 |
|
Ask a Pro
Ask a Pro is a collection of illustration related questions answered by top art directors, designers, editors, artist representatives and other professionals in the commercial illustration industry.
If you have a suggestion for a question or know someone who might be a good candidate to answer a couple questions
Contributors
How do you like to see work from an illustrator?
(more questions)
Seeing a website probably provides the best view to what an artist is about and hopefully some of idea of their personality and interests. You can tell if they're focused on one style, if they have 'found themself' within their art, what type of work they're doing and probably how prolific they are. That website also says they care enough about their illustration to go through the laborious process of designing and putting up a website. It's still fine for an artist to email two to three low res jpegs to review in place of a website but the website is definitely more helpful.
Printed packages are fun to get, I still enjoy opening great mail - something that reminds me of my days as an art director. However if the work isn't great or appropriate to the agency sending a fancy package won't make a bit of difference. Opening dismal or poorly put together packages is never fun - something that also reminds me of my days as an art director. As with most agencies, at Magnet Reps we don't return unsolicited samples or packages so I always feel guilty when I receive a really elaborate one that someone has put a bit of money into. I suppose with the really creative stuff it's very likely that the artist will be right for some agent and hopefully they were on the artist's mailing list too. My advice to artists planning on sending out a big expensive package: Send an envelope out first with 4 or 5 printed samples and a SASE or postcard with 'check here' options. Options could be along the lines of A/ I love your work, give me a call! B/ I think you have potential, keep mailing me things. C/ Your work is not right for my agency, thanks anyway. That will give reps an easy and expense free way to communicate with you directly and it will save you a chunk of change in the long run. You'll be able to spend your money on the reps that really may be interested in working with you.
Lastly, the work is very important but even good work from an illustrator that sends a generic email or letter (even worse!) saying 'Dear Sir . . .' is a real turn off. If an artist is sending an email to thirty reps they should spend the extra day needed to get the names of the people they are addressing the message to, and send the emails individually. It's just professional courtesy. If we sent letters like that out to clients they'd never call us back!
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
What's your process when working with an illustrator?
(more questions)
There is a range depending on the background and experience of the artist but generally once I have decided I'm interested I just send them an email or give them a call to start the ball rolling. I will never tell an illustrator to keep me on their mailing list if I know I'd never rep them, I would never waste someone's time that way. But we only like to add so many artists in any given period so I don't always take on every artist I like. Sometimes I see something so good in only one or two illustrations that I tell an artist to keep me in the loop, but the way they develop isn't always what suits me in the end.
Once I've made that call to an artist I like to talk to them on the phone a few times to get to know their personality a bit. I don't interrogate them, I let them direct the conversation, I just like to hear what they have to say about their work, goals, and experiences. It helps to decide whether they seem aligned with the way Magnet Reps looks and works. If everything falls into place with goals, expectations and personality I invite them to join the agency. I discuss the terms of the agreement we have with them, our expectations, a basic idea of what our marketing plan would be and send a contract to review. Now it's up to the artist to join!
Once they join the agency everything swings into action. The artist sends us disks with all their high res art, portfolios and other existing sample materials and we work to get their work up on our website ASAP. We make sure to send out a printed promo of some kind right away to introduce them to clients and the industry. At that point they are officially 'in' and become a part of all agency group mailers, advertising and promotions. Individual promotion for each artist varies but that's a whole other question!
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
When looking at an illustrator's website what type of presentation do you like?
(more questions)
I've seen all kinds and the ones that impress me the most are the ones that come across as completely unique and connected to the creative POV of the artist. A great website does more than showcase your art - it showcases who you are as an artist and an individual. I even bookmark great websites of artists I don't rep just because I love visiting them, it's like going to a great art show without leaving your office.
There are some design elements that do irritate though and it would be good to avoid them. In no particular order: welcome or home pages that run through meaningless graphics before you can click on anything, sites where it is unclear where to click to move forward, enlarged images that are only two inches tall, no contact information or email link (surprising but true!), showing art in styles you don't do anymore (with the exception of award winning pieces) and sites where you have to keep clicking back and forth on different windows to see the work and then you end up having 50 windows on your desktop to close when you're done. Another thing to avoid is only having ten illustrations on your site, it's better to wait until you've got it together to launch the site and invite others to review the work then. That said try to make it functional and let your freak flag fly!
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
What advice would you give to illustrators?
