Is Your Art Rep Doing Anything For You?
Art reps or agencies can be very beneficial to your Illustration career, because they can take care of all the mundane details, allowing you to focus on your creative brilliance.
But you have to find the right one.
You can read a case study of a positive relationship with an art rep here. However, there are some people out there who market themselves as art reps, but who make their Illustration clients do all of the work while taking a substantial portion of the profits from the artist.
I recently received an email question from Illustrator Eddy Crosby, in which he voiced concern about his current relationship with an Illustration agency:
Earlier this year I joined an illustration agency for the first time. I signed a one year contract. I have received two requests for jobs via the agency but not in the manner i expected. In these two occasions i have received an email with attached brief.
The email would say something to the effect of:
“If you would like to be considered for this job please do a rough and send it in. If the client likes your rough you have a good chance of getting the assignment.”
The email makes it clear that this “job offer” has been sent to the other illustrators as well. The agency has about twenty illustrators on their books.
Basically i am competing with the other illustrators (who are with the agency) in a sort of open call. My understanding of an agency is that they find right illustrator for the right job. I didn’t expect every job to be a sort of competition! To me this seems like doing spec work but since this is my first time with an agent i am not sure if this is common or accepted practice?
Do you know if it is? I would certainly appreciate your views on this.
Thanks to Eddy Crosby for agreeing to let me share this with the EFII community. His playful Illustration work can be found at eddycrosby.com.
An art rep who asks for spec work?
In my opinion, this is a bad situation all around.
Eddy’s story screams the words “SPEC WORK”, and the fact that his artist agency would ask their Illustrators to compete for projects without a guarantee of payment is shameful in this industry.
Your art rep is supposed to work with you to find projects that fit your style, and help you to secure new work. In an ideal situation, your relationship with your art rep is a mutually beneficial arrangement where both parties work together towards overlapping goals.
In my opinion, the scenario that Eddy described is unethical and out of sync with good business practices in the Illustration and Graphic Design industries. Eddy is right to feel like something is wrong. I would recommend ending that relationship, or at least not participating in future calls for spec work.
What do you think?
Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Illustration courtesy of Eddy Crosby.
Related Posts:
- Case Study of a Positive Art Rep Relationship
- Should You Work with an Art Rep?
- How to Find an Art Rep
- How to Be Attractive to an Art Rep
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I had an agent who asked me to do this. It was bad all around. She also rarely found work that was suitable to my style. It was not a good fit. No agent is better than one who does not represent you well, or who does not have your best interests in mind.
TJ and Edd,
I am in the process now of finding an art rep to help me AVOID these very types of job offers.
From what I understand agents are to not only help you get work, but to also help filter out the crap job offers that you get from clients not familiar with the art business. Largely this is because dealing with these types of clients can be a huge waste of time, talent, resources and income. Not just for the artist but for the rep as well.
I’m looking for an agent to get me connected to legitimate profesionals who understand the amount of work that goes into what I and others like me do. Clients that I may lack the resources to find myself. I can get solicitations from clients asking for spec work all on my own. (And have been for a while now!)So an agent sending me those types of jobs would feel like a waste of time and that new representation may be needed.
Now my question to you TJ is, should we as artists ask for a way to get out of our contracts written into them. Maybe a 90 day probationary period that we can use to get out of it. An artist recently told me that he has had a rep for over a year who hasn’t gotten him a single job. If his contract says that the representation is exclusive, he has no way to seek representation with someone else. And he’s stuck! Is there a way for an artist to protect themselves from these types of things?
-Wilson
Wilson,
Your contract with an agent is just as important as the one you have with your clients. Any time you sign something that affects the way you do business, you have to make sure that the benefits are greater than the cost. So, the first step is signing the right contract.
Without knowing about your friend’s specific contract, I can’t tell you what is allowed for him to do, but I will say that if something isn’t working for you or your business, you can always look into the possibility of moving away from it.
Thomas
I had the same thing with my first agent. They seemed surprised when I asked them if it was normal practise. They used the reasoning that even if you didn’t get the job you would have produced new portfolio pieces… but then often sent me jobs that were really wrong for me (black & white line drawings of David Beckham?!) so they were things that I would never want in my portfolio anyway.
I have a different perspective than most of you on spec work I guess. Most of my art experience in the past 30 years has been as an advertising designer. My first job was for an award winning ad agency in a major city. I moved on to owning a design business where I worked directly with the clients. I showed my portfolio to prospective clients. I expected that they would hire me based on my previous work and the samples in my portfolio. I did not do spec work for advertising/design.
Then I started working for a manufacturer that hires licensed art work for all their products. It is an industry standard to submit your design work in digital form or printouts in a 3-ring binder. The manufacturer will choose work from those images for specific use. If they like something you have done they might ask you to do more of the same style. If you want a chance at the job then you do the spec work. I am also a licensed artist and have an agent, I have done tons of spec work, and have gotten a lot of jobs by doing this. Working directly with manufacturers is a different industry than being a children’s book illustrator, or an advertising designer. Spec work is an industry standard. I have worked on both sides of the manufacturing and licensing work for 11 years and have come to accept this practice as part of the industry. It is true that I have been asked to submit design for a project that ultimately weren’t chosen, but I have later sold the same images to someone else. So was it time wasted? I guess this is a question that we all get to answer for ourselves. Thanks for letting me voice my opinion. Best to all of you in your artistic ventures!
Can anyone help me to find an agent that handles greeting cards. I am having little success and hot a brick wall.
Many thanks in advance and a blessed holiday season to all
you may want to look into licensing for greetings card, but there is that problem of finding the right one for you you, but when you do you will get royalties for your work etc
Does anyone know of a good Cartoonist/Illustrator Agent that is good and legitimate?