#agentnegativespace

[dearartdirector]

Why there have not been any major, iconic breakthroughs by an artist like Picasso,Van Gogh, Leonardo Da Vinci,etc in this century? Are we moving more towards commercialising art to suit the people's need and forgetting our true uniqueness and essence?

Of course there are major iconic breakthroughs going on in our time! It just takes time, and a little distance, for them to be appreciated, written about, shown in museums, have scholarship built up around them. Do some homework into the periods of the artists you mention while they were alive: DaVinci was desired by the important courts of Italy more for his weapons ideas and mechanical toys than for his art. On his deathbed DaVinci lamented that he was a failure. Van Gogh was considered a failure by everyone except his brother & sister in law, who rescued his paintings from the garbage. She single-handedly made his art “famous” long after his death by clever marketing. Picasso was a master of personal branding and marketing long before any artist was thinking in those terms. He told everyone he was a genius long enough and lived in scandalous and narcissistic ways that the media loved reporting on. 

I’m not saying the art these artists made isn’t worthy of being considered groundbreaking. I AM saying it’s never just about the art. And it takes time and distance to see what’s going to be important. Further more, remember it’s the art critics and curators who decide what’s going to get written about and make it into museum collections. They don’t always know, by some divine intervention, who the most important artists are...they guess and bet and then tell us what we should think is important. There are plenty of groundbreaking artists that get left behind and forgotten by history. Even ones that were wildly successful in their times.

Also, it’s really only the last 2 centuries at most that artists have been able to make a living doing art for themselves. Every major piece of art in the Renaissance that we consider “masterpieces” were straight up commissions — either by the church or by the politically powerful. The artists weren’t making what they wanted, they were hired to do very specific things and I’m sure clients were just as involved — if not more so — than they are today.

—Agent Negative Space

[dearartdirector]

Lately I've had a number of potential clients ask me to do "trial projects" for them, before they decide to hire me or not. Small tasks, hypothetical branding or an ad for a fictional product. This work is unpaid, and while I fully understand the implementation of such aptitude tests, I am still quite averse to producing work for free. What is your experience with such projects? Do you issue them? Ought I challenge potential employers about it? Thanks gang.

These things get complicated, so let’s break it down to 2 categories:

1) Doing work on a project until a client knows they want to go with your direction. Many “art contests” fall under this category too. This is bullshit. It’s called “working on spec” and feel free to forward them this website: https://www.nospec.com

2) Doing work on a fictional project that definitely is not going to be used by the company in order to show your ability. This is called an “Art Test” and is frequently used in many industries — but for long-term projects or staff jobs, not for single project freelance. For that, a client should be able to tell from your portfolio how you will work and to what quality. That’s what a portfolio is for. If they’re asking you to do as much work to get the job as you will be doing ON the job then that’s also bullshit. You can definitely push back. Start politely, of course, but say you stand by your portfolio work. If they want to hire you just for sketch/idea stage first, they can do that, and then decide whether to go further past that, but you must prioritize paying work.

Protect yourself!

—Agent Negative Space

[dearartdirector]

Hello, I have a question? Would you happen to know why animators draw certain parts of characters in red or blue? Like in rough or uncolored animation, for instance?

Excuse me, I need a minute to pull my decrepit bones out of the grave they reside in. Ok. Gather round, kids, for a tale of the pre-digital world, where everything was hand drawn and photographed or photo-copied. The “blue” you refer to is called “Non-Repro Blue” or “Non-Photo Blue” and in comics and animation it would not Reproduce when copied in Black & White. So you could use it for all the sketching, and then inkers would ink over it in black, and only the black would reprint, and you don’t have to go back and erase all your under sketching after you ink.

Some artists still prefer to use blue (and, as an alternate, red, or any other color) in the modern world even in a digital workflow because then those colors are easier to select all at once after they’re scanned in and different areas might want to be separated later (foreground, mid ground, background, etc). They’re also not as reflective as graphite, so it’s easier to scan in without breaks. Some people also like the waxier texture of how colored pencils glide across paper. You could use any color to do this, but blue & red pencils are the most common and the furthest apart on the spectrum, so easier to separate.

And now I shall shuffle my bones back into the coffin.

