Sergio’s Open Notebook

From time to time, new clients ask for a so-called trial or test phase. They want to ensure that we are the right or best choice for their project. In the illustration, a test phase can be in the form of initial, rough sketches or one finished illustration.

Such phases can be helpful and reassuring for both parties, especially if it is a long-term collaboration with dozens of illustrations. A test illustration shows the client how we work, communicate, consider their requests, deal with feedback, and whether we stick to the schedule.
As illustrators, we, in turn, also get an impression of the potential collaboration with the client. Do we receive the briefing and necessary information in time to meet the deadline? Does the client respect the discussed number of revision rounds?
After the test illustration, both parties can exchange ideas, express their wishes and suggest improvements to make the process more pleasant and efficient. It is a two-way approach, with the option to pull the handbrake after the test phase.

Such a phase usually is not necessary for most clients, as we present our work and references in our online portfolio. But if requested, we must be paid for our work, even if a collaboration does not arise afterward.

All our quote distinguishes between pure production and the actual usage fee. Let’s say we charge 1000 € for the creation of the illustration. If the client or we decide against a collaboration, we still charge 1000 €. If, on the other hand, the customer wants to use the illustration, we set the additional fee for the usage rights, for example, 2000 €. So in total, it is 3000 €.

Regarding a test, it’s just fair when the risk is shared. The client only pays for the pure working time and has all the options in his own hands afterward. At the same time, we get adequately compensated for our time and work, with the prospect of a continuing, fruitful, and pleasant collaboration.

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say, and yes, from my own experience, I can confirm that financial pressure can inspire creativity and productivity and drive us towards our goals. Many inventions in the history of mankind were born out of desperation and misery.

However, one of my goals is to enjoy life for as long as possible. The stress I feel from lack of money feels unhealthy. Unhealthy for my body and mind.

In addition, we always talk about creative freedom. But how can creativity be free if I depend on it to pay the rent this month?

Lack of money can make you inventive, but it also has the potential to lead us astray. It makes us accept commissions we don’t want on terms that aren’t ours. We begin to throw our principles overboard and, in the worst cases, lose the fire within us with which we started.

We need to protect our dream from these influences. Financial reserves are, therefore, so crucial for self-employed and freelancers. My finance accountant opened my eyes when he explained that most startups and freelancers don’t fail with their businesses because their products, service, or ideas are wrong or bad. They fail because of financial mismanagement (find more here).

A new car, the most expensive smartphone, or a bigger apartment are worthless if they sabotage our passion.

Austin Kleon puts it this way in his terrific book “Keep going”:

“Do what you love” + low overhead = a good life.

“Do what you love” + “I deserve nice things” = a time bomb.

Some projects, be they commissions or study projects, still make me feel stressed and nauseous from insomnia just thinking about them. The pressure I felt at the time while creating was not a good one, not a healthy one. Maybe it was beneficial regarding my productivity and focus, but only because I hadn’t yet learned to activate either early on. Although perhaps the result was convincing, in the long run, the process was destructive. I simply started to work on the project too late.

Bad pressure is the pressure we feel when the deadline is eight in the morning, and we’ve worked through the night until five minutes to eight under intense pressure. We are exhausted, haven’t eaten for hours, haven’t had anything to drink, and are dissatisfied with our creative results. There is nothing we wish for more than to have just a little bit more time (which would have been possible if we had managed to start working earlier).

Regardless of whether or not the client or professor is happy with our work, we have failed — not just because we pushed our bodies and minds to an unhealthy limit. We risked diminishing our enjoyment of our creative work in the long run because of our procrastination and poor planning. For our life, this would be a real tragedy.

We feel a good pressure early. It’s the kind of excitement and nervousness that drives us to our desks to do the work. We’re nervous because we don’t know where the journey is going. Can we meet the client’s expectations? Is there enough time for the deadline? What do I need to get done this week to keep on schedule? Good pressure pushes us right from the start. If we ignore it long enough, it turns into the vicious monster that hunts us through a creative hell.

By writing down my experiences of more than twenty years in the creative industry and freelancing, I hope that you, who are reading this blog, will find some valuable information.

Maybe you’ll resonate with some of my thoughts, which will encourage or motivate you. Maybe you will find a shared tip helpful and try to apply it to your life. Or maybe you contradict me sometimes, which helps you develop and strengthen your own opinion on the subject.

However, I must confess that helping you is not my primary goal. When I started, I thought it was. But it can’t be. If you were my reason for writing, what would I do if you stopped listening to me one day? Without you, I would lose my purpose for writing.

No, my drive is selfish by nature. Through writing, I try to organize my thoughts and, in doing so, learn more about myself and the subject at hand. Writing gives me structure and helps me verify that my thoughts are indeed the thoughts I think they are. Writing is meant solely for me.

What is meant for you, though, is publishing my writing on my blog. Otherwise, I might write it all in a notebook and close it. The hope and desire to possibly help you through this is enormous. Even though I can only control this to a certain extent, the slightest hope to help you with my experiences is reason enough to try.

So, the drive to write may be self-centered. But it is a healthy egoism. Because only through freedom, impartiality, and independence from you do I have a chance to inspire you. I just have to be aware that I can never expect that. I can only hope and keep going.

An idea that works in our head can collapse as soon as we try to articulate it. An idea we can articulate can crumble as soon as we try to visualize it. Only an idea that can stand up when visualized has the potential to work.

When I’m working on a conceptual illustration, it sometimes happens that an idea pops up, and I think, “That’s it. That’s on the spot”. But after years of experience, I’ve learned to be especially aware of these “flashes of genius.”

It would be nice if I didn’t have to be. If I could just call the client right after, get their convinced and enthusiastic confirmation, and start executing the project. I would save the client and myself so much time.

