Any business, product, or service, no matter if it’s a global corporation or a sole-trading illustration freelancer, needs to solve one or more problems for someone else to keep trading. After all, that the thing that people pay for – the removal of their problems. Uber solves the problem of finding a ride home. Airbnb solves the problem of finding accommodation. Panadol solves the problem of a headache. But what problem is an illustrator solving?
At the most basic level, an illustrator may be solving an aesthetic need. Maybe a publisher or commissioner of work needs a very specific style to complement some text or create a certain mood in a public space or publication. In this case, style (and medium) is pretty important. But how does a publisher choose between two or more artists’ work whose style may create the same (or similar) mood? Maybe the commissioner has a few other problems to solve?
No one likes to work with people who make their lives harder than they need to be. After all, work can be tiring and stressful, even at the best of times. So maybe the way to differentiate is to be looking at other problems that people in publishing have. Most editors I’ve worked with juggle many books at a time, all of them on their own high-pressure deadline. Trying to keep track of things is difficult. Can an artist differentiate themselves beyond their work to help make that problem go away? What if emails were written clearly? What if expectations were set well in advance? What if things were consistently delivered on or ahead of time? What if it was easy to share progress at sales meetings? What if it was easy to print the work out when it needed to be? What if we saw art direction as a way to learn and grow rather than a controlling overlord? What if we were more transparent in our practice?
When one looks more deeply at the lives of the people we collaborate within the business of illustration, we find there are a wealth of problems to solve beyond creating the final artwork to fill an aesthetic need. Maybe the work isn’t just in creating the art, but helping the people who commission it to have a stress-free, enjoyable, and collaborative experience along the way.