Learn how to win more creative battles. Take The Six Stages of Illustration on Skillshare today. Use this link to get 30 days free access to every class on Skillshare — https://skl.sh/4cCTxEH In today's episode, we'll dive into the delicate balance of navigating conflicts and compromises with our illustration clients and art directors. As artists, we often have strong opinions about our work, making compromise a challenging but necessary part of our creative process. Illustration, or commercial art, is unique in that it's not just self-expression; it's about expressing others' ideas through our unique abilities, style and point of view. Somehow, we need to maintain our artistic integrity while meeting the needs of our clients. Finding the right balance tricky. We can't make it all about us, but we also can't just give up our creative authority to appease our clients. By listening to this episode, you'll learn how to find more wins in your work by valuing both your client's needs and your own creative vision. Throughout the episode, I'll share insights from listeners and fellow illustrators, offering diverse, valuable perspectives on navigating creative conflicts in illustration.
Learn how to win more creative battles. Take The Six Stages of Illustration on Skillshare today. Use this link to get 30 days free access to every class on Skillshare — https://skl.sh/4cCTxEH
In today's episode, we'll dive into the delicate balance of navigating conflicts and compromises with our illustration clients and art directors. As artists, we often have strong opinions about our work, making compromise a challenging but necessary part of our creative process. Illustration, or commercial art, is unique in that it's not just self-expression; it's about expressing others' ideas through our unique abilities, style and point of view. Somehow, we need to maintain our artistic integrity while meeting the needs of our clients. Finding the right balance tricky. We can't make it all about us, but we also can't just give up our creative authority to appease our clients. By listening to this episode, you'll learn how to find more wins in your work by valuing both your client's needs and your own creative vision. Throughout the episode, I'll share insights from listeners and fellow illustrators, offering diverse, valuable perspectives on navigating creative conflicts in illustration.
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EPISODE LINKS
Hello. My name is Mr. Tom Froese, and these are my thoughts on illustration.
This is a biweekly podcast about showing up and growing up as an illustrator. Welcome to episode 31.
Today we're going to talk about picking your creative battles or navigating conflict and compromise with your clients as illustrators, we all have to make compromises. That is to say we have to do things that we'd rather not do in our creative work because our clients need us to do it. We get some kind of feedback from our clients and we have to incorporate that, and it's not always exactly how we wished it would turn out.
Compromise is a feature of being a human in relationship to other humans.
We just can't always get what we want. Now this topic is especially close to our hearts. As artists, we often have very strong opinions about our work and our ideas.
It might be about the style or about certain details in the art. Or maybe it's about whether to be literal versus more abstract in our approach to a given image. That's what makes us artists. We care about the art we make, and if we didn't, our work probably wouldn't be very good.
What's tricky about illustration, or as I sometimes call it, commercial art, is that it's not just an expression of the artist.
It's in service to someone or something else, whether that's a business, a brand, or an organization like a school or a church. But it's not just up to the client, whoever that happens to be. They're coming to us for our unique abilities, for your unique ability. They want a piece of you for themselves.
I often say illustration is not self expression, but the part of us that others want to use to express themselves. The trick here is that we have to maintain the part of the art that comes from us. That's our secret sauce. And that's probably at the heart of this whole question of compromise. How much compromise is too much before our integrity as artists or before the integrity of the art itself disintegrates?
There's a blurry line between being too flexible and not being flexible enough. And it's not always easy to make this call.
Now, as an artist myself, I will admit right now that I tend to be far more on the side of caring too much and not being flexible enough.
I have strong opinions and strong feelings when my ideas or approaches to a given problem are challenged. But I'm also not a sociopath, and I don't want to just bully everyone around to get my own way. My favorite work is always a mix of creatively satisfying art that pleases my client all in service to meeting their need in a real way.
It scratches their itch, but it also scratches mine that our art can't or shouldn't do. Both is alive from the pit of hell, and it should be cast into the outer darkness. Now, jokes aside, we have to care because as artists, caring is our job. It's imperative that we care enough to go beyond a stiff mechanical representation of an idea.
in the previous episode where I talked about the hi illustration apocalypse, I concluded that the only way we're going to remain competitive in light of AI's increasing ability to create passable illustrations,
the only way
we can be competitive is to imbue our work with what I call a hu ness.
That is to say our work can only stand apart from machine made art by having a point of view or some kind of human experience behind it.
that is the true value that illustrators bring to their clients, and that is hopefully by they want to work with us in the first place.
The question then is not whether we need to care or whether we should be willing to stand up for our creative authority.
But when and how?
Now one of my pet topics has always been creative authority. Often you'll hear about creative control, which suggests that an artist is calling all the shots like a rock star and that nothing matters to them more than their own expression and vision.
But I much prefer the idea of creative authority. Being an authority does not put you in charge of everyone else but in charge of your domain. It means that you are an authority when it comes to how you use your craft to serve your clients or solve certain problems, whatever that ends up looking like. An author is the authority of their stories,
but not necessarily in all things publishing.
A plumber is an authority on pipes going into and out of the home, but not in the waterworks or sewage systems. We all have specializations that plug into a larger context, and we need to remain experts in our roles while also understanding how it fits into the bigger picture.
but I'm getting ahead of myself here. The question of compromise is not whether we need to compromise because we will always need to compromise. It's more about knowing how to compromise and how to avoid over compromise as much as possible.
So if you've ever struggled with trying to make art that you love, that also satisfies the client, I made this episode for you.
If you're constantly fighting for your artistic vision, I want to help you find more wins where you feel happy about your work.
Or perhaps you've given up fighting for your own vision, or you've never even tried believing that the client is always right. So you just give them what they want as long as they're paying you.
So if that's you, I'd like to explain why you should actually value your own creative vision more highly.
I'm really excited about this episode because the topics of creative authority and compromise are very close to my heart. But I'm also eager to share with you not just my own thoughts on this topic, but some very wise insights from others, perhaps including folks who listen to this show.
