On the 17th of April 2021, INKFEST Chicago run by ISG Columbia held a talk with illustrator Jamie Green. Green is someone I have been following for a good number of years now and they have been able to use their presence online to create a career for themselves straight after graduating through hard work.

Green is someone who I have seen constantly grow and learn from everything they could find. They have always been open to new things which I think is important as a creative, it can get dull or too consistent if you do the same thing all the time, and you can’t learn from what you already know. It took them over ten years to get to where they are now from using the internet as a way of showing their work and it paid off in the end for them to do what they have done. We may be the same age and it can be hard sometimes not to compare myself to them in terms of what they have achieved, but I think there are so many paths in being able to make a career out of illustration I just need to continue on my own and take any advice I can get on board to get where I want to be, hopefully! Social media has been key to them getting noticed and I am just wanting to use it as something to post work and not worry about analytics things too much,

Today for university we were given a talk by former student Ed Merlin Murray. He went over how he has used Instagram as a way of getting clients to work with and finding other creatives as well. I found it interesting to hear how even though he has a large following  he preferred it when he had a smaller following of say 1 - 10k, as he could engage more with them, while now he can’t engage with everyone. What I took away from it was that it really isn’t about numbers but the engagement/ what work you put into it, so being consistent as well. Instagram or any format of a place were you show your work digitally is crucial/essential in the present. It is the easiest way to get seen by clients, by you engaging with them or them finding you. Social media is a format that can be more up to date than your website, as it is a space you can post daily.

Use Instagram as a space to enjoy, low engagement doesn’t mean your work isn’t good or you are unworthy. It isn’t a measure of quality as you as an illustrator, you should just have fun with it!

Social media is a big part of how society functions these days. If you do not have it you are out of the loop and if you do have it, you can end up being stolen of time. For me social media is something that started to be a thing when I started secondary school and to be honest I never really got into it. I got Facebook but did not really like the idea of posting about my life on it. Being someone who is very introverted, social media had no appeal to me. Then I decided to try Instagram about 5 years ago and really enjoyed the creative community aspect within it, so I slowly came round to using social media, as a way of creativity rather than being personal. I have tried using tumblr but it is something that has kind of died off as a platform, and at one point I did try to blog, but nothing gained traction. Looking back I think I just could not grasp the platforms I was using and I found it hard to be consistent (something I still struggle with).

In the present I only use Instagram as a platform to post my work, and my (at the moment WIP) website. LinkedIn is something I am considering trying, but not sure where else, Pinterest is mostly for research really. I feel like with my Instagram I only have followers that I know in person or online, or that are inactive. I think it because I find it hard to be consistent with posting and having confidence in the work that I create. I want my feed to be cohesive and not all over the place. I try not to think about the numbers on it too much, I have been using it as a creative space for 2-3 years, and have a gradually growing small following.  Also I need to be more aware of how I am spending time on it, I go on it just about everyday but do not engage enough. It has been a positive place for me though, nothing negative, I have found opportunities and other creatives through it so I am grateful for that.

A lot of the illustrators I follow have a good level of engagement and posting that keeps them alive on Instagram. Some post regularly others not as often, but what I see in their feeds is a sense of coherent work that immediately gives a sense of style and professionalism. They keep the content varied as well, so some images show work in progress, sketchbook pages or fully finished artworks. Sometimes they might get involved with certain events like drawtober, draw this in your style or folktale week to name a few, which gives a chance for other creatives to find each other. They have contact information in their bios and links to their other platforms, like YouTube. Even though you can research and look at other social media creatives, the only thing that you can do is keep posting and engaging to be part of a creative community!