F*ck You, Pay Me

2011/03 Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me. from SanFrancisco/CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

I saw this video of Mike Monteiro on Drawn and I had to share.

It's easy to wrapped up in the process of drawing/designing/art making and forget the fact that what we do is a business. I'm not sure about you, but I only had one class in college about the business aspects of being a freelance artist. It was a really great class, but still, only one - and that was several years ago now.

Since then, I've been figuring it as I go. "Fake it til' you make it" is a common phrase amongst my peers. After numerous horror stories of personal experience, if there is one bit of advice I can give (which is the theme of the video above) is HAVE A CONTRACT. Contract. Contract. Contract.

The best book I ever purchased is the Graphic Artist’s Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. Add this to your library today if you haven't done so already.

I also recently found a post from Nate Williams on How to manage your illustration career. It is essentially a summery of my semester long professional practice class from art school, (that one business class I talked about earlier.)

Another source I've discovered over the years is the blog of Sparky Firepants. Funny name, I know. But he gives some really great advice from time to time.

One last source is a dear friend of mine Mike Glazebrook who has an amazing blog full of very useful information.

Make great work, stay strong, and get paid!