(more questions)
If you want to do great work and be successful you need to be illustrating or working on your illustration in some way every day. Do personal work, create the kind of work you would like to be hired to do, research ideas, get inspired. Picking it up only when you have a job to complete is not enough. Without constant practice your hand with become rusty between projects, your concepting skills will degrade and your ideas will flow slowly. Decide if you truly have the aptitude for illustration and if so pursue it relentlessly. If this is not right for you then find what motivates you and move on. Illustration is brutally competitive and requires more than talent to succeed. If you're doing illustration because you're artistic and you feel you don't have the skills to succeed at something else, then you don't have the skills it takes to become a successful illustrator. This may seem harsh but I would rather advise people against a poorly matched career choice than see them waste good years of their life pursuing something they would be ultimately unable to accomplish.
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
What is your backup plan for when an illustrator doesn't deliver an assignment on time or at all?
(more questions)
Wow! First off I should say that we work with professional illustrators who take their jobs as illustrators very seriously and who respect the time and effort of their clients. Not getting an assignment done on time or at all is really not acceptable. Any art director would rather be asked for extra time up front, before the artist accepts the job. Whenever possible art directors do try to accommodate these requests. As reps part of our job is to create a workable schedule of jobs that can be accomplished on time. If we suspect an illustrator may not be able to complete an assignment on time we won't accept the job without first discussing the schedule and demands with them in the context of their existing assignments. If it works great, if it doesn't the client will likely remember the artist and hire them again in the future. If the illustrator accepts the job and then fails to meet the deadline or bails - they will probably never be given the opportunity to work with that client again.
Of course true emergencies do happen. We have had artists who have had parents/grandparents die or have become so ill that they could not work for a period of time. When something like that comes up we contact the client immediately to see if there is enough time in the schedule to permit an extension. If an extension is not possible we try to offer up another artist that could finish the job on time - but clients hire illustrators because they want them, not someone else. We don't have the type of agency that has artists that are virtually interchangeable so it's unlikely that the client would be able to find a replacement from within the agency. I would be willing to go out of my way for both the artist and the client in a circumstance such as this, making sure the artist has the time they need to recover and the client finds another artist from my agency or even from another agency.
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
How much time does an illustrator have to complete a typical assignment?
(more questions)
This varies from job to job, but on projects that include one to three illustrations usually an illustrator is given a week for rough sketches and week for the final illustration(s). Assignments with many illustrations have deadlines that allow for the quantity of work involved. Newspaper work is much faster with roughs and finals often required on the same day the illustration is assigned. Book publishing has the longest deadlines (often over months) and corporate and advertising work seem to fall somewhere in between. There are exceptions to every standard though, we have worked on editorial projects with three month deadlines and advertising jobs that needed to be completed in two days.
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
What is the most common problem you run into when working with illustrators?
(more questions)
That's pretty easy to answer. The biggest difficulty I have is with illustrators being unhappy about working with the client on revisions. Ideally every job would be a charmed experience with no revisions, immediate approval and many thanks thereafter but it's just not the case often enough. What we are doing is commercial illustration, with the end result being art that the client can publish in some way to reflect the needs of their customers or themselves based on their opinion. Different types of clients and jobs have different demands and expectations of the process. An illustrator that has worked primarily in editorial illustration may be surprised to find that in advertising and book publishing more rough sketches and revision stages are expected, and revisions to the final are not unheard of. Sometimes the fee structure accommodates this type of exchange, sometimes it doesn't.
While art directors should hire an illustrator based on both style and conceptualization skills, this is not always the case. In some instances an illustrator is hired primarily to illustrate an art directors concept in the illustrator's specific style. An art director at an ad agency has already gone through a lot of planning and a number of approval processes before an illustration is assigned, this puts more restrictions on what can be accomplished with the final illustration. Often specific corporate colors need to be incorporated, perhaps some visual iconography cannot be used since it has recently existed in a prior campaign or currently exists in a competitors marketing. There is a lot more to consider and the repercussions are greater in advertising than they are in editorial, which is part of the reason that (in most cases) the fees reflect the additional care, work and cooperation required.
This practice distresses some artists more than others, but the best way to address it is to be honest about the job at hand. I try to make sure that an illustrator understands that client needs may vary substantially from job to job before they join the agency. I build a specific number of allowable revisions into the project job confirmation. Clients know in advance what it will cost for additional revisions which in itself may reduce the number requested. When a job comes up that will likely be more involved or difficult to deal with I am up front with the illustrator about what the expectations will be. If a client demands more than is to be expected or tries to take real advantage of the illustrator's time and energy, I am the first person to intervene on their behalf and resolve the situation amicably.
