Illustration & Business: My Reflections
Lesson 1
Introduce yourself! Upload a piece of your work or a picture of you and let us know what phase you're in.
https://www.instagram.com/jasperyiu_/
Hi, my name is Jasper and I've been painting with watercolours for about two years. For the first year and a half, I was in the sprout stage and I was just happy to be making art again. During this time, I painted everything from food to houses to pet portraits and I had never even considered illustration as a career. When I eventually learned that it was actually possible to make a living with illustration, I decided to take my art more seriously. I started painting everyday and I slowly developed a preference for the way I enjoyed to paint. I think that the consistency of my work only started to emerge about half a year ago when I entered the growth stage (where I am currently at, if not hopefully due to enter the bloom stage soon :))
Lesson 2
Use the reflection questions above to identify an industry-market-niche, and whether you’re a B2B or B2C artist. Share what you find out from the questions in your class project and any additional thoughts.
I think the most difficult part of transitioning from the sprout stage to the growth stage for me was deciding what my "dream" is. At the very start, I was taking house and pet portrait commissions here and there and I loved it. Then, the idea of selling my own products became more appealing and I thought that maybe B2C was "the dream". But it wasn't until I started painting every day "just to learn" instead of focusing on turning everything into products that a preference started to develop in my style and I learned what I liked to paint and how I imagined my work being used.
I am sure that I will be revisiting the B2C idea at some point down the line, but at the moment I am determined to focus on being a B2B artist. I also know that other suitable options may come up and cause me to pivot at any time, but right now I'd like get my foot in editorial (market) food/lifestyle (niche) illustration (industry).
Lesson 3
Pick one of the pricing scenarios from the course PDF and come up with your own price (take into account your base fee and the value that the work will bring to the client). Add your pricing schema to your class project.
Lesson 4
If you do have a website, give it an audit. Evaluate it based on the 10 general criteria. Where can you improve? Add your findings to your class project
Above are the before/after versions of my portfolio website. In the original version, I had two very distracting carousels of what I thought would be the first things I'd want an art director see (examples previous editorial work and pieces that that I thought would be suitable for editorial work). The rest of my work was on a separate page.
After reviewing the 10 principles, I realized that I needed to remove the extra barrier it took for potential clients to actually see my work. I did not have enough pieces to organize my portfolio into collections, so I opted for displaying my best work prominently and plainly on the front page with the images being the main focus. This approach makes so much more sense in hindsight and I think that the website looks much cleaner.
Lesson 6
Find the contact info for an art director you’d like to work with. Draft the email using the template above. Share your email draft (and the images you would attach) in your class project).
Above are the images I would attach to an email. I am not completely set on my choice, but my reasoning behind choosing these specific pieces is that there is a mixture of flat lays, ingredients, objects, and instructional pieces - all of which I think are appropriate for editorial assignments. I can certainly use some insight on what art directors like to see :)
Lesson 8
Imagine your ideal client project. Who are you working with? What are you making? What is the assignment? Now, imagine that you are the client. What are your goals? Why have you chosen you as an artist? Biggest concerns? How can the artist proactively address these concerns? Share your thoughts and reflections in your class project.
As a dream project, I imagine myself working with a publisher to publish some kind of illustrated culinary book like "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" by Samin Nosrat. I may have been chosen to produce the work because the author is going for a colorful, painterly, semi-realistic style that retained enough proportion for instructional illustrations. I imagine that a book publisher differs from a magazine art director in that the demand for consistent high quality will be much higher. I plan to address this possible concern by producing enough work with enough variety in my subjects to demonstrate my ability in handling the task.
Lesson 10
Do some research and draft an invoice template. Read several templates and google any terms you don’t understand; get familiar with the language. Pick a template to use as a starting point and add in or modify the basic 4 components above. Upload an image of your completed invoice template in your class project.
Bonus Lesson: How to photograph and scan work
Capture, edit, and share an image of your work. Use a camera or a scanner. Shoot and edit according to the end use. Let us know your intended use when you share the image in your class project.
Intended use: To be posted on Instagram :)