—Agent Negative Space

[dearartdirector]

Tips for "cold calling" -aka cold emailing-? I prefer to make the contacts in person but sometimes there's someone I really want to work with, and I reach out... but it feels so dorky to say "Hi there, my name is (Anonymous) and I am a (Type of Artist). I've done (This) and (That) and you can see my portfolio here (Website Link)." Often times, a corporate email kicks back if I include attachments, so I can't even tease with an image to catch their attention.

Welcome to OVERTHINKING DAY! When we take a day to go thru the backlog of questions in our inbox and pick out all the ones where the asker is already answering their own question and just needs a friendly but firm “JUST DO IT ALREADY”. Here we go!

You may feel dorky, but that’s pretty much the formula. Get over it.

—Agent Negative Space

[dearartdirector]

Dear Art Directors, I've been getting a handful commissions lately but not enough unfortunately, so I wanted to post my commission examples and prices on Twitter for signal boosting. At the same time, I also want to start sending my portfolio to various companies. So my question is, would an AD see me as an amateur if I (heavily) undercharge for individual commissions just to get sales but ask for double or triple the rates for commercial work? Should I maybe keep my prices private? Thanks!

Private commissions are totally different than commercial ones. Commercial ones cost more because they’re not just paying you to MAKE A PIECE OF ART they are paying you for the USAGE OF THAT IMAGE COMMERCIALLY. So it really doesn’t matter. 

That said, do be careful to not underprice yourself on either front. All you do is keep yourself in starvation mode longer and drag down prices for other artists. Do some research at who else is doing roughly what you do with roughly the same experience/skill and price around that. Your goal is not to undercut everyone else. That always backfires.

—Agent Negative Space

[dearartdirector]

Hey ADs! I left my in-house design job four months ago to freelance fulltime and I am hustlin hard and crushing it! My previous employer reached out with a project proposal and offered me $20 less an hour to do it than I was making working there. I responded with my current freelance rate (roughly twice what they offered) and they wrote back a nasty email saying I was 'entitled and ungrateful'. I'm shocked at the immaturity- have you experienced anything like this in your careers?

I would look at this as a gift from your previous employer in the form of confidence that you did the absolutely right thing in leaving! Congrats! Now keep on crushing it, and realize that people you leave behind are probably jealous and want you to fail. The best response to unprofessionalism is to be UBER COOL AND PROFESSIONAL. It drives the people being nasty into even more of a rage that they can’t get an equally nasty response out of you.

There’s a lot of parallels here to dating/petty ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, but that’s a whole other post…

—Agent Negative Space

[dearartdirector]

Can you give me a list of illustrators you know that are out there freelancing and are busy. It’s just that I want to know what different types of projects working illustrators do. I want to use it as a point of reference.

Look, I’m going to give you a tough love answer here, because no one is going to spoon-feed you a career. You have to go out there and build it. Research is the first step to doing that. Even if I wanted to spend a whole bunch of time making you a list of artists, there’s no way I can know what area of illustration you are even asking about. Editorial Illustration? Book Covers? Concept Art? Animation? Fashion?

You say you want to know what types of projects illustrators work on, then look around you. Anything you see art on was made by someone. And most things have credits on them, or can be looked up online. If you are into magazine illustration, go to a magazine stand and look at magazine illustrations and write down the names of the artists who keep showing up in the credits. If you are interested in book covers go to a bookstore and look at the back cover and copyright pages of books. Same for a comic shop. Advertising and Fashion you will probably have to research online because those credits don’t usually get printed on projects. There’s concept art credits at the end of every movie. Knowing what company makes your favorite video game will lead to studios who have lists of concept artists working for them.

Asking other people to do your research for you is not only not going to get you answers, it’s going to shortchange you. It’s the search that helps you define what you want. Now go out and look.

—Agent Negative Space

[dearartdirector]

Dear ADs, should I say thank you when an art director gets back to me saying they put me on a list? I used think their inbox was probably so busy that they'd appreciate me not blowing it up an extra time just to say thanks, but now I'm wondering am I being rude?

Welcome to OVERTHINKING DAY! When we take a day to go thru the backlog of questions in our inbox and pick out all the ones where the asker is already answering their own question and just needs a friendly but firm “JUST DO IT ALREADY”.

If you think an AD has enough time to stop and consider whether an artist has sent a thank you to their random comment then you don’t understand how busy we are. Only worry about sending a thank you if the AD has taken the time to write a long email with feedback in it out of the goodness of their hearts. 

—Agent Negative Space