Creating Web Graphics for Nutrinsider 2
Criteria for Selecting a Graphic Artist for a Website
Ideally, you may personally know and admire an Artist and his style, which however doesn’t mean this style fits the purpose of your Web site or Blog, its theme and what you have in mind, the way YOU see and visualize it. As not every artist can sense and adapt to someone else’s ideas – or wants to do so.
Unless you want THAT artist’s particular style and you can pay for it. Possibly quite heavily. . .
Here’s an example:
Picasso for Nutrinsider
Say you know Picasso as a friend and he is still alive. Although Picasso is a unique and prodigious artist of various styles and without any doubt able to produce just anything HE puts his mind to . . . upwards from a signature on a blanc canvass as quote… “Art is the elimination of the unnecessary” LOL – you need to know one thing:
Picasso only works for Picasso.
Pablo Picasso
For him “… Art is not the application of a canon of beauty but what the instinct and the brain can conceive beyond any canon. When we love a woman we don’t start measuring her limbs.”
WOW! Now how does this correspond to today’s Advertising & Marketing Industry and, more precisely, our Online Publishing endeavours with “Nutrinsider”?
Before losing myself in this most captivating and in my view ultra visionary line of thoughts, let’s just be clear on the fact that IF you choose some famous Artwork as it fits YOUR Purpose, you will have to pay the price the Gallery or whatever Marketing mechanism that controls all the productions and publications of your chosen artist, stipulate. At the end of the day you want to profit from the Name – in this case Picasso – and its Branding, meaning recognition value.
And of course your request can be strictly refused.
Therefore, when choosing a Graphic Designer it is crucial that he works for YOUR Purpose, converts YOUR ideas and whatever YOU want to bring over… with his specific talent and skill. Which also means that you know what you want and that you can define and express it well enough to be understood for the Graphic Interpretation and from there its artistic expression. We will come back to this most important yet complex point.
As “Nutrinsider” is just starting off and has its own vision, I only used Pablo Picasso as an example to make a point… although this enthusiast of life and production well into his late years (1881-1973) would be a perfect example of Vitality and Wellbeing!
How a Graphic Artist Presents himself traditionally
Besides following his passion in creating his own original Graphic Art that will be shown in exhibitions in Art Galleries and Museums to grow his Name and Reputation as an Artist, what does a young free-lancer in Graphic Design do in the ‘normal’ world to get butter on the bread and feed his family (we’ll look at the Internet in a moment) ?
He puts together a presentation map with his best Artwork to show …
~ his Skills
~ his Personality
~ his Style and Versatility
~ his favorite topics (say People, or Cars or Landscapes or Fantasy or Medical Drawings…)
~ the methods and tools he uses (traditionally paints, pencil, airbrush… now Adobe Photoshop, 3D Max etc…)
~ the Experience he has gathered so far
~ the Customers he has worked for so far…
and he’d try to get appointments to present himself with Advertising Agencies, Magazines, Publishing Houses etc with the goal to get ‘jobs’.
Professional Representatives for Graphic Designers
He may be lucky to find a representative right away who does this ‘job’ for him and connects him with the right people, however, at a price. In clear terms: for each ‘job’ this intermediary and link between the artist-creator and the advertising (or any other) agency will cash in a percentage, which in my case at the time went up to 25%.
It means that after the initial successful introduction – in other words the first job and its successful execution – each phone call has the potential of bringing in 25 %. Just not into your account.
Just a call!
In fact, once an Agency (the Client) works happily with an Artist, it’s almost automatic. And as Advertising Agencies have Client Contracts over many years it can mean a fantastic income year after year.
Imagine being chosen for doing the ads for Coca Cola!
Or look at the current Louis Vuitton Campaigns with star photographers and Celebrities like Sean Connery and Madonna … and stars everything everywhere?
Well… first one’s got to get there, right!
From the representative’s side this is where the reaping starts after the labour of introducing the unknown artist.
Most artists hate to divert their busy minds to monetary things; they prefer to focus on their work and nothing but their work… instead of ‘selling themselves’. Given the fact that especially young artists are strongly attached to their Artwork – almost like a mother to her child – selling ‘it’ feels like prostituting oneself. It’s human and it may change over time, especially when they become known and are contacted directly – meaning the tables turn and the artist now is in demand.
Picasso – and others like Dali or Uecker today – know very well how to sell themselves. So it differs from individual to individual and if you are a budding graphic artist, you just have to find your way depending on your personality. Just start somewhere. The rest follows. I know. . . :)
"Seagulls" - Charcoal Drawing by Bianca Gubalke (120 cm)
Here’s is an example of how one of my Artworks – “Seagulls”, a large charcoal drawing on paper (Private Collection) – was bought by a well-known Publishing House to be used on a book cover (“Wohin geht der Mensch?” by Hugo M. Enomiya-Lassalle, AURUM Verlag)… I permitted the inversion to match the sense and direction of the title.
Bookcover by Bianca Gubalke
From what we’ve said above it becomes clear that once a Graphic Artist has established himself and is being recognized and commended through his Artwork, he will get very busy.
However, today we have the Internet and today’s graphic artists do not need to be represented by someone else; they can represent themselves – online!
Present your Graphic Artwork Online
The web abounds with Websites, Blogs and Galleries where illustrators and graphic designers showcase their Artwork and of course there are many places online where artists can ‘exhibit’ in the hope of being ‘discovered’ – sometimes free, sometimes for a fee.
This is a vast and fascinating topic, however not the theme of this post.
The point is that as a graphic professional YOU can and you should be in control of your Name and build your own Authority and Web presence – for which you have to give yourself the means.
