising work that I've done, including the really exciting project that I did for Jaguar, because it simply didn't f with the overall aesthetic. Another change I did is I really doubled down on traditional mediums like watercolor and gouache and removed everything that was done purely on the computer, on the tablet. With proliferation v, it's becoming more and more difficult to stand out. And distinguish your work from that done by machines. So I really felt like going back to my roots, where I feel most comfortable, which is watercolor and gouache as the entire creative industry is going through this very turbulent time. Again, these are just examples of my thinking. Your rationale may be very different, and it may be very different today versus a year from now. But the key is to narrow things down and really position yourself as an expert, showcasing a few very strong examples in a particular niche. Rather than trying to go after multiple segments in the creative market. 6. Portfolio Strategy #3: Telling a Story: My third piece of advice is very simple, and it's to tell a story. If you think about it, most big client projects involve several team members all working to solve one creative problem. These typically include creative directors, managers, traditional artists, digital artists. In the case of book covers I design, there's always a publisher, and of course, an author who's also very much involved in the creative process. In the case of Canadian coins that I work on, the team includes engravers. All that is to say, a project typically involves an entire team and you want to really show that ability to step up and work as part of the team as you're showcasing your projects on your website. So I recommend including the role that you played, maybe it's an illustrator or brand strategist. And also don't forget to include a narrative for each piece of work that you create. This might be a brief description of creative problem that you addressed Maybe a few words about your process, maybe even some sketches to show how you arrived at the final solution. And of course, your specific role on the project, which you can't overstate, so be very clear and very honest. This will give your potential clients a good insight into your creative process, your teamwork, and your problem solving abilities. 7. Portfolio Strategy #4: Professional Presentation: My last piece of advice and something that you need to keep in mind as you're setting up your portfolio might be a little bit technical, but it's very, very important. As you can imagine, professional presentation matters and it matters the most when it comes to your portfolio. There are a couple of components to this. I'm going to mention the ones that I think are the most important, the ones that I keep in mind when I set up my portfolio and update it year. One, you want to use modern website building platforms because you want to ensure that your portfolio is easy to navigate and most importantly optimized to be viewed on all platforms, including phones. Keep in mind that a significant portion of your website visitors will be viewing it on the phone or tablet, and so you really want to make sure that whatever you're presenting is optimized across all potential platforms. If you're not a web design expert, I highly, highly recommend professional website builders. There's so many of them on the market. I'm just going to mention my favorites. I've used Adobe portfolio, which is synced with the B Hans portfolio aggregator platform. There's square space that I'm using right now. Has lots of different functionalities beyond simply showcasing your work. There's also Wicks. There's word press. No matter which platform you choose, look for optimization options so that your work can be accessed on any device, and also consider a variety of templates that these platforms offer. You want to use clean intuitive layout with clear categories and easy access to contact information. When you're researching these different platforms, look at their library of inspiration and examples. Most of these sites, showcase examples of design and illustration portfolios, and these are absolutely invaluable. Whether you already have a portfolio and looking to update one or you're starting from scratch, you will find a ton of inspiration and things that you may not have considered on your own. The second thing I want to mention is high quality images. Remember that you want to always use high resolution images and even maybe consider professional photography or mock ups to present your work. Be poor quality images can undermine even the best designs. So for example, when I want to showcase my watercolor illustrations that are typically done on very textured paper, I spend quite a bit of time scanning and cleaning up my images so that everything looks nice and crisp against the white background. Now, this is optional, but you may want to ensure your portfolio reflects your personal brand. So things like consistent use of colors, typography, and layout will always help you create a cohesive and memorable impression on your potential clients. Again, professional website building platforms will help you here. You will have access to beautifully created templates and color schemes. And of course, if you don't want to stick to a particular look, there's nothing wrong with going with clean and crisp black and white look. This is typically what I default to because I want to showcase the colors in my work. Again, this is something to consider. If you have a theme or a particular set of colors, a palette that you stick to, maybe that you're already using on your social media, and maybe a set of fonts that you love that you're maybe already using