I’m not entirely sure why, maybe because of school term times and my birthday, but I’ve always found summer to be a very reflective time for myself, rather than the new year! It has just past 1 year since graduating from University, and at the end of the month I will be leaving my in-house illustrator role at KIONII after a year of working with them!
It’s super easy to get bogged down at times and feel like I’m not achieving what I want with my illustration career and constantly compare myself to others. However, I have achieved SO much this year, and almost exactly what I planned!! Of course with a few covid related hiccups in between, but overall I’m really proud of my first year in the big world as a real working adult.
As I will be leaving my in-house role, I’ve been thinking A LOT about how to manage going freelance almost full-time. I’ve done it part-time for quite a while now, and got a few amazing commissions for projects I’m super passionate about under my belt. I’d love to keep this up! I never want to accept a commission purely for the financial benefit, I have to at-least have SOME enthusiasm for what I’m creating. But unfortunately being a propper adult in the real world requires paying bills, so there’s been lots of consideration about how I can make this work without selling my soul to the capitalist system and still love the career path I’ve put myself on.
A few of these considerations are:
Investing in a professional quality printer so I can print from home, manage sales more efficiently and not have to order from potentially unreliable suppliers which has caused a few issues in the past. My main concern with this is that I love printing big, A4 simply won’t do it for most projects, but as soon as you increase the size of a printer, the cost becomes pretty extortionate, and that’s not even considering ink and paper costs, and also the fact that I have’t completely loved selling products in the past, but hopefully coming back at it with a little more experience and preparation, it will become a enjoyable source of income.
Getting merchandise partnerships and selling products in shops for a cut of commissions. This is something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while now, but struggling to get my head around how I’d put it into action, and also as I’ve been working 90% on commissions, I don’t actually have the right kind of personal projects to share with these companies, but hopefully soon I’ll be able to put more focus into creating more sellable prints and merchandise. I can imagine this to be something that will include a lot of work to make it actually happen, but once the relationships are finally established it will become an almost effortless and regular source of income.
Signing to an agency or finding a mentor! Like I said earlier, I’ve managed to secure a few amazing commissions. When they go to plan, editorial commissions are definitely my favourite part of being an illustrator. There’s nothing more satisfying about establishing a plan with a team and working together to create an image that does exactly what it needs to do, and then seeing it in its ideal context. I hope with either the help of an agency or a mentor, I’ll be able to establish more jobs like this to keep me ticking over. I’ve made a few applications here and there or got some names in mind but until I’ve left my in-house role I won’t be completely putting this into action just yet!
With all the reflectiveness of my time as a freelance illustrator, I thought I’d update my ‘professional profile picture’, unintentionally, I managed to capture the same awkward smile and similar vibe over a year and half later!
