What do the CIA do?
Present a diverse range of artists to potential commissioners. Promote artists.
Get work for illustrators, and they can still work under their own name too.
They take 30% of the work they get for the artists and don’t charge any other fees.
Advice to illustrators.
Don’t put yourself in a particular box.
Show agencies something different to what they already represent.
Being an illustrator doesn’t have to be a lonely pursuit, many people work in collectives as well as being represented by an agency individually.
Practice needs to be viable when working to short deadlines and producing high quality outcomes.
Working with an agency for a client is a conversational process.
There;s no room for divas - be a nice person and be easy to get on with.
Be respectful of someone else’s brief and motivations.
Promote yourself.
Self publishing is a viable option now, get your work out there.
Master the technical process - once you have done this you can speak through the process like your own language.
Don’t always answer a brief with one picture, have multiple ideas that work together to answer the brief.
Editorial work is a good starting point, there is lots of it being commissioned as quick turnaround briefs.
You own your work even though it is someone else’s brief. All you are doing is giving permission for someone to use work for a limited time and usage specification.
Challenge yourself.
Engage with new audiences.
Try to make it on your own before getting an agent. It will help you to understand the process of finding work, receiving feedback and rejection and handling the business side.
Costing
Production/origination fee - what they pay you for your time, skill, talent and effort of making the image.
Usage fee - what they pay you for using your image, cost depends on scale, time period, location and format.
Make sure the agreement is specific.
It is good for an illustrator to have a standard set of terms which can be sent out to commissioners including a cancellation/failing policy.
Purchase orders.
Portfolio Advice
Recommend 30 sides in a portfolio.
Consistent style and visual language.
Make it as original as possible, don’t try to be anyone else.
Include mockups of where the work could exist.
Spoon feed people potential applications of your work.
Make your work adaptable.
Maps?
Individual talk with Ben
I had a few questions to ask Ben after listening to his talk this morning. I started to think about the two sides to my practice and that if all my work was part of the same portfolio then it may be confusing and off-putting to potential commissioners. I also wanted to ask whether my more detailed ink pen way or working would be commissionable commercially as the only interest I have received so far for this style has been private commissions for work to be framed and displayed as artwork.
- It’s ok to have more than one style but it is best to separate them to have two separate portfolios which show off each style really well.
- The more detailed style is definitely commissionable, I should be taking advantage of the fact that I can actually draw like this and not feel like I need to dumb my work down to make it ‘commercially viable’ because it already is.
- Broaden my subject matter. Make it obvious that the styles can be applied to various subject matter. Think about food, plants and packaging.
Ben also mentioned maybe using an alias to separate my two styles. I personally don't think this is a good idea right now as I don't think I have enough work to produce two strong separate portfolios. I also think it would be a lot of work to be running two entire practices including websites and social media, etc. This has made me think about dividing my portfolio into two sections though.
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