for your Instagram reels. This is an opportunity to bring it in and weave it into the overall style in your portfolio website. Finally, you have to make sure that your contact information is easy to find. This is such a simple thing, but it's very often overlooked. Don't want to make potential clients search for how to get in touch with you. They might get frustrated. So link up your e mail and make sure it's very prominently displayed on your website. The best way to do it is not to put your real e mail address out there on the web, but to use a form so that potential clients can use this form to get in touch with you and you don't get the spam. Of course, you need to update your portfolio occasionally. How often is entirely up to you? But you really want to take a look at least once a year, remove some of the more outdated work or any of the work that doesn't fit with your current aesthetic and doesn't fit into the vision of the type of projects that you want to attract. 8. "Hybrid" Portfolios: Before we move forward with discussing your social media strategy and pitching, I want to discuss something special in this lesson, something that exists in between your main portfolio, like your website, and typical social media channels like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. I'm talking about sites like Be hands, art station, or dribble that aggregate thousands of portfolios across different niches, and they serve them up in an organized way in a way that is designed to connect you with brands and potential clients, that's more effective than anything else in my experience. Essentially, these are massive aggregators of portfolios, like a showcase for artists that comes with features like direct messaging, and even a database of creative jobs in many cases, both freelance projects and full time engagements that you can apply to directly on the platform. It's sort of like a linked in designed for people like you and me. And creative directors and agencies who are looking to hire someone, say in the world of packaging design or children's illustration or gaming can instantly get access to the best portfolios within that niche. So that's where your target audience goes. I can tell you from my experience that most of my early work, including the Canadian money that I design came from being active on these platforms. Specifically, at the time, ten years ago, the Royal Canadian Mint was actively searching for Canadian designer, Canadian citizen with decorative illustration skills on a very small miniature scale. That's what they searched for on one of these sites, and that's how they came across my work. In my particular illustration, Niche, I find that adobe B hands works best. But if you're developing game characters and you specialize in three DD and digital art, that may be consider displaying your on art station. You have to do a little bit of research and get a better understanding of which one of these sites will work best for your needs. And the best part is that once you have your main portfolio and select the projects that you want to showcase, most of these hybrid portfolios won't require any extra work. You can simply re upload the images and some of the sketches that you've chosen for your main portfolio to those sites and maybe add some extra information. So cases, this transition is seamless. For example, if you're already using Adobe portfolio platform to build your website, then you can link up your projects and they automatically appear on B hands. And Be hands has a huge network that sorts projects into the so called served sites, which display work in specific categories. For example, fashion illustration, industrial design, typography. And in addition, it has a job board, of course, where you can search for jobs on your own If you're not using adobe portfolio, I'm not saying it's the best platform. It's just one of the platforms. Let's say you're using something else like WordPress or square space, then simply re post the images from your main portfolio to one of these hybrid sites and put your work and your projects in front of the clients who are actively looking for people like you. 9. The Best Creative Advice I've Ever Received: As we're discussing your portfolio and pitching strategies, you might be thinking, Well, what if I don't have enough relevant work under my belt, or what if the types of projects that I've done in the past don't exactly match the type of creative work and the brands that I want to work with? Well, there's actually a brilliant solution, and it comes from one of the best pieces of creative advice that I've ever heard. It's been extremely effective at helping me grow my practice and building long term relationships with clients in my niche. Disclosure, I've actually learned this the first time from one of the top teachers here on Skillshare. Shout out to Andy J Pizza, the brilliant Illustrator and the author of the podcast I Love. The advice is to work on your dream project before you land that dream contract and before you're approached by real clients. If you want to be an illustrator of children's books, for example, don't wait to be approached by a publisher. Go ahead and pick your favorite book, let's say Alice and Wonderland, and reimagine the classic illustrations using your own style and your medium of choice. Use another example. If you want to create video game characters, go ahead and create a series of new characters for popular game with your own unique take on established aesthetic or maybe something completely new. Here's the best part. Your personal project can be used to populate your portfolio. It can be used to expand your social media content. And you can also include it in cold