I ask this question to people on Threads recently,
and many of you chimed in with very thoughtful responses.
I was actually surprised by what many of these artists and many of them are actually very successful. I went and like looked at the profiles of people responding just to see where they were coming from.
And that helped me weigh their wisdom, like how
much does their approach
actually stand in light of the kind of work that they've
done
as is proven on, say, their web portfolios or what they show on Instagram? I think that's an important thing. When someone's giving you any kind of advice, you need to know if they're using it themselves and kind of what authority or credibility they have behind that.
But like I was saying, I was I was surprised by what some of the most successful artists in this thread all seemed to agree on,
which you'll probably start to get a sense of as I go through those responses. Toward the end of today's episode.
So stick around. I've got tons of insights to help you navigate creative conflicts in your illustration work coming right up.
But first, I just want to take a moment to thank you so much for being here. I especially want to thank my supporters on Patreon who truly helped make this podcast possible. If you're a fan of thoughts on illustration, I want to give you three ways you can support this podcast. The first two are free and super easy to do, and the third might help you level up in your creative journey.
First, you can share it with your friends. This is the best way to help podcasts grow. There are a million bazillion podcasts out there, and by recommending thoughts and illustration to your friends, they will be way more likely to listen. And if I'm doing my job right, I believe they'll probably thank you for the tip. Second, you can follow or subscribe to the podcast wherever you happen to be.
Listening from
Thoughts on illustration is available on all podcast platforms, including Spotify, Google and Apple. And now that YouTube is serving audio podcasts, I'm back there as well. Third, you can join as a drawing buddy on Patreon for $8 a month. You get exclusive access to my life monthly drawing meetups called Draw With Me. You also get a 20% discount on my one on one coaching sessions.
Join today Patreon dot com slash Tom Froese. Now just as a
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follow me on Substack. That's a great way to support what I'm doing here as well.
All right. With that out of the way, let's get into the show.
So the reason that I'm talking about this topic of navigating compromise today is because I'm asking this very question myself in a current project. I can't tell you the details, but I'll say that it's a large project that I care deeply about. I want to make sure that the art that I make for this thing is my best yet.
My goal is to love the work that I'm making for this and to see how others respond to it, that I've truly done something big here. I want the art
that I make for this thing to make people feel things, and I want to be able to do that by pouring out a lot of feeling, or in other words, blood, sweat, tears and inspiration and love and all of that into this thing that I'm making.
A lot is riding on this project for me right now, especially in light of a very hard year last year, both financially and in terms of feeling motivated and inspired as an artist. In episode 25, which I call How to Love Your Work again. I talk about this at length if you want some more background. But I am determined to love this project, not just in terms of the outcome, but in the process of making it.
I want to work on this with all my heart and to be diligent and not just to check out and pump out the work and get her done and move on to the next thing.
now you've probably heard the saying better done than perfect, and there's a time when this is true and it works.
But there's also a time when it's kind of bad advice.
I'd say there's a time within a project when we actually do have to start disengaging with it and just finish it because things have gone on long enough. The battle is over and we just need to march home, whether it's in victory
or defeat.
And along the same lines, there's another saying that a work of art is
never truly finished.
It is only abandoned. And this is absolutely true in my experience. There does come a point in every project when it is only counterproductive to try to make something more perfect.
But in the foundational moments of a creative project, it's very important to give it every ounce of your strength. Our job at the very beginning and through the early stages of the creative process is to give it our best shot.
We have to try to find a way to own a project and to breathe life into it. That's how we end up loving the work enough to see it to the end. Especially with larger projects like the one that I'm working on right now,
that I'm doing this project that I'm talking about as part of my job for the money.
This is a given. People say it's just a job. Just suck it up and do the work and get paid. My retort is pretty simple. I didn't get into this career to just suck it up. That's not how you sustain a career as an illustrator or artist. And if you think that illustration is just about what the client wants, you know, if that works for you, then fine.
But I'd say good luck with that. Working with clients who only want you to do what they want will certainly lead you to a career in doing that. And in my opinion,
you're not going to last very long doing that.
So I'm at the point in this job where my vision does matter, and I am in a position that is going to require some amount of compromise. I know that I can't just go on and do my own thing. That's not how this works. I actually really need to have a lot of direction from my art director to make sure that I'm handling the art in the right way.
There's a possible audience of hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom are nothing like me. So we all need to make this thing work for its intended purpose.
Now, again, I just want to apologize if I'm being vague with the details, and it's hard for you to get a true sense of what I'm talking about, but I do need to protect the client.
And this messy middle stuff, in the end, doesn't really need to get known by the client. You know, the people who ultimately see what I'm making for this client. They don't need to know about it. You need to know about it because you're my illustration illustrator audience and that's why I'm sharing with you. But I do have to make sure that nothing gets
that the beans don't get to spilled out, if you know what I'm saying.
Anyway, the tricky thing for me here is that because this is a longer term project, if I lose too much of my creative authority in the early stages, as much as I wouldn't want to, I would start to check out
which would make the ensuing months of work on this job absolutely soul draining. I'm not being dramatic here.
This actually happened to me in the past, so I'm doing what I can to prevent it from happening again. The thing that is most at stake here by advocating for my creative authority here is my joy in this project. Now, if that seems selfish, you know, if you're thinking actually the most important thing here isn't your joy, it's the work for the client.
It's the client that matters most. While all I can say is that joy is my creative fuel, and when this fuel runs out, just like anything else that needs energy to move, my creativity sputters out. I'm trying to protect my moneymaker. People. If I burnout, I can't illustrate. And that means I'm not making money. Protecting ourselves from creative burnout is more important than anything else, because without our creativity,
we can't eat.
What I can tell you about this job is that I sent the first sketches to the client, and after a few weeks they came back with their feedback. To be clear, this is a wonderful client and we have a really good working relationship, and we've worked together for a long time. We have good rapport. Their feedback
was thoughtful,
insensitive.
