Project Breakdown: Editorial Illustrations for Alice Evans!
One of my favorite projects!
I thought I would share the process for a recent client project I did at the end of 2022, to break down the process and give a bit more context to what a client project entails. It can seem a bit mysterious especially because so often creatives (myself included) only share finished pieces, or bits of each part of the process.
First, I should share that I used to take and handle client work all on my own, I had to teach myself about contracts, negotiations, marketing etc and by the time I landed with the agency I am with now I had a really good idea of what I wanted to delegate, how I wanted clients to be managed and my identity as an illustrator within a client illustrator relationship.
This is important. I have a lot of students who want to get brought on by an agency right out of college and I honestly don’t think its as great of an idea as it sounds like. It would have been hard for me to have an understanding of what an ideal relationship would be for me with an agent if I had one too early. I also think there is naturally a bit of an off balance relationship between artists and agents and artists and galleries because often artists feel they are lucky to even be in the conversation and it gets in the way of seeing the relationship clearly and in negotiating and protecting their best interests.
All of that to say, I now work with a lovely agency, Closer and Closer, and while it’s not always perfect (I firmly believe no relationships are- you just have to be willing to work on it) it is extremely helpful and I do enjoy who I get to work with. The agents, the owner and the other artists on the roster are really a gift and it’s so awesome to get to learn from everyone.
When a job comes my way, my agent will contact me and send over the specs, tell me what they think is appropriate for negotiation terms and see if I want to take it on and if I have any adjustments to their pitch. Then they send it over to the client and we get papers signed and set up a meeting to discuss the project. For this particular project, the client was the foundation that was providing Alice with funding to do this writing- they were hiring me to illustrate the writing she was making in the way she wanted it illustrated.
Alice’s piece was on Systems and Systems Change- and one of the things we discussed a lot was that the imagery that often accompanies this topic is typically hyper mechanical, cold and masculine. She really wanted me to interpret these ideas because of the softer themes in my work- nature and human elements. So knowing that right away gave me permission to be myself and dive deeper into those themes as interpretative tools.
The project was for me to do 7 spot illustrations and 3 vignettes- essentially spots are a simple idea with one or two components that can sit within text. A vignette has more context (maybe a background or a few more elements) and can also sit within text. Alice sent me 10 excerpts to base them on- and gave me a couple days to sit with them before we had a meeting. At our meeting she expanded on the concepts with me- these were really heady concepts and it was such a privledge to get to sit with her and have a really indepth conversation around them. I hadn’t considered systems and systems change in this way before and it was so much fun to come up with imagery to assist in breaking them down!
So after our inital meeting I came up with sketches for each concept. This was hard! And- after submitting them Alice wasn’t stoked! AAAAAAHHHH. This is an illustrators nightmare. Years ago if this happened I would panic, like have a heart attack, no doubt. Instead, what happened was Camille, my agent, sent over the feedback (which wasn’t good) and we decided that it would be best for me to meet with Alice again. I realized a few things were happening:
1. These were dense concepts and I was close but not quite hitting the mark
2. This was my first time working directly with the author for an editorial piece and it made sense to me that this would be a bit more difficult- not in a bad way but just because it makes sense that she would have clear ideas of how the writing would be interpreted!
So after our second meeting I did revisions, I let go of some concepts all together and I adjusted others. This part is fun- I love revisions. The hardest part for me is always the first round- because I find I get excited about my ideas but I don’t know how they’ll be received. Once I hear back I know more about how to adjust based on our conversation and the type of feedback.
In general client work isn’t about not adjusting it’s about how to adjust in a way that addresses the clients needs while satisfying my own creativity.
Early on- I struggled with that- I would get run over by well meaning clients because I didn’t know how to retain creative control within feedback discussions. In this case, it was so much fun to make the adjustments, to challenge myself to come up with new ways to approach the concepts etc.
I like to think of feedback as a conversation, and I remind myself that I am being hired for my expertise as a creative person. The things that I discussed above about artists getting lost in the feeling of being lucky to be invited into the conversation with agents and galleries applies here. Often new artists feel lucky to be hired and get lost in people pleasing and don’t realize that proper creative solutions aren’t people pleasing but about responding to feedback in a way that only you can respond to it.
The results, when handled in that way- are worth the stuggle! I love client work for this reason, it pushes me to find the best creative solution to the problem presented by the client! I also often make work I am really proud of.
Once the sketches were approved I began hand painting the pieces- a few things here- I hand paint most of my work (not all) and so I do everything I can to ensure that we are on the same page before moving into finals since I can’t hit an undo button. I also use tracing paper to get my under drawings right. In this particular project I finished the 10 editorial pieces and then was contacted by the foundation to make a print for Alice as a gift- so they helped me do that and it ended up being such a fun and cool project that went beyond just responding to an article. I felt I got to form a relationship with the client and we got to make something cool and unique. Those are my favorite types of client relationships.
I hope this helps to understand how I handle client projects, felt fun to see more behind the scenes and informs a bit of process for you if you are a potential client or an artist! If you have more questions or wish I had elaborated on something, let me know below! I am happy to share more.
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I love this so so so much Lindsay! I was so happy to buy that illusion of certainty (pencil on a path) piece and thrilled to see the origin story here. Thank you for emphasizing the purpose of revisions: to "address the clients needs while satisfying my own creativity"!
Another great share! Good to read about how you navigate the conversation with clients and find a way to still be ‘you’ producing the illustrations. Thanks for sharing!