stationery guide: top ten tips from Lilla Rogers
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This article appears in our current issue, #17 and is part of our free UPPERCASE Stationery Guide.
Get your work on stationery
By Lilla Rogers
You walk into your favourite little shop, and you covet the ridiculously cute illustrated journals and cards and notebooks, and even the charming sticky notes, and you ask yourself, “How do I get that gig?”
getting a fab illustration gig
1. Go to shops, turn over products you love and note the manufacturer.
2. Go to the websites of these manufacturers and find their submission details.
3. Stop and reflect on what you love to draw. What’s out there already? Now draw something different.
4. Colours are key. Look at websites like fossil.com or modcloth.com, or at a sumptuous page in this magazine for colour ideas.
5. Set up your palette of these fresh colours.
6. Now draw and paint or vector your images. Make a mess. Use references. Put on awesome music. Dance around your studio. People buy your joy!
7. Free-floating silhouetted icons give the client great flexibility. Having lots of isolated images, such as a mushroom, an anchor or a telescope, give the designer bits to play with. These are used to create coordinating patterns for things like journal endpapers, packaging art and interior pages of sketchbooks. You are making a kind of art kit for the client, a designer, to have fun with.
8. Make sure your icons are related to the theme of your main image.
9. Pop the images onto your website. Post, blog and pin your images. Send out a newsletter with them. Now you’re ready to email them directly to your favourite manufacturers. In the email, pop in about three to five jpgs that are 72 dpi, RGB, and add a link to your website.
10. Rinse and repeat. The system works!
Stay tuned for an amazing opportunity to work with Lilla!