They didn't step on my creative toes, not in any egregious way, at least. They gave me clear direction and very clear reasons for it. They didn't so much tell me how to resolve their concerns, but what those concerns were. In some cases they offered visual suggestions for how to go about it, but ultimately they left it to me as the artist to do it in the way that I felt best.
So you might be asking like, what's the problem here? They seem like a pretty good, respectful client. Well, I still feel like there are overall differences in taste. And this boils down to details like, you know, how the art is laid out in the final thing that it's for. And,
the way they might be steering me towards being more literal and representational versus something that I would rather do that's more abstract, expressive, and maybe a little bit more challenging to the viewer.
Now, in situations where we feel at odds with our clients, we illustrators often want to do something more risky and the client wants us to play it safe.
This happens all the time.
This may be the number one pain point between artist and art director or client. This question of riskiness in the art. A common argument might be that clients and their marketing departments are afraid of offending their audiences or going over their heads too much.
And we as artists might argue that perhaps the client is austere, underestimating the intelligence of their viewers or readership.
So as artists, our role very often is to challenge our viewers and to give them something to rise up to, rather than simply pandering to their current levels or to their expectations. But if we step back, if I step back in my own case here, I might find that maybe my job here isn't
to be challenging at all.
It really does depend on the job. You know, there are times that we can assume that as commercial artists, our work his not mere self-expression, but just the part of us that our clients want to use to express themselves and their ideas
And this is kind of what I'm getting at here to simply minimize the artists concerns about creative freedom and to see that we're just being big whiners and spoiled brats.
Well, I don't think that's accurate as well. I think that's that's definitely not the case.
So my goal in this particular case is to preserve my artistic integrity and to find a way to stay in love with this project the whole way through. The question is,
how
am I going to achieve this goal while also doing my job according to the contract that I signed?
How do I balance my personal artistic needs with my client's overall goals? And in the end, which of these
wins out?
So as I mentioned at the top of this episode, I put this question out to people on threads. I asked, What do you do when your A.D. or your art director seems to be steering you away from your artistic tastes? What if they are leading you towards illustrations that you neither like nor feel connected to?
How do you move forward without being someone you're not? Without being too difficult about it? How do you navigate compromise
the balance of both your needs
and the clients?
this thread, there are quite a number of responses and almost every one of them is worth reading. If you'd like to read the whole discussion, I will leave a link to the thread in the show notes and I do recommend you go check it out.
It's a really engaging conversation again, and you could even add your own ideas or tips there if you want as well. But for this episode, I've collected and summarized all the best insights into six overall tips for navigating or responding to conflict during a project.
So the first tip is to be flexible. So one of the overarching themes in the responses to my original post is this idea of flexibility or working with your art director rather than just being totally stubborn.
So I'll read the first quote of the day here.
And it comes from Alex Foxley and he says, Interesting question, Tom. Having been both an art director and illustrator, I'd say it depends. If I really believe in my creative direction. I'll do my best to try and sell the idea and win them over. That being said, sometimes I just let it run its course and accept that it might not be 100% as I envisioned.
You just got to pick your battles, I guess.
so here this commentary shows flexibility in his approach by giving himself a chance to defend his ideas. But he also seems to have this point where he understands it's just not worth the fight for him.
There's a certain level of detachment where he's not so tied to the outcome that he's willing to die on this hill, or at least not every time. But more to the point of being flexible. There's this openness to possibility where he says, you know, he'll he'll just let the project run its course and accept that it might not be 100% as he envisioned.
Now, just because it's not what he envisioned, I would take this to mean that it might be better than he envisioned and it may not feel like a compromise at all. There there might actually be something
amazing just by remaining flexible. Either way, this commenter is okay with not every project being 100% win. So there's another responder here named Meghan, and she says
you maintain flexibility and perhaps discover a new tone for yourself. It never has to go in your own portfolio. Creativity is the alchemy of diverse influences. Maybe it's a path you never want
to go down again.
Maybe you can convince them it's a bad idea.
But
when is flexibility
not a good thing?
and then she says it's like, yes, and let's try to do it your way and the way I have it in my head and then move forward with the best version.
So in this response, the commenter sees the possibility of creative growth. She understands that it's through responding to various challenges and inputs, that creativity
is proven.
She has this kind of yes and or both and approach. You know, let let's try your way and let's try mine and may the best idea win. So all of these kind of point to this idea of being flexible because who knows what might happen if you let
the client lead a little bit in terms of the feedback and direction that they're
giving or contributing to the project.
so in a lot of these responses, I'm actually reminded of
a parenting guru of all things.
Her name's Barbara Color Roso, and she's a best selling author and speaker on parenting and she identifies these three kinds of parents. She calls them the brick wall, the jellyfish in backbone. And so I'm going to steal her analogy here and apply it to illustrators. So the brick wall illustrator with a brick wall illustrator, the answer is always know they're unyielding.
It's hard to get through to them. They're difficult to work with. And because of this, they repel people away from them. And of course, this is bad for business by always demanding what you want and kind of bullying your way through, yet probably end up not getting anything in the long run like it ends in loneliness and isolation and stunted growth.
You're going to get a bad reputation. You don't want to be a brick wall illustrator because you become
known as the difficult one.
Now, the second kind of illustrator here is like the complete opposite of the brick wall, and that is the jellyfish. So whereas the brick wall was too rigid, the jellyfish is just nothing. There's no form or structure to it.
And so this would be your typical. Yes. Man. You know, the answer is always yes.
they're going to get walked all over. They're going to attract bullies. These are the kind of people you might call spineless, the jellyfish illustrator, by being too lenient, never gets what they want because they they just don't stand up for themselves. They don't advocate for themselves.
And it ends in burnout or unresolved pent up anger. Because while they're saying yes and going along with the flow or the requests that they just don't believe in on the outside, inside they're just stewing and rage. And this is not a good way to exist in any sense. So we've gone through the brick wall and the jellyfish.