If I see a pattern with an illustrator consistently being asked for more revisions than normal and being unhappy with the work involved it does set off an alarm. I usually spend some time with the artist trying to resolve the issue. Are they providing too many roughs or too few? Is there a communication issue or a language barrier? Is it a perception issue? There is always a way to get to bottom of it and make things better.
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
On average what is the life span of an illustrator's career? How many years can they get work with a particular style?
(more questions)
I wish there was an easy answer for this. There are a good number of illustrators out there who have been illustrating for more than 20 years, many more for more than 10 and so on. Although there are some illustrators that have been working for 40 or more years the number is not what it should be. Some illustrators have a timeless style that will serve them well over the years. Other illustrators grow and change with the times, never letting their work feel stale or tired. Both of these approaches will have true longevity but it takes hindsight, or exceptional foresight, to be able to distinguish what will become a classic. Then there are also the illustrators that attempt to change their style much more frequently with dizzying effect, not necessarily the best idea - just as an art director gets a handle on your work it will have changed again.
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
You represent artists in various countries. What are some of the main differences in illustration between these different international markets?
(more questions)
We represent artists in Canada, France, Italy and Argentina as well as the United States. The way that illustrators and their work are viewed in their own countries seems to be one of the biggest differences. The job process in the United States includes rough sketches that must be approved or revised on every job, on advertising jobs this process can be lengthy. In some other countries rough sketches are not required and there is never any request for changes on a final - this would seem like a dream to most American illustrators. In Japan illustrators are held in exceptionally high regard.
Fees range quite a bit, in well developed illustration markets like England and France they appear to be on par with what you would find here, but I have heard of depressingly low fees in some other European countries.
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
What changes in the illustration industry have you seen in the last 10 - 15 years? What are some recent trends?
(more questions)
- I feel that there was a swing toward photography for a while there but in the last few years I've seen that illustration is getting more visibility and credit, and with greater success and return for clients.
- There are substantially more illustrators now than there ever were before. This may in part be due to the 'manipulated photography' as illustration trend and the 'graphic design work' as illustration trend, but I believe it is also attributable to what appears to be an expansion of illustration, animation and even comic book art programs in many art schools around the world. There is a lot more competition for illustrators out there now.
- The art directors, creative directors, designers and art buyers that have jobs are under greater pressure to perform at higher levels than historically expected and with less resources and support staff.
- Illustrators started selling stock artwork to and through large stock agencies for low prices. The illustrators that I hear complaining about stock are primarily the illustrators that sold their work as stock. My advice - don't do it and you'll never be sorry you did.
- Stylistic trends: Very clean, slick and slightly stiff digital illustration has been popular for a while now, as is a style that I would describe as looking like 'information graphics', but clients are starting to get bored with this. I don't want to scare artists that just render color digitally - that's not what I'm talking about. I often hear the words 'authentic', 'painted' and 'hand-made' coming up lately. Graphic novels are a trend, as is the concept of the illustrator as a writer as well - but beware, just because you can write does not mean that you should. Be self-scrutinizing and if that fails have someone else scrutinize the writing. Bad writing will bring down good illustration. Lastly there has been a flood of illustrators that generate their work from photographic imagery and manipulate it slightly in a few different ways to create an illustration. This is a trend that has been jumped on by artists at an alarming rate (it is by far the largest number of representation inquiries we receive) and I can only assume this is due to the fact that
- sorry - it's got to be pretty easy to do. My advice here - find another style, there are already too many of you out there and the luster of this style is starting to tarnish.
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
If an illustrator has a limited budget to market themselves, what are the top 3 marketing tactics that have the best return on investment?
(more questions)
Number One would be a website - every illustrator should have their own website to show off their work, tell their story and express themselves (if you have an agent this becomes less important, you can always depend on your agent's website). Number Two would be direct mail - postcards are a quick and inexpensive format to start with. Number Three would be client research - if you can't afford to subscribe to all of the design magazines such as HOW, PRINT and Communication Arts (among many others) you should be hanging out at your local library or bookstore a lot.
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
You receive over 4000 submissions a year from artists wanting to be represented. What are some of the most important work and personality characteristics you look for in a new artist to represent?