pitches to clients. The three pillars we discussed in this class can all benefit from this approach because it will show potential clients within your niche, exactly how well you can fit into their vision and how you can solve their creative problems in a very concrete way. One of my favorite examples is when brand experts do a series of logo redesigns, essentially reimagining classic logos and brand identities using their own creative aesthetic, showcasing their own unique take on popular names. Are quite popular on social media, and they tend to make really wonderful portfolio pieces, especially if you include your process and some before and afters. I've created several personal projects, especially in the beginning of my career, but also more recently. One particular case led to a collaboration with a big publisher, Simon and Schuster, that asked me to design a series of book covers based on a passion project that I did. It all started before had any big clients and really wanted to transition from doing typical folk art, where I didn't see a lot of commercial application to doing children's book tations. So I used my folk art skills to illustrate my favorite children's stories and some real and magical creatures that I really liked. One of the images was quite striking this tiger on the red background, and it ended up being re posted on Pinterest by A Terp, eventually finding its way to one of the agents at Simon and Schuster, who was looking for that type of style for one of their upcoming book covers. They did a reverse search on my image, ended up finding my portfolio and approached me with the first book cover that eventually led to follow up projects, and the rest as they say is history. All that is to say, working on your dream projects can lead to all of interesting opportunities, and you don't need to wait to be approached by a brand in order to start. Think about what type of work you want to do and what you're passionate about and share it with the world. Your dream project doesn't need a. You are the client, creating the best proof of concept, that final piece of the puzzle that will lead you to future collaborations. To help you get started, I recommend checking out a few classes on how to create a dream project here on Skillshare, and I will leave my favorite in the class description so you can check it out on your own time. 10. Social Media Strategy: Now that your portfolio is ready, you might be wondering, how do I promote it? This is exactly where social media and pitching to clients will come in handy. In this lesson, we're going to focus on social media first. Now, I want to mention again that social media is not your portfolio. It's a lot broader than that because it allows you to reach a wide variety of people, and you're essentially speaking to the entire creative community, which may or may not include potential clients. However, it is still an opportunity to showcase your work and attract potential clients by highlighting your skills and your overall approach to your craft. Now, there are lots of amazing resources, including some great classes here on skill share that will do a deep dive into social media strategy for your creative practice. In this class, I want to focus only on five key things that you need to keep in mind as you curate your social media presence in the context of looking for these long term brand partnerships and looking to establish new relationships with creative clients. Umber one is to keep your content consistent. Meaning if you're focusing on traditional illustrations in this stage of your career, and your goal is to partner with brands, say like Hallmark, to design greeting cards, or maybe you want to do a children's book illustration, then you need to focus on displaying that type of work and that style on your social media. The same time, you might be interested in three D art or game design or maybe creating digital portrait commissions, but I would keep that type of work to a minimum in order to be consistent with your portfolio. My second recommendation is to show your process. Social media, as we know, calls for fairly frequent posts, and it could be quite stressful to keep Keep in mind that one piece of artwork can be broken down into many content pieces. If you record your process, you can make a wide variety of posts using the same piece, you can post static images. You can record your sketches and process work, perhaps give some tips on the materials you use or maybe discuss some struggles that you've encountered along the way. And as an added bonus, which I really appreciate and take advantage of. Showing your process will really help you stand out against the sea of AI generated content that unfortunately we're being flooded with these days on social media. My third piece of advice is to avoid posting too much personal content. This can be distracting at best, and unfortunately professional at and you can always start another account for your personal content. But in general, I would focus on showing more of your work, your materials, your process, and only post pictures of your lunch if it actually inspired you to create something that fits within your portfolio. Another important consideration is to focus on social media that work for your style and your creative needs. We kind of have to accept that most platforms these days, favor video format. And depending on how much you want to edit and how frequently you want to post, you can go from TikTok, for example, where you need to post almost daily to a more long term format like YouTube or stick with Instagram where images still play a large role. Also, don't overextend yourself. My humble opinion, having just one channel, say Instagram or YouTube, where you showcase your work is more than enough if you do a good job curating your main portfolio and actively participating in these hybrid sites that we discussed in the previous section, like art station, B hands, and Dribble. Lastly, you always want to include a link to your website on your social media channels. Don't forget this detail because if a brand is interested in working with you because they come across say your Instagram, they're likely next step is to take a deep dive into your work. So they will want to see your main portfolio before getting in touch. 