Finally, we have what's called the backbone. So the backbone illustrator has firmness and structure, but also movement. So I guess I'm talking more about just the image of the backbone itself. Like your spine. It's firm, it's structured, but it can bend. There's movement to it.
if your spine is fuzed, if it's not working properly, you're going to lose that flexibility.
So what you want is to be a good, healthy backbone illustrator. You're confident, you're composed, you say no when you need to. You say yes when you can. You mean what you say and you adapt to various challenges with nimbleness. You can dodge threats and you can maneuver whatever comes your way with skill. So all of this leads back to this idea of creative authority that I mentioned earlier on and creative authority is about having structure without being too rigid.
Flexibility doesn't mean you never stand up for your vision or that you never set up boundaries that,
you know, once they're cross, you're going to defend them. It just means that you have wiggle room and that simply makes you more capable of responding to different challenges and possibly getting stronger in the process. So all of this is under the point of being flexible.
So the tip from all these illustrators who responded to this threads post, they all seem to agree more or less that you need to be flexible. And by remaining flexible, it helps you navigate compromise in a healthy way.
So the second tip here is to pick your battles. So this is another sentiment that came through in many of the responses.
we've already seen this in one of the examples that I just mentioned above,
specifically in the one from the first quote that I read.
But
another way in which this sentiment is expressed is in terms of letting go, as another commenter Sebastian wrote, I present alternative options, but deep in the project it's hard to do that.
I suppose I let it go and post more work to attract the right people later. Don't stress. It happens to all of us. So here Sebastian suggests that you shouldn't let it get to you. Don't stress. It happens to us all. So don't take it personally. And I think that's actually a really good reminder. I'm very prone to take all feedback personally to feel like I failed somehow.
But it's not always meant to be a direct attack on our creativity or something. Some things just don't go our way.
But more to my point, Sebastian expresses this idea of just letting things go because it's not worth the stress.
So in another response, someone that goes by the name Paper Golems says, and I quote, If you're working with an art director, even with a client, your vision is not the only one that matters.
Being a professional illustrator,
being an adult
is knowing when to speak up and when to move on.
And a lot of that varies wildly between who your client is, what they're paying you, and what level of experience and expertise is that you're at. So here the commenter equates being a professional illustrator with being an adult and this makes sense to me.
You know, as grown ups, we have to learn when it's appropriate to speak up and when to just move on, you know, basically how to live peaceably with other people.
The big question, though, that kind of remains unanswered is how do you know when to speak up and when to move on?
How do you know when to hold them and how do you know when to fold them?
Well, they kind of answer it and they say it depends on who your client is, what they're paying you, and what level of experience
and expertise
you have. So there's a clue here where at least for this person, there are certain factors that mean the difference between speaking up or moving on.
I really appreciate this comment,
especially around these factors that change where we draw the line.
I think we all have certain things that will make the pill of compromise easier to swallow, and it usually comes down to money. If we're being paid enough will do anything. But also,
I think you have to know your place. Like what is your level of experience or expertise? I think this takes a little bit of epistemological humility.
maybe that's the wrong way of of that might not be the right term. It takes just realism about where you're at and knowing if you have the actual clout to stand up for a certain issue. There are times in our career, especially at the beginning, when we kind of have to pay your dues. I'm not saying that beginners have no clout or no right to speak up, but there is a humility that's involved in terms of like, what can I learn from just going along with this feedback for now versus like totally refusing to go in a direction that you're being pulled.
Even if you don't have tons of experience under your belt.
But I think also kind of like I think part of what paper columns here is seeing is that even when working for a huge, intimidating client and getting paid handsomely for it, you're not just paid to be the yes man.
Maybe the highest paid illustrators are those who maintain their creative authority and are not afraid to push back in a respectful but firm manner when it matters to them.
But they're also willing to concede and admit when they don't have as much say as they'd hoped, or when the overall project will probably be fine.
They just need to keep going along. You know, often the things we get so hung up on as artists, once we get used to the new thing that we didn't think up ourselves or expect, they're not so bad in the end.
So onto the third tip.
Communicate clearly and openly. So this is another common thread amongst these thread sitters.
Comments, and that's the idea of clear
and open communication By being able to express our needs and vision. Clearly, our clients can better understand where we're coming from and this may persuade them to go with our ideas. On the other hand,
by being able to listen to our clients in a reciprocal manner, our clients will feel heard and we might actually be persuaded ourselves that their idea will actually work Well.
There's also a more preemptive kind of communication that is suggested here as well, and I'll get into what these specific comments are, but it's not just about communicating when there is a point of disagreement. It's about making sure we understand what the expectations are from the outset and also we want to make sure our client understands what our boundaries are from the outset.
That's one of the key purposes of a formal written brief in contract. These express what is included in our services in exchange for whatever we're being paid. Take, for example, this advice from LOEs Van Ostern. So she writes,
Be inviting open and straightforward from the beginning.
Ask what the expectations are
from the collaboration, and tell them
what they can expect from you.
One example is
that I love to push boundaries to get
what is, in my opinion, the best result.
I tell my clients upfront that they can expect me to be critical in a friendly way during the process.
So I think this is a really nicely balanced
little nugget here. So the commenters shows a classic backbone approach to working with her clients.
So she asks what the client expects from the outset, so she lays that down right away. She acknowledges that it's a collaboration. It's a cold labor. They're both working on the project together. And she also does this interesting thing where she lets her clients know upfront that they can expect her to be critical and to push the boundaries.
Now I have to say that there must be a difference between pushing boundaries and being pushy,
so one is leading the client to something more than they first imagined. And I think that's a huge part of our job as artists. And the other, you know, being pushy is demanding that clients go with what we want no matter what.
And
if you think about it, it's kind of hypocrite call. Like we might accuse a client of giving us feedback that shows that they're unimaginative and they can't think outside the box or whatever. But when a client gives us an idea or feedback that's outside of our box, we get all up in arms and we react negative early to that.
