I Drew This Thing #4
February 24, 2011
(By Mark Kaufman)
I Drew This Thing was created for Escape from Illustration Island by Mark Kaufman.
Long story short. Mark Kaufman is a partner at Vivitiv, an issue oriented design firm based in Seattle. His illustrations have appeared in publications nationwide including The New York Times, The Progressive, The Stranger, and The Oxford American.
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Great one this week Mark! hahaha!
Often followed by: “No seriously, what do you do for a real job?” or “Wow, so you probably have tons of free time to like go fishing or snorkeling or whatever….” or sometimes, “Hey, so my buddy needs a logo. Could you just do something up for him for free…since drawing and stuff is like fun for you…”
Love these! :)
Or “That’s nice, my 5 year old likes to draw too.”
Or “I have a small business, we need some art done. Since you’ve only been out of art college for X years, we’ll keep it at the ‘student rate’ ’cause you could probably use the exposure/experience.”
it´s like a plague! They´re everywhere XD “my buddy needs a logo” HAHAHAHAHAHA Kinda relieving that we´re all suffering the same.
I go to Rochester Institute of Technology for illustration and live in the honors dorm, so I’m surrounded by engineering and computer science majors all of the time. For the first part of the year everyone made fun of how I “never have to work, because it’s easy. And you like drawing!”
Then they saw me working on projects for hours and hours on end while they played video games and they quickly changed their tune!
Wow! Thanks everybody. And thanks so much for the stories and the other ridiculous things people are prone to say when they hear you’re an artist, or a designer. I know they mean well, but come on! it’s nice to know I’m not the only one that hears these kinds of things.
Now get back to “work”.
Just one more, very common:
“Well, this is the first step with no budget at all. But if we find a publisher/sponsor and if it works you will surely get a lot of following assignments.”
(this will never ever happen)
Thanks for the art, Mark, it made me Laugh Out Loud! I have heard that comment from a number of people over the years – according to them I haven’t had a ‘real job’ for 25+ years. I wonder; how do they think I pay my bills? I assure you, I’m not payed in ‘Monopoly Money’!
Very true!
thats great, looks just like a friend of mine aswell..
so true. my partner who is a musician gets this all the time too “it must be so much fun playing music all day”…
The irony is, a lot of creatives work harder than all their disbelieving buddies, because they are essentially running their own small businesses, constantly promoting, working long hours, etc…
Tali, Great point about running a small business. Many creatives run their small business’ in addition to having a “regular job”. Those that think that earning a living as a creative is easy, usually hold down a 9-5 job, and they don’t have to market themselves, keep the books, do their own taxes, take out the trash, be their own IT person, buy equipment, service clients, make sales calls and on and on and on. Their job is to make widgets, someone else on staff does all of the other day to day tasks that running a business requires.
I am NOT complaining. This is the life and career I chose, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thanks for commenting. Cheers.