11. Pitching to Clients: Securing high profile brand partnerships is really a journey that combines your unique talent with some strategic effort. Once you have a solid portfolio and you're active on social media, the next step to consider is reaching out to clients directly through cold pitches. Now, I totally get it. This method can be a little bit stressful, but it's extremely effective for building new long term relationships. Be prepared to manage rejection. It's all part of the process. Section, I will break down how to create a high quality professional pitch that tells your story, attracts the right clients, and gets you more leads. I will also share an example of a successful pitch that led to a long term collaboration. Your pitch always starts with research. So you need to identify a handful of brands that you want to work with and ensure that your artwork and your skill set aligns with their creative interests. For example, if you want to work in children's illustration, research specific publishers that specialize in those types of books and identify agents that you can reach out to. Note that Linked Ten, social media and company websites are a fantastic resource for this information. Very often, you can find the name and the e mail of the person you're interested in and reach out to them directly. And you can use the same method to reach out to creative agencies that work with your dream clients. Next, craft a personal message explaining why you're reaching out and how you work can help the brand with their next project. This personalization piece is key. You want to mention specific projects or aspects of the brand that resonate with you. You may want to address the creative team or person by name, if possible, and if you can find that information, a general greeting is also acceptable. Clude a link to your portfolio or go as far as sending a few custom samples, tailored to the brand you're pitching to. Keep your message professional brief and to the point. Including relevant work samples or even a custom piece that matches the brands aesthetic and their creative needs, will really go a long way to make your work stand out. I'll give you an example in just a moment. You want to clearly state what sets you apart from other illustrators or designers. Whether it's your unique style, your reliability, or specific experience within a niche. For example, I always highlight my background in Eastern European folk art, which is quite unique and the fact that I'm equally skilled in digital and traditional mediums. For you, it could be something different. For example, your storytelling abilities, or relevant experience in the very niche subject, for example, cars or food illustration. Ever it is that makes you unique, make sure that it's relevant to the brant and highlight it in your pitch. Finally, if you don't hear back, you can send a polite follow up e mail after a week or two. Persistence does show interest, but don't be overly aggressive. And if you don't hear back, simply move on to the next potential contact. Here's a quick study from my own experience. A few years ago, I was really interested in coloring books. What I did is I created three page samples based on my own Gach folk art compositions and reached out to a handful of publishers and some popular coloring apps, offering to do a full project. The folks at Lake Coloring responded right away and asked me to create an entire library of coloring pages for their next release. Been six years and I still work with their team earning regular royalties. It did take some upfront work and dealing with some rejections, but connecting with that one brand made it all while, and I did it all over an e mail. I also want to mention some innovative formats for your code pitches that will really help you stand out. These days, we have so many new options for managing cold pitches. For example, dribble, the portfolio aggregator site that I mentioned earlier allows you to record a video with your pitch. They call it a sizzle reel, which is distributed through their dribble pitch feature. Now, these types of services sometimes have an extra fee, but you can use the same format for free by recording a personalized pitch video, perhaps in a vertical format that works on platforms like Instagram and reaching out to brands directly on social media. Come back for a moment to my earlier point about dealing with rejection. This is a normal part of the process, and you have to be prepared for some of your messages, perhaps many of your messages to be ignored. This is typically not personal. Not everyone will respond to your pitch or even explain why your style doesn't fit with their brand at that particular moment in time. So don't dwell on rejections or assume there's something wrong with your work. Very often, it's simply not a good fit. So stay confident in your direction and continue working on your craft. The more you pitch, the more confident you will become, especially as you lend more clients. In conclusion, just remember that cold pitches can be a very effective supplementary strategy to your main portfolio. By staying