And so instead of
letting them push our boundaries a little bit, we kind of elbow our way through, we bully our way through,
or we might feel like we'd like to do that
to get our own creative way.
So the way to avoid this kind of conflict is to, as this tip suggests, communicate clearly and openly. And that involves you expressing what you want and expect and how you work and openly expressing
your ideas along the way with respect, but also listening, hearing what your client has to say and really considering whether their feedback
actually has some weight to it.
So this is actually a good segway into the fourth tip, which is to remember the bigger picture. And this is another common thread amongst the comments that I got
on my original post.
Seeing the bigger picture is kind of related to some of the other things we were talking about, especially being flexible and picking your battles. But it really is about keeping things in the right perspective. So here's another comment from Lois. Venus and I already read another one of her quotes, but she actually contributed this as well. She says, As an illustrator, I always try to listen to the wishes and needs of the art director.
The aim for me is to create art that is fulfilling the needs of the client in a way that I can stay true to my signature
style. So again, I love that. Lois,
maybe it's Lois. It's spelled Alo. Yes. Either way,
I like that she
shows such backbone in her in her comments here.
I really think that she exemplifies this backbone mentality. She has this very. Yes. And stance. She listens to the client and stays true to her own approach or style.
But more to the point here, what she's saying is she keeps her eye on what the client needs. She balances it out with her own,
thing that she needs to maintain order for her to actually do her job well, which is to be true to her signature style.
But she keeps her eye on the bigger picture, which for her in this case is the needs of the client.
So on the same point,
another commenter,
Evan, writes, This is simple
Advocate for your ideas, but don't cling so tightly to them that you endure pain as the job becomes not exactly what you would have wanted. It's not about you.
Your role is facilitating
the idea of the client.
Do your best.
Give your best advice in the clearest way possible,
but allow the work to be what it becomes.
And if you have a great idea that the client has passed on, he adds here, just tuck that into your back pocket and execute it for yourself. So there's a lot going on here, but
I just want to call it the part where
he says your role is facilitating the idea of the client.
And this is just an important reminder that we're not just here to express ourselves. Now, my critique of what Evan is saying would be that
the comment does verge into jellyfish territory. And let me explain. So
I'm going to get into this more later in today's episode. But this idea that it's not about you is patently untrue. Is it patently or patently?
Whatever it is, it's untrue. Art is always about the artist. It's just that if we make us the highest priority in our art, we fall short of the bigger picture. The question is what is the highest priority? Well, I don't think it's actually the client either.
While we probably should place the client at least as high as our own needs, if not, maybe a little bit higher if we place them at the top of the ultimate reason why we're making the art, then we basically do anything.
They asked. Jellyfish,
the very backbone that makes us strong as artists falls apart and whoever skilled we are making our images, they end up lacking the power of specificity and experience that must come from one's own individual artistic point of view. Now, just a side thought here, but I believe that people who take this approach of sort of it's all about the client, it's not about the artist.
They might be more chameleon like in their portfolios. And I don't mean this as an insult, but this is just an observation that people who
feel more strongly that commercial art is never about the artist
and it's
more about
only pleasing the client. They just might be more comfortable making a variety of work and working in a variety of styles.
And to be honest, I did go through
a lot of these comments and I went on the onto the profiles and I click through the links and I clicked into their portfolios just to see like, where is this comment coming from? And the people who say it's not about the artist, I just happened to observe their work tended to be more in the variety category.
And again, this is not an insult. This is not necessarily saying there's a weakness. It's just saying that when people say it's not about the artists, those are the kind of people that be more comfortable
working in different viewpoints or different
styles, if you will. And I really do think that there's a place for that kind of creativity.
And in fact, in many ways I do that myself. I don't have like this super buttoned down style. It does vary a little bit in it modulate I modulate that my style or approach or whatever, depending on what I feel about the client. So there's there's it's okay to do that. It's just good to know about that happening in the background as we're making these decisions or
offering these ideas as tips.
so obviously if such people are happy with this approach and that's great. But I also just want to say that I truly believe that the strongest illustrators, the ones you're going to remember over time, are those who have a more particular specific voice running through all their work. We remember people and companies for the one thing they do.
Well,
now, of course, let's just
keep focus on on this point here. The main advice being given is that you do have to remember the client's needs and to see the bigger picture. Usually it's neither you nor the client that's at the top of that bigger picture, but some higher purpose.
So what is that higher purpose? Part of navigating the creative compromise here is in understanding what that is and helping the client understand how what you are doing is in service to that.
On the same token, it's
also kind of true in the reverse sense. Sometimes we ourselves need to be reminded by the client of whatever that bigger picture is.
So the fifth tip here is to have a growth mindset or a learning mindset.
So there really is a positive attitude running through the responses in this thread that I'm talking through. And a lot of it has to do with allowing challenging art, direction and feedback to help us grow. I can't count how many times I've seen this happen in my own experience.
Very often a client will give me feedback to which I instinctively recoil.
I'm deeply offended or teed off about how dumb and literal they're being. They just don't get it and woe is me and all that stuff. But usually I have the sense understand that
this is just my emotional reaction. I understand what's happening and I don't permit myself to react outwardly immediately, say with a hot headed email about all my grievances and then go off to defend all my ideas and decisions with a point by point treatise.
Well, actually, I actually do write such emails. I never hit send. I very carefully remove that recipient from the to field just to make sure I don't send such an email to anyone by mistake. And then I do write out my grievances. I, I write out my defenses and my rationales and my retorts to their bad ideas and this gives me a chance to put into words my true feelings and ideas.
And it also gives me a way of evaluating them more objectively. They're in there inside me, stewing up, so I might as well just get them out onto a screen or onto a page anyway. So even though it's a pretend email to my client by writing it to them, in theory, it makes me mindful of how my ideas might come across to someone else.
I, I see what I'm thinking on the page and also more from the client's perspective. And what very often happens is that I realize I would never be able to send this email to that. It wouldn't build up our relationship,
it wouldn't be persuasive. It would only be insulting. Or if it worked at all, it would be because I've bullied my way through to getting my own way, you know, days or weeks.
