How to Succeed as a Freelance Illustrator- Tips From an Expert
Thousands of artists nowadays have made the shift from traditional to digital illustration. They are employed either by advertising and graphic design firms, by companies with marketing and communications departments, or are self-employed as freelancers on multimedia marketplaces, such as stock houses.
Filipp Dunsky is a professional graphic illustrator from Russia who recently decided to take the freelancing plunge and leave his traditional 9-to-5 job routine behind. Here is what Filipp shared with us for all you aspiring freelancers:
What do you think it takes to be a successful illustrator?
I think it takes as same skills as it takes to be successful in any profession and in whole life. You have to learn how to keep calm in any stress situations, how to be positive, loving human being to give it away in your illustrations. To give something away first you have to gain something. And if you have only suffocation inside you cannot give anything rather than that. And of course it takes time. Without a gap, everyday learn something new and keep your energy level high. To keep energy high I mean do not intoxicate your body with some stuff and do not intoxicate your mind with some bad, heavy thoughts. Be light and easy. Be like a sponge also to soak of everything beautiful you love and then you can spread it.
Tell us about your educational background as an illustrator.
I was born in an artists’ family drawing all my childhood. My father used my children doodles to design some books. I was inspired by him a lot seeing how quiet he is sitting near his table under the lamp all evenings and drawing, cutting, gluing some pictures. For me it was like a magic. When I grew up I graduated fine arts and graphic design university in my hometown in Far East of Russia. I loved color science, to work on paintings and to make whimsical curved sketches of everything there.
After graduation I’ve tried to work as graphic designer in office for two years and it was hard time for me to understand that I have to go to the office every day, there was no way for me to grow up there as designer. Luckily I saw some perfect examples of people who was successfully freelancing as an illustrators and after some time spending on learning my own way of drawing I’ve started to get freelance orders and finally had a chance to leave the office for a better life – free working on myself with a lot of nice options freelancers have such as right to choose with whom you would like to work and what project to take, how much it should cost and what time it should take when and where to work etc.
How do you promote your work online? Mainly I showcase my works at Behance Network. I think this is number one well known social network for professionals like designers, illustrators, photographers, architects, movie makers, art directors and so on from all over the world. I’m collecting my works in groups of 10-15 illustrations and once I’ve got new portion I’m publishing them all together in one new project there. There are some great moderators with very good sense of visual taste. Luckily they notice almost all of my new projects there and they mark them as featured at the landing page. So this is how people from all over the globe getting to know about my works. Best thing here is when you’ve got featured there a lot of blogs starting to share your projects, taking some interviews and so on. In parallel I’m posting new works at my Facebook account, there is also such a great resource for Russian professionals like Re:vision http://revision.ru/a/do/ a lot of people from Russia comes to me that way. I have Dribbble account but I’m not sure it is good for me to stay there as I’ve noticed it is mainly for UI and icon designers. I had only few work requests from there for last 2 years.
People are using Facebook instead – great recommendation market. Someone likes your work and his friends instantly get that news. I never spammed others asking to give me a job and I would recommend people to focus on the quality of their work instead of begging that way. You better grow up, gain skills and people will promote you by themselves. It is great that I can live my own life, show some of my thoughts, my works, my photos in Facebook and people can see I’m alive, I’m open and I have some reputation which I don’t want to lose. So there is some trust. I have my website also http://dunsky.ru but it is just a status for my clients I guess. Professional illustrator without a site? What?
To wrap up, what is your ultimate advice for illustrators that are just getting started, so they can also get noticed and be successful in their business?
Ultimate advice is start to develop common of all mankind qualities. To grow yourself as a good person and then other good things would start growing outside of you. As Thomas Edison once greatly said “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety nine percent perspiration”. Just relax and do what you love with a great sense of gratitude. People will like it for sure.
Would you also like to share your experience or interesting story with the Payoneer community? We’d love to hear about it – let us know by sending an e-mail to community@payoneer.com.
