One of the biggest things that Jonathan has struggled with in his journey to becoming a professional illustrator is his ongoing struggle to define why someone should hire him and not another illustrator.
He flip flopped over his style - should he have a core style? Should he demonstrate he can work in any style? What is his core style?
He flip flopped over subject matters - should he just do wildlife? Does he need to show he can do people too? Should he show he can do backgrounds such as city scapes and the countryside?
Alongside his chronic lack of self belief, it’s the single biggest thing which prevented him from making any progress as an illustrator. It’s been just as frustrating watching from the outside, as I’m sure it has been for him!
You may know by now, that he’s since found his core style and subject matter - cut paper collage of wildlife. And it has made the biggest difference to his success, with noticeable results:
- He received a commendation in this year’s BBC Wildlife Artist of the Year competition
- He’s been contacted by a large publishing company to create some mockups for a potential pop-up children’s book
- He’s been asked to quote for a packaging project for a huge US company with distribution across the whole of North America
- His work is about to be displayed in a local, upmarket gallery
The very fact that people are coming to him, interested in hiring him as a professional illustrator has been a huge boost to his confidence and given him a taste of the career he’s dreamed of for years.
If you doubt the fact that specialising in a particular field for your illustration is the right way to go, Jonathan’s experience is proof that it could be the most important thing you can do for your illustration career.
What’s Stopping You?
And yet I know this is a scary thing to do because…
You’re afraid of pigeon-holing and limiting yourself, thinking that art directors will want to see you can do a wide range of illustrations.
They don’t - most of the time, clients have a specific style in mind and want to go to the illustrator who they know can nail that style for them, because it’s just what they do.
You’re afraid if you work in the same style, medium and topic all the time, you’ll get bored.
There is nothing to stop you from working on other creative avenues, especially in your own time, but from a professional business and branding perspective, it pays to present consistency rather than experimentation.
You don’t know what to specialize in
This was Jonathan’s biggest challenge which is why he wrote the Style Guide based upon his experience of solving this problem! For him, it came down to looking at the subject matter he most enjoyed illustrating and the medium he most enjoyed using. It can be as simple as that 
You’re not qualified
You may feel that you’re no specialist in the area you’d like to focus on, but nobody automatically becomes a specialist. They put in the work, they experiment and they keep refining their work in a specific area. Being “qualified” is often more a state of mind than anything else. If you feel qualified, then you are. Work on feeling qualified and you’ll be fine.
The bottom line: If you want to start attracting business and clients who come to you, rather than feeling like you constantly have to push to find them, make it your mission to become known as the “go to” illustrator for a style, a medium or a subject matter.
How to Do It
So once you’ve decided to become the “go to” illustrator for something, there are a few basics which will help convey this message to the rest of the world…
- Make sure your portfolio reflects this type of work only.
- Brand yourself and your illustration business to reflect your specialism.
- Update your profiles and bio so everyone knows what you specialise in.
- Make sure all external portfolio work (e.g. profiles on other portfolio sites) is “on brand”
And when the queries and projects start to roll in, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do this sooner - or is that just Jonathan?
Thank you. It was a well-timed article I needed to hear again. Even after 25 yrs. of illustrating, I still wrestle with this issue and had similar struggles as you mentioned above.
This topic not only relates specifically to one’s style, but it can also apply to one’s personal workflow or method. I need to find a method that works for “me” even if it’s not the method of choice of other respected artists in this field.
With the Internet especially, we can get information overload to where it almost paralyzes us from moving in a particular direction.
Thanks for this post and the great advice, I’ve been dealing with this same problem for years; my portfolio is a mixture of different styles, and I knew that I was going on the wrong path keeping the portfolio as it is, art directors wouldn’t know what to expect from me, although a colleague told me some months ago that keeping a portfolio so ‘diverse’ it might be sending the message that I’m an illustrator that can make any style…Is that what I want? I don’t think so, I’ve been dealing for years this harsh situation of clients asking me for a certain style that they want, so they assume that if I can make 10 different styles I’ll be able to make a completely new style, besides this, it’s almost impossible to switch from a style to another just like you were pushing a button, it takes time and we all know that time is money, so who’s gonna pay for this time?, I can’t charge it to my client, I’ll be over the quoted price, I wont’ be hired again. So having and keeping a style is not just a matter of getting new clients, but not to lose the ones you already have.