Years later, I might wonder, was that work really good, or was the client truly happy, or did they just choose their battles? Like did they decide it just wasn't worth it for them?
well, I'll never know. Maybe I was just being a jerk. The work sucks,
I think that's actually a possibility that you could bully your way through a project, feel like it was a success, and it actually not being as good as it could have been because people just didn't want to deal with the difficult artist.
Now, among amongst the commenters to my thread was a fellow illustrator named Jacob Suva, and he shared an article he wrote on his substack called Working with a Publishing Team. It's pretty much about the same topic, even though he's more in the picture book illustration space specifically. But in one of his tips, he writes, Don't respond right away.
Sit on the notes from the team and think on why they are suggesting the change. Writing a big ain't going to do it in tears won't be helpful and it will be clear. You responded without thinking no good.
So I think that's really well said. But the biggest insight for me over the years is that I can't actually argue with how others perceive my work. For example, if they say if the client says that the character in the scene that's supposed be a toddler, it looks like a tiny adult, that's what they see.
I have to ask, is it possible I see it too. What about me? Can I see it their way? And then in this fictitious example, I might realize, Yeah, the proportions of the figure are a little bit too adult. Like they do look like a mini adult. Let's make the head bigger and the limbs shorter compared to the torso and maybe make the eyes bigger.
And then it will look more toddler like. Now this is just an example, but often the client is right in the sense that they're just telling me what they see or feel based on what I've given them. My job isn't to tell them why their perceptions are wrong. I can learn from this feedback about how to communicate more effectively in my illustration.
Every bit of feedback we get from our clients, especially when it comes to how they perceive our experience, our work, our art is a valuable lesson that money can't buy. We learn what works, who doesn't buy, how others react to our work. So in the same article that I mentioned by Jacob Suva, he wrote another great tip and I just want to share this with you.
Take your medicine.
I can tell you that there are many times I thought,
I don't think their idea works and mine is super awesome,
only to make the change and come to the realization that they were right all along.
Be humble and admit defeat.
The book matters more. Story rules
are. So I think this is just a great little bit of advice from Jacob.
But I. I do have to say admitting defeat might not be the right way of wording it. We're not being defeated. I mean, if we're all kind of on the same team, the work's just getting better in this case. And so it's a win for everyone. It's just maybe our ego is defeated. So if it's about your ego, yeah, admit defeat.
But if it's about
your art
becoming better, I think that's a win.
Now, this same sentiment is expressed in another response to my original question on threads, and this one comes from Flo Meissner, and she says, From my experience, every time I got over myself and went with the client's vision,
I've learned something new because these are the jobs that actually challenge you, that make you go into a direction you normally wouldn't try to keep an open mind.
So both of these
people responding here, both Flo and Jacob Suva,
they both exemplify this truth, that if we open ourselves up to the feedback in just the right way, we can actually grow past ourselves and become better, not because we're yes, manning our way through and just
rolling over and giving up. It's like we're staying engaged, but we're trying to see how we can rise to the challenge
by maintaining a growing mindset, we'll all ultimately become better illustrators. Now, before we move on to the final point, I just want to call out a previous comment that I mentioned under the tip about being flexible. And again, this one was from Megan, Megan, Tash, and she says
you maintain flexibility and perhaps discover a new tone for yourself and never has to go in your own portfolio. Creativity is the alchemy of diverse influences.
So we've already gone through this quote
in a different sense. But here I want to emphasize Meghan's point about the openness to discover something new for yourself. She eloquently says that creativity is the alchemy of diverse influences.
I love this. Basically, alchemy is the it's like a magical science, kind of from the medieval times where people thought that they could turn base metals like lead into gold. And one of our superpowers as creative problem solvers is taking what might come across as dumb feedback and I see that kind of
loosely and we transform it
into something that transcends even our own expectations.
We take,
you know, regular, ordinary ideas or things that don't seem that interesting, and it's our job to make them more interesting. It's our job to make gold from
lead.
And just for an example, like let's just say a client suggests that you make something bigger in the layer which you immediately disagree with. For one, you know why you made that thing the size it is.
And for another, the client
who is not an illustrator has no right
to tell you how to do your job.
This is an artistic compositional concern and you, as the illustrator, are the expert on that and not them. Thank you very much. Now, while it is indeed irritating to get such on the nose art direction from a client, you can take a step back and ask, What are they really asking for here?
Why might they want the thing bigger? You can maintain your creative authority and listen to the client's feedback by stepping back and seeing the bigger picture. What is really the concern here? If it's simply the client being meddlesome, then you probably are right to defend your reasoning, especially if that's a hill you think is worth dying on. But maybe the bigger concern is that the thing needs to be bigger or the thing that they're saying needs to be bigger needs to seem more important in the layout because it is more important.
And then you can ask if the thing needs to seem more important. What's the best way of doing that?
A more sophisticated client probably wouldn't tell you how to solve the problem. They wouldn't say Make it bigger. They'd simply tell you what the problem is and leave it to you to figure out. Maybe make it bigger was just the easiest way to say what they were feeling or asking.
So maybe there's a better way to emphasize whatever this thing is. You know, what are other ways to give something in a composition? More emphasis. That's an artist's problem. That's something that you can think about and bring back and say, hey, you know, I know you wanted to make it bigger, but I know that what you really wanted to do is make it seem more important.
And I've gone and framed it in this other way, and look how important it looks now.
So I know I said a lot under this point.
So to summarize it, to have a growth mindset is to accept whatever feedback you get, especially when you disagree with it as a creative challenge. Accept it as a creative challenge. How can you rise to the occasion?
How can you show your skill and prowess as a creative problem solver? And in this process, how can you actually become stronger and better by allowing the client to show you a different viewpoint other than your own?
All right, last tip. Make it up to yourself later. And this seems to be a really common thought among those who responded to my threads post.
