Throughout the past few weeks, our tutors have recommended that we listen to a number of different pod casts on the Big Illustration Party site to broaden our knowledge of whats going on in the world of commissioned artists. Hand on heart, I've enjoyed some much more then others and especially the most recent one focusing on the importance of self promotion with Kevin Cross and Joshua Kemble. They came across as being very down to earth and I could relate to a lot of what they were speaking about.
This pod cast in particular was a relaxed conversion between two free lance illustrators, discussing the do's and don'ts when approaching potential clients. This is something that is fresh with myself at the moment as I'm at a point where I need to be doing this myself. I find it quite daunting when it comes to phoning and even emailing art directors but it is an essential aspect that leads to commissioned work. Both Kevin and Joshua are freelancers themselves so have had much experience over the years about successful ways of communicating with clients.
A big point that they emphasised greatly was that cold calling is not a beneficial way of getting in touch with someone. It can come across intrusive and puts the person on the spot, like a door to door salesman would, sometimes leading to a peer pressured environment. This is clearly not going to play in your favour. Instead, they suggested emailing as a first port of call and creating a mailing list of the companies and clients that interest you and think would give you the opportunity to work for. It's no good contacting a client that specialises in a completely different field of work to yourself and you'll be wasting both your own time and more importantly theirs. The problem that you face with emailing is that it they're incredibly easy to ignore or forgotten about. If attachments are sent, this seems to trigger off a spam filter that classes it as junk so the person might not even receive you work. Another thing they mentioned about attaching work was that its more effort for the director or whoever to go through in order to see your work. I thought this was a bit lazy as how are they expecting to find new work if they can't be bothered to click a link to open a new window. It seemed a little ridiculous but they seemed to know what they were talking about. A safer way of ensuring that they'll see your work is by embedding files to the email itself so there's no leg work necessary.
Sending updates of your work were talked about and how doing it too frequently can come across desperate. They suggested a bi annual update of your recent pieces, that shows a good amount of new work. If people aren't responding to your updates, remove them from your contact list as you're just wasting time. Holiday cards were also suggested but only if you're 100% sure you can spare the time to make them look amazing. It's easy to for rushed work to not play in your favour, especially cliche, predictable cards that don't stand out from the rest.
Social networking sites like Flickr and Twitter were discussed as a great means of communication platforms and not just for fun. I personally use Flickr for referencing images and didn't know you could sign up for updates and follow other peoples work that could lead to an ever growing fan base.
I found the discussion both interesting and enjoyable due to the kind nature of the illustrators talking. It was much more relative to myself as they were both practicing artists rather then the opinions of a hiring art director/client. It refreshed my concept of how important social networking can be as an outlet of job prospects, as well as keeping in touch with friends which can be important for support after uni. Its given me lots to consider for after finishing my degree, with confidence about how to approach future clients without the nerves and fear of rejection.
No comments:
Post a Comment