persistent, handling rejection gracefully and continuously refining your approach, you increase your chances for securing high profile brand partnerships. One thing you can do immediately after this class is think of three brands that you would love to work with, and think of pieces of your recent work that you can include in your pitch, and do a little bit of research on Link ten and company websites to see if you can identify the right contact people or teams that you can get in touch with. 12. Working with Brands & Creative Briefs: O. Once you lend a project, the real work begins. And in my experience, successful projects lead to more work. So Majority of my clients are either repeat clients or referrals sometimes within the same organization as I work with different teams or simply referrals within the industry. And it makes sense because once you deliver quality work for the brand, it's a lot easier for the agent or brand manager to trust you and want to work with you again. So it's important to treat every client interaction, every piece of work that you deliver along the way. An opportunity to make your relationship stronger and to win that next gig. Here my ten pieces of advice on how to work with brands and creative agencies with a particular focus on communication and handling creative briefs. Number one, you want to understand the creative brief thoroughly. Before starting any project, ensure that you fully understand the needs of the brand and ask questions, if anything is unclear, see clarifications on objectives, the target audience, style preferences, and deadlines. And my advice to you is that it's always better to do that up front. So I spend quite a bit of time going through the briefs, reading through all the details and asking questions before I actually go ahead and start developing my concepts. Number two, you want to set very clear expectations. From the outset, you want to communicate about expectations regarding deliverables, timelines, and the type of communication your client prefers. You want to ensure that both parties are on the same page to avoid any sort of misunderstandings later on. For example, some of my clients prefer a quick phone call to clarify some things around the brief. Others prefer written communication, and I usually ask them to clarify their preferences upfront before going forward with the project, so they feel comfortable and I know what they expect. Number three, You want to maintain open and regular communication. So keep the lines of communication open throughout the project. Don't wait until the final deliverable. Regular updates and check ins can help you ensure the project is on track and allow for any necessary adjustments. You also want to accept feedback graciously and be willing to make revisions. Understand that feedback is part of the collaborative process, and it aims to improve the final product. It's never really meant as criticism. You're discussing your ideas, do so with confidence. Explain your creative choices and how they align with the briefs objectives. And this goes without saying, but always maintain professional demeanor in all your interactions with the brand. Respect the client's vision and the input from creative agency or the brand manager, even if you have a different opinion. May want to keep very detailed records of all communications, especially feedback, and of course, formal agreements. This can be invaluable if any disputes arise or if you need to refer back to previous discussions. For example, I always archive all my client e mails going back years. Prepared to adapt to changes in the project scope and direction. Flexibility can help build a positive working relationship and ensure the success of the project. And of course, adhere to deadlines and manage your time efficiently. And this is important. If you ever foresee any delays, you want to communicate them promptly and propose solutions in order to stay on track. Finally, you want to build a collaborative relationship, particularly with your point person on that brand team. Person is your greatest ally in getting the client on board with your vision for the project. So you want to foster a collaborative environment by being approachable and willing to share ideas. A good working relationship will always lead to more opportunities in the future. 13. Final Thoughts & Next Steps: So I hope you found this class helpful and that it gave you some useful and practical ideas that you can incorporate in your own practice. Remember that building relationships with brands and clients is an ongoing process, and you can use this framework of portfolio, social media strategy, and pitching as a foundation to build on, adapt it to your practice, and try different techniques and tactics that we discussed at different times. Remember that you have some takeaways, the checklist that you can download from the class resource section. So the easiest thing to do is to start there, focus on one of the pillars we discussed and use the checklist to review how you present your work, maybe identify some opportunity areas, and test a couple of new approaches. If you need some help in that area, I will be offering a few one on one sessions where we can review your portfolio in depth together. So I can give you some personalized back. You can be on the lookout for those sessions and sign up using the link either in this class description or on my profile. Before you go, I would greatly appreciate if you took a moment to leave a review and some feedback on this class. Your insights are always invaluable, and it helps me improve the teaching experience for everyone. Thank you for watching, and I wish you the best of luck on your creative journey.