Creative Futures 3 - An Introduction

This post marks the start of my final Creative Futures module. By the end of this module I will have:

• Written a report about the interesting things I've learnt in Creative Futures Lectures
• Built a brand
• Built a portfolio
• Built a website

So Friday 21st January 2016 was my first lecture this year and we will have them every week this term. Here are the things I learnt:

To be an illustrator you must:

• Be Good
• Be Visible
• Be Ambitious
• Be Well Behaved
• Be Paid

Also illustration is:

• Competitive
• Often Lonely
• Time Consuming
• Difficult
• Frustrating

Basically, you are in charge of what you do. There's no one there to look out for you or tell you when you should be working or to pay your taxes. If you don't want to pay your taxes, you have to get someone else to work it out for you or you could be in trouble. 

My lecturer believes that in the world of illustration there is no such thing as luck. He says that luck is what happens when opportunity meets preparation. To find the opportunities, you have to go looking for them yourself.

Generally, this is the way a job goes down:

1. You draw lots
2. You put it online, send it to people you want to see it, you enter competitions
3. You keep drawing
4. Someone sees your work and gets in touch. They want you to draw something for you and they'll pay you
5. You agree to the price and terms
6. You do rough drawings and send them it
7. They make suggestions for changes
8. You make the changes
9. You finish the drawing and send it off with an invoice
10. They pay you and you keep 20-50% aside to pay taxes. Put this extra money in a separate account
11. You put the drawings online or in your portfolio
12. You keep drawing

My lecturer posed some difficult questions for us:

• How good do you want to be?
• Do you really want to do this?
• Do you know anything about business?
• Do you know anything about marketing?
• Do you have a plan b?
• Do you have a dream job?

For a start, I know very little about business and marketing. I am hoping to learn about them in these lectures. In terms of the other questions, I have very vague answers. I need to research more to compose a better answer. I will figure out what I need answers for and will bring the questions in to these lectures, so we can discuss them as a class.