Portfolio Tips

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Tim Hodge (former Disney artist and an Executive Producer on 3-2-1 Penguins!) recently posted some great tips on assembling your portfolio:

Portfolio Submissions

If you are an art student, job hunting, or just trying to break into commercial art or animation, this is some great stuff to know when interviewing for a position. Since Hodge’s background is in the animation industry, his advice is geared towards landing a job in that field. However, much of what he says can also apply to the fields of illustration or graphic design.

Yes, even if you freelance.

The internet is the new and improved way for a freelancer to show off his/her work, but that doesn’t mean the old-school physical portfolio is entirely obsolete. While a website will do the lion’s share of your self-promotion, there will still be times when you have to present your portfolio to potential clients face-to-face. Especially local clients. In the last month I’ve actually shown my book twice: Once at the Hasbro freelance fair where it was thumbed through by several dozen people, and just last week when an art director at a local ad agency asked me to come in and show my work to his creative team as a sort of pseudo-interview.

And of course, if you are interviewing for a full-time position you will almost certainly need to carry a portfolio with you to interviews. If so, be sure to heed Hodge’s advice.

Hasbro Freelance Fair

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Earlier this week I flew to Rhode Island to take part in the semi-annual Hasbro Freelance Fair. Twice a year the toy company invites freelance artists, designers, and sculptors into their corporate headquarters to show their wares and to hob nob with members of Hasbro’s rather large creative department (in the hopes of landing Hasbro as a client). Each exhibitor is given a six-foot table and, if needed, an easel and a power supply for plugging in laptops, etc. The event is by invitation only, but if you want to be considered you can apply online to be a Hasbro freelancer.

I had a wonderful time. I met a lot of bright, fun people at Hasbro and also did a little networking with some of the other exhibitors. There were about thirty freelancers/studios represented, many with impressive portfolios. I’m told this was the largest attendance of any Freelance Fair yet.

Here’s a quick snapshot of my humble table. My newly designed finger-puppet business cards were a big hit, with several people asking for more. Although I did run into some problems getting them printed in time. Hint: I won’t be using a company called Overnight Prints ever again. My cards arrived later than promised with one batch being printed off-center. I also had them print up some postcards and one batch had little red flecks in an area that was supposed to be solid orange. They were cheap, but I guess you get what you pay for. Still, it all worked out ok in the end and I had a lot of fun handing them out.

Here’s a view down the hall at some of the other exhibitors. Hasbro also has several large displays of various licensed properties lining their halls. Way off in the background you can barely make out some jumbo 3D displays from Indiana Jones and The Incredible Hulk.

The trip appears to have been a successful one for me. During the lunch break I checked my iPhone and found that I’d already received emails from two people at Hasbro about a possible project. The event wasn’t even over and doors were already starting to open. Nice!

Mr. Potato Head stands guard near the Hasbro entrance. After the event he kindly patted me on my head and sent me on my way.

Hasbro is headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, just a stone’s throw from the Massachusetts border and only a one hour drive from Boston. I had hoped to grab a quick dinner with an old friend before flying out of Bean Town but plans fell through. Since I found myself with an hour to kill I swung by one of Boston’s great landmarks from American history: The Cheers bar.

Someday my wife and I would love to take a relaxing, educational tour of some of Boston’s real treasures from American history, but since time was so rushed this seemed like a fun stop for me to make.

As you might guess, the interior of the bar looks nothing like the one on the show. The exterior inspired the design of the Cheers set, but a television show set has to be designed to face an audience and allow for clear theatrical staging and specific camera shots. No real bar could accomodate those needs. The real-life bar is much smaller and has a completely different layout.

Actually, the pub’s real name isn’t even Cheers, it’s The Bull and Finch (website). But since it served as the visual inspiration for the show and doubled as the exterior, the owners make the most of their association with the series. The Cheers logo appears on a small sign out front and is also etched in the glass on the front door. The walls are lined with Cheers photos and memorabilia, and there’s a gift shop upstairs where you can have your picture taken next to a life-size cardboard cutout of Norm. I bought a glass tumbler with the Cheers logo etched on the side to take home as a momento.

The exterior shots for Cheers were filmed at the Bull and Finch, as well as a few scenes from the series that took place outdoors. But the main action took place on a soundstage in Los Angeles. If you ever visit L.A. you can see the actual Cheers set recreated inside a museum on Hollywood Blvd. I went there on a vacation several years ago. You can walk right up to the bar and see where some of the series regulars carved their names into the wood after the final episode. You can even sit on Norm’s stool.

