DON’T apply to an illustration agency until you watch this

If you want to get an illustration agent, there are lots of benefits, but they’re not really for beginners. If you’re new to the industry, …

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in this video we’re going to talk about the reasons why you don’t need an agent yet and what some other goals could be that will set you up for Success so you’re fresh out of University you’ve got your portfolio together and you want to get your illustration career started what’s the first thing you do apply to an illustration agency right because illustration agencies find clients for illustrators you can Google a long list of agencies and send your work to them and then you wait and then you wait and then you wait and finally it Dawns on you that you’re going to have to do it yourself uhoh I’m James an illustration agent and I help illustrators build their careers when I graduated from my illustration degree I got a website and I got a studio and I was ready to go ready to get some clients and make a name for myself but I couldn’t I didn’t know what to do I know I’m not the only one who’s been in this position a lot of illustration courses are a little bit light on the business part of the industry so it’s easy to see why a new illustrator would want some help with that part once they get out into the freelance world but it’s not likely to happen for a while not until you’ve got some experience and that’s a good thing trust me the relationship between an agency and an illustrator is a bit like being business partners you both have different but complimentary skill sets the artist brings the imagination and the creative skills and the agent brings the network of clients and the industry experience when you fresh out of University you’re only only experience is your university project I’m generalizing here but most graduates haven’t worked with clients does an experienced agent want a partner who’s got no experience and isn’t bringing anything else to the table no I’m not trying to be mean there but it’s just the way it is you have to have something to offer in a partnership it’s not impossible for a brand new artist to get an agent but they need to have some serious skills or a style that is so fresh that it blows the agent’s mind so here’s a alternative goal goal number one getting an agent isn’t the right goal at the start a better goal would be learning the ropes and getting to the point where you can stand on your own two feet and you can find clients by yourself that process is so valuable and it will give you confidence and skills that you’ll be able to continue growing for the rest of your life that’s not to say you won’t need help God knows I did and a lot of it but you don’t need somebody else to do the hard parts for you if you got an agent straight out of University the agent would do the business part for you so you wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn it you wouldn’t learn how to Market yourself or find your own clients or read contracts that whole part all those essential skills would remain a mystery to you and you’d be completely reliant on the agency to find you work and there’s an imbalance of power there and your choices for your own career would be severely limited an agency wants to work with an artist who knows what they’re doing they’ve proved that they can do it and someone who they can trust to deliver great work for their clients consistently agents are there to help and mentor and encourage but they’re not there to do the work for you if you’ve got no experience you might well be trustworthy and your work might be exceptional but there’s no real proof yet and for every new artist who’s committed and professional and good at managing their time there are 10 others who are still living like students and who are a bit irresponsible and a bit flaky to take you on would be a risk because you might jeopardize a relationship with their clients if you don’t deliver so here’s goal number two find your first paying client stay in motivated to sit at your desk every day and do the work when no one is paying you to do it is really really difficult even if you enjoy the work itself it’s going to be hard to do it for a long time if you don’t get some validation that you’re going in the right direction your first paying client is the proof that you can do the job and that you’ve got what it takes that is a powerful motivator not to mention that you’ll actually get paid for your creative work which is also a pretty good motivator if you can get one client then you can get two more or 10 more it probably won’t be quick and it probably won’t be easy but you’re learning the skills to be able to do it for yourself and that motivation and momentum builds over time the first one will be hard but the 10th one will be easier goal number three stay consistent even the best and busiest illustrators in the world have slow periods that they show up anyway and do what they need to do so they can find new clients and practice their skills not every day needs to be 100% intensity and since reading cal newport’s book slow productivity I’ve come to appreciate the idea of seasonality with work you might have short ultr productive Sprints but then other times you’ll be able to take it a little bit easier as someone who always has a kind of side project on the go I really like that idea often as a freelancer that schedule is going to be dictated by your clients if you’ve got a lot of work on you’ve got to do it but in slower periods you can enjoy life outside of work a little bit more the important thing is to do a little bit regularly keep your skills sharp and make sure you’ve got new work to show figure out what a sustainable pace is for you and maybe that’s only an hour a day hey here’s goal number four prove that you can do the job and handle yourself professionally prove it to clients and prove it to agents prove it to your friends and family and prove it to yourself when you’ve learned how to successfully operate a freelance business and you can make a living and you have some happy clients under your belt you’ve gained the fundamental skills of running a freelance business that is something to be proud of and that is something that clients and agents are going to be interested in embrace the process through the early years of establishing yourself as a freelance illustrator there’s so many useful skills that you can pick up along the way you don’t have to do them all I’ll be perfect to any of them but maybe you could take a couple of months to learn a new software program and then maybe you take a few months more to learn some basic animation skills after that you might try and get good at making behind the scenes videos for uh social media or just learning what works on social media the whole time you’ll be adding to your toolbox of skills as a side quest why don’t you document the process of learning all these things and share them online there are plenty of other illustrators who would find it interesting and helpful to see how you’re doing it my illustrator friend Diana left a comment on a previous video that early in her career she would actively try to collect skills and learn new things all the time but if you don’t keep using them they fade away and she’s absolutely right but as you collect them you’ll be able to recognize the ones that you enjoy the most and the ones that would be most useful to you not all of them will be a good fit and you can let some of them go think about it like a tasting menu try things out and see what works for you you can learn to be really good at whatever you want in life but you probably can’t do it all at once the ones that you think are worth keeping and getting really good at need to be cultivated and cared for and here’s the last goal for a new illustrator get an agent or don’t once you’ve got your career off to a good start and you’re learning all these business skills you might decide that you don’t want an agent you don’t need to have one to have a successful career there are people who do just fine without but working with an agent is a tried and tested path for an illustrator to reach a new level in their career when they’ve got the hang of the basics and they’ve got a few clients under their belt they might need a bit of help reaching those higher level clients both in the quality of the projects they have and the fees they can offer big clients and ad agencies go to illustration agencies with a project brief for a couple of very good reasons for one thing it’s easier to find the right artist for the job by speaking to one or two agencies and getting some good recommendations the alternative is hours and hours of online research agencies are hubs of really good illustrators a client can probably find what they’re looking for very easily by sending a brief to an agency and asking who they recommend the other reason is illustrators who have an agent have already passed a kind of quality control test if you want to phrase it like that the experienced agency has preapproved the skills and the quality and the professionalism of the artists it represents so if a client has a big important project there is less risk for a client to work with an agency than working with a solo illustrator and related to that an illustrator with an agent has help if any problem comes up with the project the agency can help solve those problems it’s lower risk for everyone involved so don’t aim to get an agent too soon enjoy the process of working things out for yourself and developing relationships with other illustrators so you can help each other get better embrace the scary part because once you get through it you’ll be a better illustrator a better business person and you’ll be more confident in your own abilities if you like this video share it with someone else who might find it useful see you next time [Applause] [Music] what

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