Scale [skeyl] verb;
1. To progress in a graduated series. 2. To adjust in amount according to a fixed scale or proportion (often fol. by down or up): to scale down wages.
This word gets thrown around a lot by marketing and business people as in, “Does it scale?“
You may have heard it. You may have asked yourself what the hell that means. Okay, I did. For a long time I would just nod my head as if I understood the trendy jargon. Like this:
“Does your business scale?”
“Um, I, uh… well, I’m an illustrator. Say, that’s a nice jacket.”
“Thanks! My girlfriend has a matching scarf…”
… and once again, uncomfortable truth of my ignorance is deflected.
Now I know what scale means, as in does my business scale? I’ll explain.
My friend Gary used to say that “There’s no money in freelance Graphic Design.” I used to grit my teeth at that, but now I see that, in a way, he was right. There’s a limit to how much money illustration projects will bring.
For example, a given project takes a certain number of hours. You can only work on so many projects in a day before you have to turn away business (you lucky dog, you). In effect, you’re limited to a certain amount of income. Even if you raise your rates, you can only go as high as the market will bear, and then you’re still stuck in this hourly limit thing.
The Illustrapreneur
Nathan Bowers reminded me of this fabulous title in a recent comment. I altered it slightly, but it’s essentially the same: Illustrator + Entrepreneur.
It’s hard for most artists to think about doing anything other than just makin’ art all day long and getting paid for it. After all, isn’t that why we got into this whole gig?
Sure it is.
As an illustrator and animator, I can only take my wacky art so far. Tastes change, art directors move, companies fold, and digital media becomes the standard. That doesn’t mean I have to stop making my funtastic art, but it does mean I have to start offering more and different things to keep the art bus rolling.
I’m sure you’ve heard an artist complain that “All the work is going overseas?” Or, “Publishers aren’t buying this year?”
As an Illustrapreneur the answer to this should be, “So what?” Here’s why.
If you’ve created ways for your business to scale, those market changes aren’t going to hit you as hard. What does “scaling your business” mean?
Scaling an illustration and animation business means creating ways of bringing in money without adding to the hourly workload. Here are some quick examples:
- Licensing your art
- Selling stock art
- Creating t-shirts to sell online
- Pitching a show to a network
- Creating your own subscription-based online entertainment network
There are many more ideas out there, but the point is that you’re creating artwork once and selling it many, many times without adding to your hourly workload.
Maybe the thought of messing with the purity of your art by treating it as a commodity makes you want to hurl. Okay, I get that. If you like riding the waves of the market, then I’m stoked for you. Surf’s up.
If the teeniest little part of you understands how even the purist artists who hate the idea running a business still have to sell themselves, then you might want think about becoming an Illustrapreneur.
If you already do this and have success, why not share? What did you do to scale your business? Why aren’t you an Illustraprenuer? I invite your comments!
Yeah, it’s called “multiple income streams.” Sell the off-illos to stock, market the funtime doohickeys on etsy, sell t-shirt designs on a royalty basis, fabricate jewelry and prototype games with ponoko, and lie on your taxes.
My dad bugged me a couple years ago about this subject – the problem of the sole proprietor ceiling. The problem is, if you take on more work and farm it out, you end up as a salesman, managing people. And I didn’t get in this to be a salesman or a manager.
You gotta find the balance that works for you. Or create the Next Big Thing. The guy that invented ‘wacky wallwalkers’ made something like $10 million in about a year. That’d work for me.
ps: the concept of “art for art’s sake” and the wall between commerce and art was a relatively recent one, and from what I can tell, that time has passed. Note the many artists doing design work and vice versa. It’s about time. For years I’ve kept my graphics work under wraps, as the “fine art world” has looked down its nose at design. The walls are crumbling.
Yeah, I hear ya. Been working on that myself, actually. Starting up a line of wedding invitations (separate from the gig I told you about), submitting designs to fabric companies… Just want to be OUT THERE, and hope that being in a lot of different places will help generate some interest in hiring me. :D
Amen brother! You are so correct that it is about creating multiple streams of income from your art. I recently started going through old sketchbooks and finding drawings that I knew would be good stock art but not good for much else. I have added 4 pieces to iStock in the last two weeks. Of course so far I have made a whopping $2.60 but, it is a start.
@jaydub “You gotta find the balance for you.” Oh, man. I really should have written that in the post, so thanks for having my back on that one.
Every artist’s career is different (you hope, right?). One person follows a path, becomes wildly successful and happy. Another tries the same path and winds up frustrated and resentful.
So I think that’s an incredible piece of advice. Do your own thang and be happy. So awesome seeing your name around here.
@LU That’s an excellent strategy. One thing I’ve discovered so far in being on my own is that simply being OUT THERE consistently does wonderful things for your career. In the past I tried dipping my toe and checking the temperature and what happened was… I never went swimming.
I loved seeing your patterns. Really nice stuff.
@karyn That’s funny about iStock. I think I could *maybe* buy a latte on my iStock earnings. It’s an awesome way to go, but I just haven’t spent enough time working at it. Keep me posted, I’m interested to see how it works for someone who actually puts effort into it. ;)
@LU I agree about being OUT THERE. Gotta get a lotta stuff out, gotta be prepared for anything that comes. The hero is simply the guy who’s prepared for the situation when it happens.