Archive for February, 2009
Feb
Web Design Tips For Illustrators
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As an aspiring or working illustrator, I’m sure you also spend quite a bit of time on the web looking at other illustrators’ websites. Have you noticed how easy some illustrators sites are to navigate around and how others are just confusing and make it hard to get to the actual illustrations?
If you think about that from an Art Director’s perspective - all things being equal regarding the quality of work, who do you think they are going to hire?
From a few years experience of designing websites for clients (and from being an avid surfer of other illustrators sites), here are a few things to keep in mind when creating an effective website for your illustration portfolio…
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Categories : Marketing & Self Promotion
Feb
Collage Experiments
A Gaggle Of Geese
Feb
Starting From Zero: A Strategic Approach To Building A Career As A Pro Illustrator
I’m very lucky to be married to a former management consultant and online marketing whizz and so have a live-in marketing and strategy coach which I plan to make the most of while I transition from full time graphic designer to full time illustrator.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that everything I do needs to be based on a sound plan and marketing strategy rather than making things up as I go along.
Having a strategy from the start ensures that I’m not wasting time (something I don’t have a lot of with a baby on the way in 3 months time), that I know exactly where I want to be and a plan of action how to get there. It also ensures that I have a set of measures along the way to gauge how my progress is going and where I need to focus my efforts.
When I finally decided to take this seriously and get over my self-doubt, here is how I got started with planning a more strategic approach to creating an illusration career…
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Categories : The Business of Illustration, Tools & Resources
Feb
Stylistic Experiments
A few things I’ve been working on - experimenting with different mediums and styles.
Polar Bear Swimming
Feb
Going From Graphic Designer To Professional Illustrator: Useful Skills To Learn
As a professional Graphic Designer with 10+ years experience (inc. 3 years as a freelance designer), I’m very lucky to have built up a set of skills and experience that (I hope) can be easily transferred to a career in illustration.
You certainly don’t have to come from a graphic design background to have a successful illustration career but here are a few skills I’m glad I have and that it would be worth any wannabe-illustrator acquiring - which could also give you the edge over the competition…
Feb
Digital Painting Experiments
All done with Photoshop CS3 and a Wacom Intuos3 drawing tablet.
Joker
Feb
Why It’s Taken Me So Long To Get Started
There is a fine line between being inspired by the work of a favourite illustrator and being crippled with self doubt that your work will never be as good or look as professional.
This has been a big problem for me so far and has been the biggest stumbling block in following my passion and making the move into a professional illustration career…
