(These opinions may not be the official positions of the Graphic Artists Guild.)
What is your perception of the current illustration market? (Include both positive and negative factors affecting the profession)
A wave of technological innovation is sweeping all markets, and the illustration market can not escape it. Illustration has always been tied to publishing technology. In the 1990s clip art led the technology-driven shift in the illustration market. The children’s book market, where I have worked for 20 years (I have published 17 picturebooks), has been able to resist erosion to stock and unlimited use clip art, but only because it is not practical to make a picturebook (or a comic book) from clip art.
But now, publishing revenues across the board are falling and I think digital, interactive, downloadable and browsable media explains the slump. I’m having more trouble signing up my next picturebook. Publishers fear they won’t be able to sell books which they would have been enthusiastic about just five years ago. The picturebook market is now, according to one of my editors, “hellish”.
In the boarder commercial arts market, it seems that photographers, illustrators and designers are all fast becoming simply “graphic artists”. Digital technology makes it easier to borrow techniques from each other’s professions. And now our clients are increasingly expecting us to be all things to them. We have no choice but to master the technology and leverage it as best we can to create work that satisfies our own desires as well as our client’s needs.
If you think these are tough times for illustrators, what have you done to adapt? (e.g. What have you done differently/creatively to attract and maintain clients?)
It’s important to diversify your income streams. My income comes from several illustration related sources including: picture book advances, picturebook sales royalties, public speaking at elementary schools, original art sales, book jacket and magazine illustration and college level illustration instruction. Next I hope to be earning income from writing picturebooks and other material. I am now offering full service creative resources: writing, art, design and production.
On the technology front, I’m buying a dual processor G5 with a fancy video card so I can learn to present picturebook art in a motion graphics format. Not only can I create digital products from my out-of-print picturebooks, but I also will have expanded teaching opportunities at my college where the illustration curriculum has begun to emphasize motion graphics.
What do you think artists’ advocacy organizations, such as the Guild, should be doing on behalf of illustrators?
The Guild is well positioned to respond to the merging of photography, illustration and design disciplines. We are all becoming “graphic artists”. Unfortunately the Guild will continue to be hampered by the inherant competition between the disciplines.
I think the Guild should recognize clip art as an inescapable outgrowth of digital technology. Rather than opposing it on principle, we could be fighting for better artist contracts from the clip art publishers. We should NEVER call it “royality free” because clip art can, and occasionally does, pay the artist royalties! We should be advocating for better clip art contracts! Dropping our all out objection to stock and clip art would serve as a peace initiative between illustrators and designers. Then we could focus more exclusively on what we all have in common.
What should individual illustrators be doing on their own to improve the economic interests of their profession?
Raise a higher standard of professional excellence. Get more familiar with digital media without abandoning traditional media. Find new markets without deserting traditional markets. Diversify your income without giving up the illustration business. Exploit as many promotional avenues as posible.
Are there any specific ways membership in the Guild has benefited you?
Because I have been very actively involved as an organizer for the Guild in Chicago over the years, the Guild has provided me with a great network of professionals from all different graphic arts disciplines who can answer my questions and whose experiences I can benefit from. Only truly active members can make the most of this benefit. So get active!
Oh, through the Guild I met a wonderfully smart, attractive and talented creative professional with whom I have partnered to create Painted Pony Studios. And Judy and I have also created a new blended family with big sister Ruby and little sister Rowan, my first kid and, as Schmelzer likes to say, an ”all Guild baby”.
Michael Hays
Chicago Chapter
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