Practitioner Visit by Fig Taylor
Well, what a treat! We recently had a visit from Fig Taylor, Portfolio Consultant with the Association of Illustrators.
Fig started out as a graphic designer before setting up a graphic design and illustration agency of her own. After several years, she gave it up due to ill health and now works freelance for the AOI and teaches Professional Practice to BA Illustration students at the University of Northampton.
Having gained a wide overview of the industry and a wealth of valuable experience, she passed on some nuggets to us.
SELF PROMOTION AND TARGETING
Your portfolio should be the smallest body of your best work.
Ask clients/agents “Do you know anyone else who might like my work?” Personal recommendations will almost always guarantee a meeting.
Attend meetings clean, sober, presentably dressed and punctual. Don’t put a suit on. You are artists, not management. Dress casual but clean.
This should be a smallish body of work. Nothing A2 or larger. There are no desks large enough and they are cumbersome.
So, A3 or A4 portfolios should always contain finished illustrations.
Bring along a sketchbook as an optional extra.
No life drawing in portfolios – observational drawing is not illustration.
There is a case for including character development if you are pitching for work in animation, computer games or children’s books.
iPad should be your weapon of choice.
Each piece has to follow smoothly to the next.
Mainstream clients are usually magazines, books, design companies and advertising agencies.
Most illustrators start with magazines. Editorial is not a style – it’s a genre – so there is something for everyone. It’s a massive market. Even for children’s illustrators. There are magazines for children and young adults. Also parents and people who work with children. They will all want illustrations to look child-centric.
You’d be mad not to take jobs in editorial. It builds up your professional portfolio.
Deal with the Art Editor or Art Director.
Magazines pay the least, but they are more likely to take a punt on a newly qualified illustrator.
Books and publishing pay more.
Design groups pay a lot more.
Advertising agencies pay telephone numbers. The average ad campaign costs £3.5 million. An illustrator might get £20-30k of that budget. The competition is fierce though.
Generally, the more money you get from a job, the more headaches you get. You will have to deal with more people and might have less creative control over your illustration.
Get acquainted with ALL magazines. They fall into four categories:
Consumer magazines - Everything you see in WH Smith.
Trade magazines - Everything you see on Have I Got News For You, e.g. Coal International, Brick Bulletin etc…
Professional magazines - Nursing Times, The Lancet, Financial and Teaching magazines, etc…
Customer magazines - These are free magazines produced by supermarkets and companies that you subscribe to, e.g. SAGA magazine, Waitrose magazine, Pet Plan etc…
Look at all magazines, even if you think “They wouldn’t use me” or “They won’t commission illustrators.” If you don’t look inside, you will never know.
Every time you see an illustration in a magazine (large or small, and NOT an advert), look inside on the masterhead page and you will see the name and contact details of the Art Editor.
Leave no stone unturned. Unless you look, you’ll never know.
Trade magazines give you more illustrative and creative freedom.
Many magazines are based in the same building. If you get a meeting with a magazine’s Art Editor, find out which other magazines are in the same building. Telephone them and say “I have a meeting with [………] from [………] magazine at 2:30. Could I come and see you afterwards?”
If you get a refusal from an Art Editor, but still get a positive vibe, ask them, “Can you recommend anyone who might like my work?” If they then give you contact details for another Art Editor, it’s as good as a personal recommendation when you call and say, “[………] suggested that I contact you as my work might be suitable for your magazine…”
Look in the University library. They have trade magazines for everything.
When writing to an Art Editor for the first time, WRITE A LETTER! Do not send an email.
Their contact details are sold, along with thousands of others, by marketing companies. Therefore, they will receive hundreds of emails that they will swipe through and you would be lucky to get a look in. More likely, due to the attachments you would send, your email will end up in their spam or junk folder anyway.
A hard copy letter is a rarity and will almost certainly be read. Enclose examples of your illustrations that are appropriate to that publication.
Fig Taylor is the author of ‘How To Create A Portfolio & Get Hired’.
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