(more questions)
Art - Talent comes first and foremost. An illustrator needs to be unique, visionary and highly skilled with a well developed visual vocabulary. Reps really are looking for illustrators that have that undefinable 'it' quality to their work. An ability to create independent of very many aids is important. As is having varied interests with exposure to the world, life, culture, current events, trends and so on. I know it can be a lot to ask since you do have to be in your studio creating, but you have to live in the world too - it brings so much to the work.
Personality - If I don't connect with an artist and I don't feel like I could work with them for the next ten or more years I don't even want to get involved. Personality, passion, professionalism and dedication are all really important. No matter where you are in your career you have to be dedicated.
Experience - Although it's not imperative, we would prefer that an illustrator has had at least some experience promoting themselves before they join the agency. This has nothing to do with us being able to tell if they are 'road tested' or not, or have already built any kind of a clientele. Honestly we are passionate about what we do and we work tremendously hard for all of our artists. An illustrator that has gone through the process of soliciting work, portfolio development, doing mailers, ads, competitions, billing and bookkeeping etc. is just going to appreciate what we provide to them more than an illustrator who has never had to experience how much work is involved.
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
Lots of illustrators seek an artist representative in hopes of finding more illustration work . . . but an artist representative does much more than that . . . can you please define your role more specifically?
(more questions)
You're right, artist representatives do more than just get artists more work. Of course we know that getting more work, better work and higher paying work are the primary goals most artists have for us but the simple fact is that you are all very unique and have different goals and objectives.
I see our responsibility as going beyond getting work to cultivating the image, appeal, reputation and exposure of an illustrator, managing many aspects of their business and helping them develop creatively in a direction that they feel connected to as well as one that will be promotable and profitable. In other industries artists might have an agent, a manager and a publicist. In our industry we serve as all three. There is bound to be variety from agency to agency in what services are provided to an illustrator, but I think most agents would agree that they step into all three sets of shoes at one point or another every day. The term 'artist representative' is actually starting to sound limited in scope compared to the activities our agency performs, in fact even the term 'agent' sounds too limited considering what we provide.
Notwithstanding the different experience levels illustrators may enter an agency at, their portfolios need to be honed to best present their style, artistry, vision, interests and conceptualization skills. Portfolios need to be maintained and updated on a regular basis, customized for specific clients when necessary. Artwork must be loaded on agency websites along with bio and client information, again all to be continuously updated. Reps design and produce mailers, ads in advertising annuals and other forms of print promotion passing substantial savings on to artists by virtue of being part of a group. We participate in the illustration competitions and take care of the entry process. We get our illustrators into art books, magazine articles and edited art annuals. We make recommendations on galleries and are often a pit stop for curators and gallery owners searching for talent. We attend conventions and industry seminars staying current and aiming ahead of the curve. We help mentor and guide illustrators in new directions such as publishing and licensing, creating goals that include self-motivated work to create opportunities. Let's not forget the work that many illustrators find boring, tedious and time consuming: estimates, pitches, presentations, negotiating, billing, collecting and so on.
Lastly, good agencies are respected by clients and seen as a filter for more than just talent. When a client hires an illustrator through an agency they expect that the illustrator will deliver excellent work on many levels. The expect the process will be professionally handled and the illustrator will be both creative and responsive, providing final work that reflects the caliber of illustration in their portfolio every time. We are a conduit, a safeguard, an editing process in a creative world crowded with illustration choices.
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com
You were an art director for a long time . . . what type of work did you art direct? How do you think this experience helps you as an artist rep?
(more questions)
Prior to Magnet Reps I worked as an art director in in-house art departments for corporate retail and the fashion industry, but the majority of my art directing experience was in magazine publishing. Over the years I worked on seven magazines and had the privilege of art directing two launch publications from 'birth' - very rewarding experiences. Art directing creative for a large organization is more varied with work that ranges from advertising, catalog and other forms of print marketing and promotions to product, packaging, window displays, even events. My experience as an art director helps me every day with Magnet Reps, besides the practical issues of negotiating and contracts, I tap into my art director background often to communicate with creatives in a way that seems to make their lives simpler and meet their needs. My past also helps me pick out potential stumbling blocks on jobs before they happen (which both the client and illustrator find quite helpful).
Chrystal Falcioni (more answers by this person)
Artist Representitive, Owner
MAGNET REPS
http://www.magnetreps.com