TIP: Just follow this series of articles – one side by Yorgo Nestoridis and the other by Bianca Gubalke – and you know exactly what to do. I mean EXACTLY, step-by-step, penny-by-penny.
Do your maths against the 25% in commissions over time… The choice is your’s.
What makes some Graphic Artists more successful than others?
We’ve gone into how Graphic Designers and Illustrators present themselves offline and online, however, there are some other factors that are just as important and determine whether or not an Artist will be contracted on an ongoing basis – let’s look at the most important ones:
1. The Ability to Translate the Client’s Ideas
When approaching a graphic design or illustration ‘job’ for a Client, it’s all about him and what HE wants.
Whether the client is “Nutrinsider” directly or an Advertising Agency handling the “Nutrinsider” portfolio, what counts is that the Graphic Designer develops a fine intuition to understand what exactly the client wants. Which also means that the Client visualizes what he wants and expresses the context and outlines in a precise Briefing.
From experience I know that this is by far not always the case.
Very often the client has a rather vague and abstract idea. He may have seen something he liked and show you what he means – which already helps. After all he knows your style and ability to project HIS ideas onto a screen… and that’s one of the main reasons he contracted you – but not the only one as you will see in a minute.
It also allows you to ask questions in order to exclude certain things and bring the focus more and more to the point. You too want to know who the target audience is… you will have to adapt your form of expression accordingly. Drill it down until you can see and feel what the client wants.
Be open for some creative brainstorming and scribble-sketch-searching; all this works perfectly if the Client and the Artist are in synch and the elaboration of the Artwork becomes a Dialogue sans Ego or even a Dance. . .
It will reflect in the Product.
Of course, this doesn’t apply if the Client selects some of your Artwork for a specific application – like my example above. In this case the Client has made his choice based on what you expressed in your Artwork – now it’s just a matter of Permission on your side and… Price.
2. Reliability and Speed
There’s war out there … everybody competes in terms of Price, Service and Speed – and so do you. There’s no escape. When accepting a ‘job’ there’s a clear understanding and contract about the dead-line – and you better hold it come hell or high water as if you don’t you may be out of business faster than you got in.
Unless you’re Picasso :)
While PCs and the Internet allow us to work so much faster, they are always a risk factor as connections can be cut for hours as was my case yesterday, your PC can have a bug or the program simply strikes.
If you want to have a reputation of always delivering on time and keep it up, then prepare for it, equip yourself with what it needs. Certain accidents can be accepted and forgiven, but not if it becomes the norm.
I was tempted to say again… “Unless you’re Picasso” – however may I tell you this:
I’ve worked with some of the world’s leading artists – be it on books, catalogues, portraits, documentaries, photos, exhibitions and posters – and I’ve always been amazed by their discipline and reliability. No questions asked. If I needed the pictures on that date, I’d have them – guaranteed. It struck me why most of the comparatively ‘unknown’ artists let me wait for weeks if not months?
This so much revealed to me an important aspect of certain artists’ fame and financially speaking overwhelming success – and what was to be learned and equally applied from there. It certainly taught me a lot.
3. Price
Quality has its Price and your Name, Position and Experience as a Graphic Designer = your Market Value count.
At the time there were clear hourly and daily rates that applied to each project, sometimes depending on the value of the Client and what he was apparently prepared to pay… unless it was a pretext of the Agency to squeeze more profit out for themselves. Payment can be in stages if a project takes several months to be completed.
Each situation is different. You’ve got to start with your own setup and from there do your OWN maths taking into account all overheads plus a minimum of 10% profit to come to an hourly rate – say $75.
Today we all work more or less via the Internet and this beyond the boundaries of where we live. While the client may present you with a “what’s in it for you” scenario, you want to honor your own work, you need to know what your bottomline is so you can get into profit, and you want to be informed about the “going rates” for whatever you do and where and for whom – so you neither sell yourself out of the market by being too low, nor price yourself out of the market by demanding too much. Never ever guess what a Client is willing to pay and charge that; it’s totally unprofessional and detrimental to your reputation.
I suggest you do some research on the Internet to see what exactly applies to your current situation and what the competition calculates. If working in or for clients in the US, it’s wise to have a copy of the ‘Graphic Artist Guild’s Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines’ (PEG).
This is a wide field and not the focus of this article… which is to explain what counts when a Graphic Designer or Illustrator is chosen for a specific project… and lastly this includes that you are…
4. Available
and
5. Simply Fun to Work with
As simple as that!
Which finally brings us to applying what we learned above to the Internet environment and our project at hand:
Creating Web Graphics for Nutrinsider
Meanwhile you will have noticed that whatever principles apply to the normal traditional offline environment also apply to your work via the Internet. The Internet offers us a fantastic way to expand beyond our normal boundaries – in my case right now Cape Town, South Africa – and work with partners far away – in the case of “Nutrinsider” with Yorgo Nestoridis in Greece.
Amazing!
What has definitely changed when comparing my creative work then… when living in Europe and without really using the PC at the time… to now when working entirely via the PC and the Internet, is the Speed of Communication and Delivery! WOW – these are worlds apart… !
Also the tools and programs to create our Artwork have simply opened up a whole new dimension alltogether! I don’t think this needs any explanation… but it deserves mentioning as this is a tremendous leap in many ways, it’s a constant breathtaking evolution and daily challenge and constant learning and adapting and and… and who knows where it will take us within the next years!?!
Simply amazing and an exciting time to live in!
In that sense our answer to Picasso’s statement: “Computers are useless. They can only give you answers ” should indicate that it’s all a matter of asking the right questions!
So what did it take to create my first Web Graphics for “Nutrinsider” ? What was needed for which Purpose and Target Audience?
This I will reveal in my next post, “Creating Web Graphics for Nutrinsider 3″
. . .
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