One of my first clients as a freelancer was a company that specializes in clip art for Churches (i.e. bulletins, newsletters, etc.) I worked for them for a couple of years. It was reassuring to have a client who gave me steady work every month.

Then I started reading about how clip art is bad for freelancers. Because clip art is inexpensive it encourages clients to use cheap pre-existing art instead of hiring up a professional for a fresh illustration. In addition, the artist who creates the clip art usually signs away all rights for a low fee and never sees any profit. So, as my business began to pick up steam I dropped them as a client. I was grateful for the experience, but it wasn’t a good fit anymore.

Things hummed along for a few years, and then I hit a really bad stretch. For several months I could only land a few freelance jobs, none of which paid very well. In desperation I humbled myself and went back to the clip art client. They graciously signed me back on. I still believe clip art is not a good thing for freelancers in general, but I also know most churches don’t have the budget to hire freelancers for their monthly newsletters. So it wasn’t like I was taking work away from clients who would otherwise call up a professional artist.

After the dry spell finally ended, I stayed on with the clip art company “just in case” things got slow again. It’s been a couple of years now and I’m busier than ever. So busy that I don’t feel like I can give them my best work anymore. Besides, graphic design was never my strong suit, and frankly the pay is still low–in fact, they are still paying the same rate they paid ten years ago. Each month it gets harder and harder for me to justify the late nights I spend for them producing less-than-my-best work for below-market rates.

So, this month I turned in my last clip art assignment.

Unless I hit another slow spot. A really slow spot. They were great people to work with, but its just not a good fit for me right now.

I’ve posted three of the better samples I did for them over the last couple of years, just for fun. If you see any of these popping up in a Sunday bulletin or newsletter, you can say, “Hey, I read this guy’s blog!”

Recently I was hired to develop a cartoon dog character for a chain of gas stations. The final design was just completed, but I can’t post it until it has been made public. However, these concept sketches were ultimately not chosen so I feel pretty safe posting them.

A while back Snert Studios hired me to create some of the artwork for a website and Flash game. The end client was Reliant Energy, and the goal of the site/game was to help teach kids about conserving electricity. They gave me a list of elements they needed to animate in Flash (i.e. a spinning globe, boiling pot of water, etc.), and some sketches and reference materials as a jumping-off point.

The main character is a desk lamp which had previously appeared on TV commercials in Texas, so I was pretty tied to the existing design. They asked me to give it eyes and a mouth, but I could’t change it much beyond that.

If my memory is correct, this was the first project since buying my Cintiq where I was asked to create vector art (i.e. Illustrator) instead of raster art (i.e. Photoshop). In the past, when a client requested vector art I would ink a drawing on paper, scan it into Photoshop, and then use the Live Trace command in Illustrator to convert the art to vector. With my Cintiq I could now skip the scanning phase. To speed things up even more I decided to try drawing direcctly in Illustrator to get a wonky no-outlines look (which I’ve always thought looks realy neat, when its done right). Here’s what I submitted as the first pass:

The client told me they had hired me specifically because they liked my cartoony line work, so I was asked to go back and add inked outlines to everything. Fair enough, since I wa giving them something a little different than my normal look. I had to do a rush ink job but it didn’t turn out too badly. They also asked for a brighter color scheme, and in hindsight I think they were completely right. The blue/green/grey scheme didn’t “pop” enough. The lesson for me was, communicate clearly with the client about what is expected, especially if you are planning to try something new. Overall I’m happy with how everything turned out:

To see the final result with animated roll-overs, or to play the game, click here.