How to find an illustrator
Are you looking for graphics for your product? And you decided not to buy graphics on stocks. Maybe you haven’t found your theme, or you need something specific. Or maybe you just didn’t like it.
So, you decided to order illustrations from a freelancer. But the question is where to find them and how to make sure that everything will go smoothly? What is to be paid attention to?
I prepared a post that can help you if you are looking for an illustrator for your project and don’t know where to start. Of course, this post won’t protect you from nonpros or disappointing results, but it’ll minimize these risks. So, if your business needs some visuals and you have no one to create icons or illustrations or advise a professional, you can use these ideas.
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Where.
There are a lot of platforms where you can find freelancers or studios and contact them. To narrow down the selection, I’d advise focusing on these two: Dribbble and Behance. These sites are the best choice. They are live and active social media where many cool practicing specialists can be found.
What else?
Of course, you can search on other social media websites, on Instagram, for example. Freelancing platforms like Upwork can be helpful too.
Organic search in Google can be problematic, but you can use it as well. Look through these platforms and choose candidates with examples of works of which suit your project most.
Availability.
So, you found a portfolio of the people whose works you liked. Now you need to see if they are open to work. How can you contact them? Ideally people mention in the profile that they are available for projects and the way you can contact them.
For example, on Instagram it can be: “Open for custom projects. DM me or contact via email”. Dribbble now has a convenient button which shows whether a person is available at the moment, this is the “Hire me” button. But actually, only pro accounts have this button. Otherwise in the profile you can find the link to their website where you can find all the information.
One way or another, an illustrator or a designer needs to show you that they are available for custom projects. Now you need to choose the ones from your list that are ready to start working.
Portfolio.
It is necessary to carefully study a portfolio of a person. It is their calling card. A portfolio shouldn’t be empty. One can boast as they wish, but examples of works must be there.
Perhaps, the last work in a portfolio was published a long time ago, but they say that they are ready for the projects. It’s ok, don’t worry! Quite often an illustrator is bound by the contract and can’t show their current project. Unfortunately, this happens a lot. For example, I mostly have projects the results of which I can’t show in my social media. And still, I am a practicing illustrator!
Frequently illustrators worry about this. And sometimes you can find posts like: “Five years have passed, and only now I can show what I was drawing for the project” 🤷🏻♂️. But sometimes you are not allowed to do it even after a long period of time.
Remember, most importantly a portfolio shouldn’t be empty. And no matter how old the work is.
Specialization.
It’s a very common pitfall of a customer – expecting from illustrators something that is not presented in their portfolio.
I had such situations as well. For instance, I don’t make graphics for games. But several times I was asked to participate in such a project. What for? As it is better to find an expert in this field. I create illustrations for business, blogs, magazines. But I don’t have examples of casual graphics for mobile games.
Turn to experts in your field. The result will be better. Don’t expect from a designer something that they don’t do. If you want to order a character for your brand, look for an illustrator specializing in characters. If you need a pattern, find a surface designer. If you need it all at once – look for an agency!
As a rule, this is obvious for illustrators but not for customers. There are a lot of specializations, and specializations within these specializations. Let’s take video games. There are illustrators who draw backgrounds for games, illustrators who draw characters, who draw icons, etc.
So, seek experts!
Person on the web.
In the end of this post, let’s talk not about specialization or portfolios, but directly about a person. In these modern days all of us have gone online, so before ordering graphics, you’d rather find the information about a specialist.
Additional aspects which will be pros in choosing an illustrator:
Look at a person's social networks. It would be desirable that they were active. Or at least one of them, where they share moments of their activity.
Check out if there are any reviews from real customers. If there are some, this is a great advantage. Of course, sometimes it’s difficult to get a review. Do you often leave feedback for services you use? For instance, I do it far from always, because there are more important tasks. But the presence of reviews is great! In my case, it so happens that my customers leave feedback mainly on LinkedIn.
Calls for cooperation. If a person writes that they are ready to work, this is a positive sign. You can often see profiles of artists that don’t include the information on whether they are available for custom work.
And, of course, the availability of a designer's personal website where you can find meaningful data about their activity and personality. There can be reviews, a bio, a contact form. A website is a brand identity of a person on the Internet.
I hope that this article helped you to understand how to find illustrators. I wish you easy communication and cool results. And bright illustrations to your projects!
I’ll be happy to help you with illustrations if my style suits you. And, of course, I can’t help but recommend my team Boyko.Pictures where you can find almost everything to meet your needs.