One of the great things about freelancing is that I have the freedom to take a really fun 36-hour business trip/vacation like this one. The flip side is that there’s no such thing as a true vacation day. I’m back in the studio and the work has really piled up. Posts may be light and infrequent in the next week or two until I get caught up.

Creative Freelancer Conference

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I just received a brochure in the mail about a new conference tailored for creative freelancers (i.e. illustrators, designers, photographers, copyrighters, etc.) The 2008 Creative Freelancer Conference will be held Augut 27-29 in Chicago.

The conference is presented by HOW Magazine and Marketing Mentor. Topics to be discussed will include:

  • How do I balance finding work with doing work?
  • What niche should I target, and how do I position myself within it?
  • How do I create a continuous stream of good prospects?
  • How do I find out a client’s budget?
  • Am I charging too much or too little?
  • What should my contract include?

Two of the speakers are Ilise Benun and Peleg Top. They’ve previously given some very helpful webinars through HOW magazine, and have a real knack for making the business side of being a freelancer feel less intimidating, even fun. Benun’s website, Marketing-Mentor.com, also has some very helpful resources for freelancers.

If you are a freelancer and you only go to one conference this year, this would probably be the one. More info can be found at the conference website: CreativeFreelancerConference.com

Smart Money Blogs

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One of the drawbacks of freelancing is the financial insecurity. Your income can vary wildly from month to month. You may have to wait a long time between paychecks while the bills continue to arrive with military efficiency. I’ve been bucking this wild financial roller coaster for eleven years now, and it never gets any easier. But it has one big advantage: freelancing has forced me to be more responsible and organized with my finances than I otherwise would be.

I’ve never studied finance and, like most Americans, I graduated from college knowing absolutely nothing about money. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a hedge fund and hedge clippers. Like most artists, when I heard the word “finances” I turned pale and developed a nervous twitch.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Learning about money doesn’t have to be intimidating or confusing. In fact, if the material is presented properly it can even be fun.

I’ve recently started reading a few blogs about money that have taken a lot of the fear out of finances for me. For the most part they are written for laymen, and because they are blogs the information comes in short, manageable chunks. Best of all, these blogs are full practical tips and insights into how to stretch my dollar farther so I can be smarter with my money.

If you’d like help in learning about how to better handle your money, give these blogs a try:

No Credit Needed – a blog about reducing your debts.

Get Rich Slowly – Build wealth the old-fashioned way, by being smart and being patient.

Money $mart Life – Interesting tidbits and practical tips.

A Penny Saved – This blog has a regular feature I like called “Carnival of Personal Finance”. Each “Carnival” post lists dozens of interesting links about various financial  topics.

Eaten Alive In The Studio Jungle

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Here’s an interesting article from the LA Times about Deborah Gregory, an author who created “The Cheetah Girls” and sold the property to Disney. Her characters have appeared in two TV movies, sold millions of CDs and DVDs, and have toured in over 80 cities. Her contract with Disney gave her 4% of the gross revenues.

She hasn’t seen a penny.

It’s called Hollywood accounting, and it’s unfortunately very common. Apparently when writers and creators sell the rights to their characters. Hollywood studios have all sorts of tricky ways to balance the books and make sure that somehow the creator’s share of the profits never makes its way onto the bottom line.

I’m not sure if this has much to do with illustration or character design. My guess is most of you will never sell a character or story to a big Hollywood studio. But it is a reminder that at the very least you should be using good, solid contracts when working with clients to help ensure your artwork isn’t misused or your rights infringed upon. To learn more I highly recommend two books: The Graphic Artists Guild Handbook of Pricing & Ethical Guidelines and Tad Crawford’s Business and Legal Forms for Illustrators. Both are chock full of helpful information for the serious freelancer.

You can find even more resources at my Amazon.com Recommended Resources page.

13 Reasons NOT To Be A Freelancer

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I’ve been freelancing for eleven years and I love it! Despite the high highs and low lows, overall its been a great career choice for me. But freelancing is not for everyone. I’ve written about the drawbacks and benefits before. Recently I came across a great post written by Chad at ProFreelancing.com that looks at it from another angle:

13 Reasons Why You Should NOT Be A Freelance Writer

The article is aimed at writers, but you could substitute “artist” for “writer” and his comments would still hold true. I agreed completely with every reason on his list except #5 (“Poor Typist”), which obviously doesn’t apply to artists, and possibly #6 (Poor Marketing). Everything else is dead-on.

I certainly wouldn’t want to discourage anyone from pursuing a freelance career. But before you take the plunge, you would be wise to take Chad’s advice to heart.