Art of Business

From time to time I like to remind the readers of this blog (and myself) that what we do as artists is not only fun, but it is business. It's not always the most fun thinking about the business side of things, but certainly important.

I've stumbled upon a really great blog with a lot of useful information. The post dates are creeping up with age, but I still think they are relevant articles. There is everything from taxes, to contracts, to pricing your work, and more.

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!