Multiple people said whatever happens, if you disagree with the final outcome of the project, you can always make it up to yourself later. You can do it the way you would have wanted it to go later on in your own time and even use that on your portfolio. Instead, you kind of get the client name on the project because you did work for that client and you get to show what you would have done instead.
So one responder, one comment says, and this is from more creative,
you can always do a version two of whatever you want as long as you provide a version. One
of what they're asking for that meets the brief.
You don't have to go along
without discussion either. You can fight for your work by talking things through,
but know when it's time to cast a check
and on.
They're the ones that have to live with it. And you can put whatever you want in your portfolio.
so here the commenter expresses ideas that would fall under many of the other tips
that we've gone through, such as being flexible, picking your battles and open communication.
But he also points out that you can put whatever you want in your portfolio, suggesting that maybe the version too, that you suggest, which the client doesn't accept you can do anyway and share on your portfolio instead. The previous comment from Sebastian where he said Post more work to attract the right people has something to do with this as well.
Basically, don't show the work if you don't like it, like don't show work that you're not proud of on your portfolio. And that way you won't get people asking you to do work you don't want to do.
But maybe
to this end,
because you might not have tons of work to show and you need to show something, perhaps you can make your own version of how you wish it went and share that instead.
And by so doing, you can attract more of the clients that you want
and they'll want you to do what you want as well.
So another commenter, Nikki Tecce, tipsy. That's really hard to say. She echoes this idea as well. So she says a tough one. If the situation or time allows, I may send an additional option of a version that feels closer to my point of view.
If they are really adamant
on a particular choice. Sometimes I have to remind myself that each project is not my entire life's work,
and sometimes I will redo the project after the deadline the way I intended, if only for myself. So here she says that sometimes she'll just redo the project after the deadline, the way she intended, which might be enough to satisfy her in the end.
Now, I got to say, I have to be honest. I don't think I've ever made a second version of a client project just to make it the way I initially wanted.
Usually by the time I'm done a project, I'm ready to let it go and move on to the next one. Like many of the commenters who responded to this post today, I simply look forward to the next opportunity to do something better and chalk the last one up to just being a part of the reality of being an illustrator.
I'll just never be fully satisfied with anything I make and they're going to be those jobs that I just won't show anyone.
so that really brings us to the end of these six tips.
And just to summarize, they are.
Be flexible. Pick your battles. Communicate clearly and openly. Remember the bigger picture.
Have a growth mindset
and make it up to yourself later.
So most of these have to do with keeping things into perspective and
all fall under this idea of what I called the backbone illustrator, which of course is an idea that I have stolen from.
Barbara Koehler Rosa. So
when you have the flexibility of a backbone, you have that structure, you have those boundaries, you have certain things that you can't do, like the spine can't flop in half in the way that perhaps a jellyfish can, but it has more movement than the brick wall and ultimately
a backbone illustrator is supportive. Their supportive of their client, they're supportive of their ideas and most importantly, they're supportive of
whatever it is that is the bigger picture, whatever that highest order principle is.
That's what a backbone illustrator keeps in mind. And they can do that best if they remain and open. And all these good things that we've talked about and feeling all of those things,
we can always make it up to ourselves later if we really feel the need to do that.
Now, before we kind of conclude today's episode, I do want to share some points that were made to my question on threads that I disagree with, and I need to talk about them because I think
some of these points are damaging. I'm not going to call these people out by name, and I'm not saying that these people
are offering bad advice, but I think
it's possible if you take them out of context or without a grain of salt or or however you want to put it,
think that they can actually make you believe things
that diminish your power authority
as a creative professional.
so I'll just read the relevant snippets to start and then I'll respond to them after. So what if there isn't any give you just suck it up and do the job. They call it work for a reason to. I'll do my best to suck it up.
Three.
But you just have to realize at the end of the day your opinion doesn't matter as much as the person paying the bills for illustration isn't supposed to fulfill my artistic needs.
It's a job. Five. The client is always right. Six It's not about you. Seven Close your eyes. Think of England. Do the work and move on. That one sounds vaguely sexual,
Eight. That's what the money is for.
and nine In the end, they're paying for an image that they want. And I'm providing that.
So I would say that these ideas fall under the same category, which is the suck it up.
It's not about you. Category, which, as you know, I disagree with. Sucking it up isn't part of my job description.
this is
perhaps people's way of saying just do the work, get paid and get out. You know, let go. Choose your battles, that kind of thing. Sometimes we do have to do that.
So just to kind of. Yes. And these sentiments, it's true. What we thought would be a great project turns out to be kind of myth and, if I'm honest. That happens more than I'd like to admit, but it's more the attitude of despair or powerlessness that comes through in these comments that I disagree with. The truth is that it is about us, and it's hard to suck it up.
But more to my point, it's that we are problem solvers. A problem can be solved even as we remain artistically unsatisfied. While not ideal or sustainable in the long run, this is one of the ways or it is one way that we can still have a very real feeling of satisfaction and pride in our work. What we should never do is check out and give up just saying the client
wins.
You know, they're paying me.
Close your eyes. Think of England, do the work and move on.
Personally, I would never want someone that I'm paying to do any kind of a job to feel that way about the work they're doing. And that's certainly not what any reasonable client would want for themselves when we're working for them.
I just have to reiterate my point that as artists, even commercial artists and illustrators who work for clients. Our work is always about us. The trick is in identifying what part of us it is that really brings value to the work we do.
So there is a second kind of thread or batch
of statements that people said that I disagree with.
I'll just read a few of them in the same way that I did for the last batch. So one
perhaps offer to show them some sketch sketches to help illustrate what you have in mind to provide alternatives with reasoning. And three, you can always do a version two of whatever you want as long as you provide a version one that meets the brief.
So this second batch of ideas falls under the show them alternatives category. Now, while actually demonstrate a problem solving mindset and a professional attitude, without some context, these two can actually be damaging to your creative authority. In most cases, we should allow or we should show, I should say we should show alternative concepts to our clients. We do this at the sketches stage, and this is usually the first creative work our clients should see from us or will see from us.
