Graphic designer, creative mentor, & 3D illustrator with a small proof press, big vegetable garden, and many cats. I've spent my career helping other people be creative, and this is where I show what I am working on.
Showing posts with label business of art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business of art. Show all posts
A sidebar from my upcoming book on portfolios for visual designers. This is from the section where I talk about the four main colors you can present your work on: Black, White, Grey, and Ivory.
Color backgrounds
A color background—or even a palette of
colored backgrounds—could work in certain situations and for certain visual
designers. This is both really hard to make successful and hard to maintain
though, so it is not listed as one of the choices. Like all things in the
visual arts, rules are made to be broken, but things tend to be rules because
they are really hard to break well.
Jakub Rozalski’s portfolio demonstrates one of the most important aspects of being a visual artist, and probably the most elusive aspect to teach. Its not color or form or subject matter or any particular hand skill. Those all have their own challenges when it comes to teaching, but they also have demonstrable solutions. And, to be fair, those feel hard enough most of the time, both for teachers and students. What Rozalski’s portfolio shows, on top of a huge amount of skill and talent, is quantity. He has put the time in to master his craft.
Even though the 10,000 hours of practice meme has been disputed and clarified (it's really about intentional practice rather than number of hours) it is still a useful and very true concept. You only get good by doing. For visual communication students, this means that they graduate with a solid set of entry level skills, and—probably important for their confidence as they begin their job search—very little idea how far they are from mastery. This is true even for the best portfolios presented by graduating seniors. There is always more to be learned and it can only be learned by doing.
When I teach a portfolio classes, a theme I return to again and again is that you need to prove you can create a certain sort of piece over and over again to solve different problems. If you want to be a packaging designer, you need to show a lot of packaging. UX folks aren't going to get a job without showing how they connected the experiences they create to their users in multiple types of jobs. Illustrators need to show that they can successfully solve visual problems in a consistent way. An illustration portfolio with one water color, one digital painting, one cartoon, one pen and ink piece, and so forth, isn't going to to be successful. They need show mastery of medium and problem solving. Mastery of multiple mediums runs a distant third if its important at all. A whole portfolio of digital paintings, in a consistent style, is way more powerful than showing a lot of one off pieces. You need to prove that the piece in your portfolio that is in the style your client wants wasn't a fluke. Potential clients want to see a whole portfolio in the style they want to hire you for.
On top of that, if you want to achieve mastery, you have to be in it for the long haul. Underneath all our efforts as educators and mentors as we focus our students’ efforts on skill building, problem solving, and audience driven work, is teaching sustainable practice. What is the process that will not only turn out quality work, but will adapt to work with other people and teams? How do you stay focused on the prize in a world where “entry level” means five years of experience and a bunch of shipped or published work?
“You get good by doing” sounds good, and everyone believes it, but students (and I suspect everyone trying to learn a new skill) struggle with how much of their lives need to be devoted to doing in order to reach their goals. This manifests in a lot of ways but the warning signs of not doing are like flares to those of us who teach. Not researching audience and competitors. Visual direction research that consists of a Pinterest board that is created and never looked at again. The grudging creation of the absolute minimum of thumbnails and preliminary sketches. Students see cutting these corners as good time management—they have a lot of other work to do. We know they are sabotaging the path their career will take as well as the ability to stay on that path until they are established.
Striving to master one thing doesn’t mean ignoring all the other things you could do. It is fun to play in different styles and that may be how you discover the next thing you want to master. But a portfolio that attracts clients shows big chunks of work in each area that you are strong. Look at Rozalski’s portfolio again. Do you have any doubt that he would be able to handle concept work for a military fantasy game or movie or book covers? Make sure your portfolio, no matter what you do, makes potential clients feel as confident in your mastery of your skills as his does for his clients.
A great post on Unicorn Free. Watching the transformation she talks about is what has kept me teaching all these years. Getting over yourself—and getting out of your own way—is the hardest lesson to teach (and learn.)
I was impressed not only by how hard she works to create her images, but by the fact that Instagram was the vehicle that lifted her into wider recognition. Just like all social media, the key to success there is quality plus consistency, which means she must always be in process on any number of shoots at a time to keep her feed filled.
Some people feel the terms, "cover letter" and "letter of inquiry" have become antiquated. The terms, and their appearance as the cover page of a resume, carefully printed on beautiful, toothy paper, are perhaps showing their age. The words contained in a cover letter however, whether in the form field of on online application or the body of an e-mail or the first page of a PDF, are as relevant and vital today as they have ever been.
Cover letters may be fairly casual in the body of an e-mail, or up to four paragraphs in more formal situations. In all cases what you need to communicate is the same. Let the person know why you are writing, draw a connection between their needs and your skills and potential, and end with a promise of action. Whether you are applying for a job, or seeking an informational interview, the goal is to be someone they want to meet.
From the Atlantic magazine online, an article on why people didn't smile in old portraits. The reason isn't what you think (but it is similar to why you make sure you don't have pictures of yourself doing beer bongs on Facebook.)
Similar to the book How to Make Webcomics, Spike is really clear that it isn't enough to make great cartoons, you need to be constantly marketing yourself, networking with your peers, and producing good work. Being a cartoonist, or an illustrator, photographer, fine artist, or any other profession that produces a creative product for sale aren't for the faint of heart. But, you love to do the work, and you will be doing it anyway, so why not give it a shot?
, Spike is really clear that it isn't enough to make great cartoons, you need to be constantly marketing yourself, networking with your peers, and producing good work. Being a cartoonist, or an illustrator, photographer, fine artist, or any other profession that produces a creative product for sale aren't for the faint of heart. But, you love to do the work, and you will be doing it anyway, so why not give it a shot?