Big Heads - Jack Teagle and Donya Todd

During the Skype session with Jack Teagle and Donya Todd, the topic of selling personal work online was raised. I thought this was relevant to my context of practice topic because it was said that selling work online direct from illustrator to consumer cuts out the middle man who takes a large cut of the profit. Without the growth of the internet, illustrators would still be reliant on large companies with a lot of connections and contacts to be getting their work out into the public eye, whereas now this can be done from their living room. Promoting yourself online can reach such a wide audience, you are in control of how your portray your business online and your work can be purchased by people across the globe. There is also the idea that people may find it more personal and individual to buy work or products directly from the illustrator as they feel it is a less commercial and more of an original piece. 

Jack Teagle

Donya Todd

The advice from Donya Todd was to learn to use photoshop which seems like a standard statement, however it highlights how important software skills are in this practice nowadays even if your work is all hand drawn. Clients expect you to be able to scan your work and use photoshop to prepare your illustrations for professional use. It is unlikely you would get a job if you didn't have these skills. 

It was mentioned, when talking about their ‘Simpson’s Drawing Club’ that it is sometimes nice to keep things as part of a ‘real community’ because using the internet to collaborate with others about an idea can sometimes take the meaning and personal touch out of a small scale, local project. This highlights a negative of using technology for creative purposes, opposing the two advantages mentioned earlier. It was good to hear Jack and Donya speak about these topics because they have experience of being practicing illustrators and understand how technology affects their work.