If you're not presenting sketches before sharing more finished illustrations to your clients, I guarantee you you're going to run into very frustrating feedback. You are at least 99.9% guaranteed to get asked to make changes that will be very difficult to make in overly finished work, and you're more likely to feel hurt or humiliated because of how much time you poured into it.
Now, I know that most of you already know this, but just in case I had to say it. But when it comes to showing options to our clients, we need to do this at the sketches stage. What we don't want is to start playing what I call the. What about this game? So what I mean by this is a situation where we show our clients a round of sketches or some kind of work, none of which they like.
So we come up with something else.
And if the client doesn't like that either, this game continues and it goes on and on and on, as both of us like both we and our client, grow less and less confident in our. And by our I mean the illustrator's abilities. Everybody loses confidence in the illustrator in this kind of situation.
I think it's really important that when we present our sketches or ideas to our clients, they need to be well thought out. And if we truly understand the brief and we know what we're supposed to be making and why,
and we've put in the time
and done and we've done our homework, and there's no reason that the ideas we present should be completely useless to the client, especially if we show two or more clearly different options that respond to the brief.
There should be a way to steer the client towards one or the other,
whatever feedback they give on it. As much as we might disagree with it, they're just responding to what we showed.
But we did our homework
and we we know that we responded to the brief,
but we also need to own the responsibility for our ideas and be open to having them transformed and made better or improved or revised through the feedback that we get on them.
if we're responding to the brief thoughtfully and we do everything we can to pour hearts and souls into the work, and the client still gives us challenging and even infuriating feedback, you know, what are we what are we supposed to do? Well, what I think actually happens in many of these cases is a breakdown in expectations that should have been laid out at the very beginning.
In the most extreme cases where feedback is largely negative and you feel that there has been a breakdown in trust in some way, I believe it's usually because of a breakdown in these expectations. As I've said, this is especially true when it comes to style and graphic approach, which is to say how you approach your compositions, what kind of themes or content you typically bring to your work, sort of the more conceptual and content based qualities that define your work
besides things like color shapes, line, texture.
Now, if that's a word salad,
basically
you need to know what your thing is and your client needs to know what your thing is. And if there's any
discrepancy between what they think you do and what you think you do, there is going to be a breakdown
of some kind once you start showing work.
So
whatever it is that you do as an illustrator
and whatever the client is expecting from you, all of this needs to be communicate heated up front. We need to make sure at the very beginning that the client understands who you are and what you do as an illustrator. And this leads me to the most important question we must all ask before we even take on a job.
And that is
why me ask the client
Why me? What images
of mine did you see that attracted you
to me in the first place? Why did you decide to come
to me for this illustration project? So I will often ask my clients to send me specific examples as attachments.
like what are the actual specific images that you saw?
And I'm often surprised at what they show.
I would have had no idea unless they did. Sometimes the images aren't even on my website or on Instagram. They might ones that I haven't had up for years, but somehow they found it maybe on some old Tumblr or blog post. And just as an aside, I was just having a conversation.
Someone today who is inquiring about work and I asked, you know, what
what work of mine
has inspired you to come to me? Like, why me? Could you show me some examples? And they had some examples ready to show me, in fact. And I was very surprised
just in terms of what they were describing the how they were describing the project and then what
illustrations of mine, they believed exemplified their vision for the project.
specifically in this case, they were really old illustrations and really unfinished work, like even just sketches. And that's what they wanted. So I would not have known that unless I asked a question and they showed me these examples.
So my point here is to make sure you know what is being expected of you, the creative process will go much more smoothly when you know what the client is expecting.
It doesn't mean you won't surprise and delight them, but it does mean you'll be somewhere in the neighborhood of what they're envisioning. And if you have some ideas that might be too crazy, that's when showing variations
would be a good strategy.
Show them what they're expecting.
As long as you stand by the idea, you can't show an idea that you don't stand behind because then you're going to have to live with that as you're making it. But then show them your riskier idea and see if they like it. But you can't be surprised if they don't. Meanwhile, because you're a pro, you stated in your quote or contract, you know how many sketches you would including and how many revision rounds and stuff like that.
And that is what protects you from the most infuriating of all
client feedback, which is can I see another one? Don't like it. Can I see another one? And that really is about maintaining your creative authority as an illustrator.
we all have to remain open to feedback and open to being wrong or steered in a direction that we didn't expect in the first place.
But unless we set boundaries around who we are and what we do and what we don't do, whether that's in our actual work or more in terms of what we're providing for the give and
pay or whatever it is, we define these things and then
communicate with our clients at the outset of the project, often before we even get into it.
And that way, as we go through, we have tools at our disposal
to
make sure the project doesn't get too off course.
But today I'm I'm mostly talking about how to respond to feedback that we get in the midst of a project.
I have a lot more to say about how to set up a project so that it stays on track from the get go.
If you want to learn more about that, I have a class called the Six Stages of Illustration. I'll Leave a link to that in the show notes. But more to my point today is that
there are ways to navigate compromise. And it really
almost all comes down to having that flexibility of the backbone
remaining open, supporting the client and keeping our eyes on the bigger picture.
Ultimately, as Sebastian Curie said in one of those
responses to my threads, post
Let it go. And don't stress. It happens to all of us
and as many of the artists I quoted today expressed.
Next time, maybe you'll get a chance to do the work you really love.
anyway, I know there's so much that I went through today, but I needed to talk about this because it's something I'm going through right now.
So I hope that helps.
My name is Mr. Tom Froese and those were my thoughts on illustration.
All right.
You can find links to all my things at tomorrow's dot com, including picture on my work, my Skillshare classes, and more. Remember to rate review like follow. Tell your friends and all those lovely things. Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. I'll see you in the next one. The music for this podcast was written and performed by Mark Alan Falck.
You can find links to his music in the show notes or go directly to his link tree at link Tree slash semi athletic.