5 Steps to Transform Passion Into a Profession
Making drawing and illustration their profession is the aspiration of many. However, not everyone manages to become professional illustrators, and to turn their passion into a job that allows them to pay the bills. Over time many quit, thinking they have no talent or stopping at the first difficulties. But talent is not necessarily an innate thing: creativity is in fact an exercise that must be cultivated every day.
Transforming one’s passion into a profession, in this case of an illustrator, requires a series of important steps to be taken. Today we will see a roadmap with practical tips to become an illustrator.
1 – Becoming an Illustrator: Leaving Is the Hardest Thing
A solid foundation in any creative work is essential, even for becoming an illustrator. First of all, we need to:
- Do a lot of practice: you need to be an expert in your subject, then practice every day to get to know the anatomy, color, composition thoroughly. Attending an illustration school to get the right education could be useful, but it’s not always necessary.
- Digital or traditional illustration: this is not important, in fact you have to experiment with different techniques. It is essential to “get your hands dirty”, make mistakes, try again. A finished illustration is better than a perfect one. You have to set yourself some objectives, even if not extreme, such as producing a finished illustration per week.
- Knowing those who preceded us: illustration must be studied, both contemporary authors and the greats of the past. This is to learn about the styles, techniques and possibilities that this craft can offer. Fifty Years of Illustration is a book to keep absolutely on your desk. Becoming an illustrator also means having a precise picture of the state of the art of illustration in the recent and contemporary past.
2 – Becoming an Illustrator: Understanding Yourself Before Making Yourself Understood
Once you have built a solid technical base and known the works of different authors, a path that can be long and tortuous, but necessary, begins. Whoever wants to become an illustrator must ask himself a first fundamental question: who am I? The answer is not at all simple, because initially we tend to copy the style of our favorite authors.
You have to at some point find their own voice, certainly with the influences of what has been studied, but only enough to personalize what is produced, to be recognizable and create a personality strong through their own illustrations.
Over time you will understand what you are good at, creating what you love: illustration for children? Sci-fi themed? Or to range over different genres but maintaining a coherent style ? This is to be identified and be useful for the marketing objectives of a specific magazine or a communication agency. The goal is not to look at your own illustration and feel satisfied, but to understand the needs of potential clients (newspapers, magazines, agencies, events) and produce a work that works, that tells a clear and exciting story when associated with a text. To become a professional illustrator you need to understand where your skills and abilities can be used in practice.
3 – Become an Illustrator: Build Your Brand
Many illustrators work as freelancers: this means looking for clients to work with, but also and above all communicating their work in the best possible way to be found. It is not enough to simply be good, but also to try to have a clear vision to get noticed, online and offline, by potential customers.
There is much more to so-called personal branding than just a client list or your own portfolio, those come later. Instead, it is about everything an illustrator does, what he writes, his interests, his personality.
Here are some tips and tools for building a strong identity:
- Provide a sincere image: in this way their followers and potential customers will be able to represent correctly even jobs that are displayed. Branding means building a reputation: if you are honest with people, then you will see a future return.
- Be consistent: in the language you use, in your style, in the subjects you illustrate.
- Have a concrete visual identity: in this case you need to have a logo and a recognizable name, business cards.
- Set yourself medium, short and long-term goals: they are useful for focusing attention on a goal. “Within two years I want to publish my illustration on that magazine”. Maybe it doesn’t happen, but in the meantime something has moved: the production of new illustrations, the commitment to contact that specific art director. All useful experiences to try again in the future. Furthermore, this process can be shared (online and offline) to be active for all to see.
4 – Become an Illustrator: Promote Your Work Offline
Once you have gained experience in the field, have chosen the best illustrations to show and the type of customers to work with, you have to move on to the acquisition phase. It means letting potential clients know that you are ready to take responsibility for certain jobs as an illustrator. If you really want to make money from this profession then you have to see yourself as a business. It means actively seeking commissions, connections with customers, in short, calling oneself with one word: illustrator, no longer aspiring.
Here are some practical tips to make yourself known:
- Build your portfolio (and show it): this is essential and must best represent your style, your ideas and contain the best works. The possibilities are many and they can meet different tastes: printing your portfolio in a professional way is essential to become a professional illustrator.
- Get in touch with the industry: attending trade fairs and sector events in your area and networking by meeting people live can be very useful for the future. You have to get out of your studio and not be afraid to show yourself for what you are. Becoming an illustrator also means knowing how to move in the different sectors where your products can find a market.
- Bring your work into the hands of the art directors: make a potential list of clients you would like to work with and find out who decides about the publications. It is necessary to know in depth what the agency or magazine to which one proposes is concerned, it is useless to propose oneself without knowing what problems can be solved for the client. A traditional, but still useful, method is to send short paper letters with printed material, such as a small card or postcard with your own illustration to announce that you are available.
5 – Become an Illustrator: Promote Your Work Online
Becoming an illustrator is also a matter of image. Today the internet plays a fundamental role in promoting one’s work. It is important to create your own digital presence day after day, it is essential to see your work “flourish”. The advice is to create an online portfolio of your works, even with a blog to tell your path and experience, to be found also on Google. Furthermore, the presence on at least 3 platforms is also important:
- Instagram: very useful and full of art directors looking for illustrators. On this platform, hashtags are very important (for example #art, #illustrationtoday and many others). They serve to give visibility to your illustrations, so at least in this case they should always be used, clearly sparingly. The advice is to create a specific account to show your works and actively participate. Following your reference illustrators and posting regularly can help a lot. Making others understand your appreciation is also very useful: without exaggerating, you can comment on the work of other artists using your account. However, they must be constructive comments, not mere marketing commentary in large quantities.
- Facebook, Behance and Dribble: these are also useful platforms where you can create a profile and show what you can do. The important thing is to actively participate and be consistent in the publication of material. Show off your work, but also the context – you don’t just need to post your finished drawings or illustrations. You can then publish the process that led to the finished work, some sketches, a video while creating something.
- Email: Many art directors prefer to be contacted simply by email. You can then prepare an email list and send them to the art directors, including some examples of your work and links to social profiles. There are also paid solutions that offer contact databases, but for example even a simple search for the keyword “Art Director” on LinkedIn could pay off. Obviously, never send material without fully knowing the company you are contacting.
Becoming an illustrator is certainly not easy and it is not a career from which to immediately expect success: it takes a lot of patience, a lot of work and a few years to build a solid technical base and subsequently customers, but the final satisfaction will be great.