Like I said I would in my other post, I've emailed Tom Woolley! I didn't really have any specific questions but he's a working illustrator in West Yorkshire so I asked for some general advice. With me finishing uni in just a couple of months (how scary is that?!), I asked if he had any advice about the first year of leaving uni. I attached my website too. Obviously I've only just made it so any suggestions he has would be a great help!
This was his reply:
He said that my portfolio is quite varied which has been a worry of mine. He really likes my food illustrations and thinks this could be good to take further and could carve out a niche as a 'food illustrator'. He think these they would work well in food / lifestyle magazines. This is great to hear as I'd love to focus of food illustration and have my food in such magazines.
In terms of advice about life after uni, he referred me to a blog post he'd written about 'Getting started as a freelance illustrator'. Here's what he wrote:
To give a bit of background I came to the world of freelance illustration a little late and worked at a museum as a web designer straight after graduation. My degree had the snappy title of ‘Electronic Imaging and Media Communications’ and involved a bit of everything; web design, graphic design, illustration, media theory, photography and film-making. I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do when I was 18 (who is?!) so I was attracted to a degree that offered lots of different things to explore. I think I liked art and computers and in the late 1990s this degree ticked a lot of boxes.
After working as a web designer I then worked as a curator for five years but kept doing bits of freelance design and illustration work in my spare time as a creative outlet. I’d always dreamed of doing freelance illustration full time but never thought I could realistically make enough money out of it. Then in December 2012 there was a staff restructure and I took redundancy so I could have a stab at forging a career out of freelance illustration full time.
I pretty much started from scratch in early 2013 with a portfolio that needed a lot of work and a handful of industry contacts. I read a lot of online blogs and books about how to make it in the scary world of freelance and I’ve been plugging away at it for nearly three years now.
Would you say it’s better to get a part time job or focus purely on finding work?
Well I guess you’ve got to pay the bills so I’d only go full-time freelance if you had enough money coming in to keep the lights on for a few months. After leaving the museum I basically spent six months working on my portfolio – a few commissions dribbled in and I think they totalled up to about £2000. I could only dedicate myself to it full time as I had my redundancy. I then got worried about money and worked at a web design agency for a year whilst doing the illustration commissions on the side. I know a lot of illustrators who do work part-time so they’ve got a reliable source of income every month.
How did you go about finding clients? Would you say your website is a big part of getting the word out?
Your website is key. I’ve had a few clients just through Google searches – but my Hire an Illustrator and AOI portfolios also lead to commissions. I’ve sent out postcards in the past to Art Directors which has led to a few jobs. Also just through word of mouth and emailing people with jpegs of my work. You can buy directories of Art Directors through the AOI and you can find people’s email addresses through magazines. I spent a fair bit of time in newsagents leafing through magazines, seeing who was commissioning illustration and taking quick snaps of contact details on my phone. LinkedIn is also a useful tool for finding out if people are still in the same job or if they’ve moved agencies.
I remember listening to this podcast with Rod Hunt and getting really fired up about the need to send out postcards: http://illustrationage.com/2011/02/01/efii-podcast-episode-69-rod-hunt/
Also Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Behance and Facebook have all led to jobs. You’ve basically got to be a one person marketing team – so I try to do a few minutes a day updating different networks.
You’ve got to have a clear website with your work front and centre on the home page. Make sure your work is getting picked up in search engines and is easy to find and browse by busy Art Directors who don’t have time to spare.
Would I be better specialising in one illustration style or offering a wide range of skills?
I think it’s important to have a distinctive style but something that is also commercial. I guess I looked at the type of clients I wanted to work for and then adapted my style a little to suit that. I think having a specialism helps too and makes it easier for people to find you. So I purposely pushed illustrated maps as I liked doing them and wanted to do more for other people. The freelance market is crowded so it’s important to stand out.
Jonathan Woodward has a really good article about whether it’s best to specialise in one style or be able to adapt your style to different jobs: http://jonathanwoodwardstudio.com/professional-illustration-101/ (make sure to check out Jonathan and Lea’s other excellent articles about the business of illustration on their blog).
And maybe most importantly – when did you start getting enough work to live reasonably comfortably?
I guess after leaving the museum in December 2012 it wasn’t until earlier in 2015 that I felt confident this freelance lark was a proper thing that I could actually comfortably make a living from. So about two and a half years! (and I’m still always looking at my spreadsheets and working out how many months I’ve got before I’m skint, imagining what would happen if the commissions suddenly dried up). But I noticed a gradual increase in commissions and interest and this kept me going, but I was being very careful with money.
I went to an encouraging panel discussion as part of Leeds Digital Lunch all about going solo and starting your own business. One of the panellists was a web developer who said if you can get enough work to keep you going for your first year then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be confident you can carry on year after year.
First thing I did was to make a budget and work out what was the minimum I needed to pay the bills. This was my monthly target and I thought if I couldn’t make that much I’d apply for a part-time job somewhere. It is scary though and I’ve had several periods were I was really anxious about money – but then the freedom of being your own boss and the satisfaction of carving out a living for yourself more than makes up for it.
It’s still early days though and it’s exciting to not quite know what jobs are going to come next. One really inspiring book is ‘A Life in Illustration‘ which features lots of in-depth interviews with illustrators who have been working freelance all their life.
For further inspiration make sure to check out Alex Mathers’ site Red Lemon Club, and Darrel Rees’ book ‘How to be an Illustrator‘ is something I turn to all the time.
He also invited me to this!
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