One of my goals for 2012 is to develop a brand for my art. One that enables me to work for clients who are looking for the kind of art I want to produce. I know it seems like common sense… right? But, so often illustrators, including myself, have taken the approach of throwing as much stuff out there as possible, hoping, or wishing, something lands in the right place at the right time to get work. There have been so many times I have rushed to get work that I never stopped to think about what kind of work I wanted to get. Now, let me stop there… I am not saying that if a job comes along, and it isn’t your dream job, that you shouldn’t take it. But why market yourself to that end? No illustrator desires to only be a pair of hands that fulfills someone else’s vision. The real bliss is when you are hired to follow your own vision, to be paid for being yourself and make the art you are known for creating. This is where branding comes in.
Now I wish I could claim that I am living out illustrator bliss, but the truth is I have only recently begun to think about marketing is this way. However, after taking several courses by some truly gifted illustrators, who are equally gifted in the art of promotion, (Jeff Seaver, Chris Spollen, Daniel Pelavin, Lisa Cyr) I have some qualified insights and decided I would share my current marketing campaign.
Over my Christmas break I put together fifty promotional mailers that I plan to send to a very specific list of publishers. Fifty isn’t a huge number, but I am confident that fifty personal, hand crafted boxes will go farther than a thousand mass mailed postcards or impersonal email solicitations. Regardless, putting fifty boxes together takes time and money, so hopefully this post will help anyone who wants to put a nice mailer together without breaking the bank.
The first step was to develop a brand logo. Something that I could integrate throughout my package design and website that would unify everything into one cohesive look. I came up with Art x Eric, this slogan is not extremely clever, but interesting enough to stand out, and represent my style of art.
Next I had to find the box. There are literally thousands of choices then it comes to custom boxes: cavity boxes, leather-bound boxes, clamshell boxes, custom embossing, gold foil lettering and so on. The sky’s the limit! Unfortunately for me, the budget is also the limit. I found these cardboard mailer boxes with a cd cavity in the bottom, in the Uline catalog for a reasonable price. They’re not real pretty at first, but with some craft paper and a little creativity they can look very nice.
After that I began thinking of ways to tie each element within the mailer together. The logo is an obvious way and is used throughout the package. But because the logo is a circular shape I thought it would be nice to make some circular die-cuts in different places. By layering these circular cutouts with the same vintage craft paper lining the tray, I created a nice harmony to the presentation. There are several options for die cutting. Many craft stores have punches and embossing kits but you’re limited to that one shape. For my purposes I invested in the Circle Scissors by EK Success. I found it on sale at Hobby Lobby for fifteen dollars, but having the ability to cut any size circle with one piece of equipment made it worth every penny!
Make sure to include a comment card. This is a good way to keep a record of who is interested and who is not. Here is a check list that I give in the card to help me better understand potential clients needs:
-I like your illustration samples
-Please send me new samples periodically
-I’ll keep your samples on file
-I am not interested at this time
-Please take us off your mailing list
In this promo I included several samples: A 20 page portfolio booklet, Two 8.5 x 11 full color sheets, a postcard with my contact info and a business card. When it comes to printing it’s really hard to get quality and not have it hurt your pocket-book. I went with a small-unknown on-demand printer that had incredible prices. Unfortunately it was too good to be true! The colors were off and when I tried to get a reprint they gave me the run-around for two weeks. I finally got a refund and just ordered soft cover portfolios through I-photo. I left the cover blanks so I could use my die cutter and give it that custom look I wanted. In the end I wouldn’t say I-photo is super high quality, but the colors always look good and the product is good enough for something that may not be kept. It’s also important to mention that I would only send these to a company once. I might follow-up through out the year with a postcard, or maybe some sort of leave behind at the end of the year. But I wouldn’t send these portfolios to everyone.
I plan to mail these boxes in the near future and I hope to do another post after I get some feed back. I think that, considering the amount to time and money I have into them, they turned out pretty nice. In essence they these boxes are an initial introduction. I hope I make a good first impression.