But what if the idea fails on paper? What if, for example, the provided color palette is unsuitable for that particular idea? If I underestimate the final format and dimensions? If elements don’t work together the way I thought they would? Or if, on reflection, the idea is simply not original enough? Then I wouldn’t be able to avoid a humble phone call telling the client, “Sorry, that was a dud. Everything back to zero.”

Instead, let’s put our ideas through their paces by creating a visual prototype. In an illustration, that might be a sketch. In a commercial, the creative director and intern might perform the spot. When it comes to movies, a “treatment” is needed.

We have to put the idea into a form that we can actually show and present. Only then can everyone involved see if and how well it works. Everything before that is Russian roulette.

The Japanese village Ogimi is called the “village of longevity” due to the high percentage of centenarians. (If you want to know more, I recommend the book Ikigai-The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Héctor García & Francesc Miralles).

“One hundred percent of the seniors we interviewed in Ogimi had a primary and a secondary occupation. Most of them kept a vegetable garden as a secondary job and sold their produce at the local market.”

Ikigai by H. García & F. Miralles

As freelancers, these seniors can be our role models. As illustrator, for example, in addition to commissioned work, we can sell paintings and products, give local workshops, or offer online courses. There are plenty of opportunities, and who knows where and to whom the additional financial pillar will lead us?

Creative service is not an exact science, whether it’s creating illustrations, an advertising campaign, or a corporate design. Uncertainty resonates throughout the creative process. At the end are questions like: Does the illustration, the ad campaign, or the logo convey the intended message at first glance and unambiguously?

No matter how often we go through it all in our heads, the truth always emerges when we present our design to others. Therefore, personally, a basic sense of nervousness is part and parcel of every project. That helps me stay focused, effective, self-critical, and objective in the service of the client.

When I think of a commissioned project, and I don’t feel nervousness but a sense of calmness, all alarm bells immediately go off. That’s when I get too confident about, for example, the deadline or the illustration idea. The rude awakening occurs at the latest when I sit down at the desk and notice that the execution takes more time than planned or when the idea in my head doesn’t work as well as I thought once it’s on a sheet of paper.

The nervousness that cost me sleepless nights in my studies and the early days as a freelancer has become a well-dosed motor for creative work over time.

Sometimes there is such a feeling of certainty. Like when we are searching for our keys, and we are sure that we haven’t lost them. They must be around here somewhere.

When I’m working on an idea for an illustration and start inspecting my rough sketches, I sometimes think: the solution is here somewhere. I don’t know what’s missing or what I need to connect to make it work, but the idea isn’t far away. Those are the moments when I need to keep digging.

There’s an opposite certainty as well. It feels like a roadblock. It just won’t go any further, even if I stare at the sketches all day. Then it’s essential to let go and head in a completely new direction.

That is not meant to sound like well-intentioned advice among friends or family to empower or motivate each other. As freelancers, figuring out the market value of our work is a concrete task.

We can keep several factors in mind and observe them constantly: How high is the demand for our service? How quickly can we deliver? Is there a measurable added value for the customer due to our service? What is our reputation? How do we convey our experience, professionalism, and credibility to build trust?

We can never quantify this value precisely to the cent. After all, a car dealer would never consider pricing a car at 23,742.29 euros but, i.e., 25,000 euros. However, what we can work out and set in advance for any price negotiations is a red line, a lower limit for our fee. Once we have established this, we can gratefully and confidently reject requests below it.

In the long run, our goal is to steadily and reasonably raise this red line with the help of our gained experience and expertise.

When we receive a new job request as freelancers and have agreed on the general conditions with the potential client, there are only two possibilities for how to proceed: It’s either no or now.

There are many good reasons to say no and even more reasons to start working immediately, as soon as we accept the assignment. In my first post, you will find some of them.

Pressure may boost productivity. Creativity, however, comes from a different place.

For example, when looking for ideas for a book cover illustration or an advertising campaign, time pressure or the pressure to succeed can fire us up. It bundles our concentration. We are focused and don’t allow distractions.

It’s not the case, however, that creativity strikes us precisely because we’re under pressure. Ideas are not born out of pressure but with it.

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”

Albert Einstein

Creative thinking arises from the urge and joy of discovery and creation. It originates from silence, being alone, and spending time with our thoughts. That’s why brainstorming sessions in a group are far less effective than if each participant works quietly on their own at first. We can find compelling examples in the book by Jake Knapp “Sprint – How to solve problems and test new ideas in just five days”.

What we can develop, however, is the ability to access creative, solution-oriented thinking under stressful situations. But this is only possible because we have practiced it before in a pressure-free environment till it becomes an unconscious habit (thinking of Mr. Miyagi: “wax on, wax off”).

Three weeks after I decided to start this blog daily, I signed up for the online publishing platform Medium. I began publishing writings here daily as well.

The difference until today, however, is that the texts I publish on Medium have already existed for three weeks. They are the same as on my blog—just delayed.

Because of this delay, I immediately noticed a positive side effect. I read the old texts with a fresh perspective. Mistakes, too complicated phrases, and inconsistencies immediately jumped out at me.

I have kept this rhythm until today. The temporal distance is good for writing. It allows me to optimize the texts without much effort. Who knows where else we might use this strategy?

1. the first hour of the day belongs to me
2. start immediately with new commissions
3. never miss a deadline
4. embrace constructive criticism 
5. never repeat cooperation with a client who shows no respect
6. save as much money as possible
7. save the name of a new contact on my phone so I know who is calling
8. when working with an advertising agency, always ask who the client is
9. never work without a backup (Time Machine on Mac)
10. Remember: I am not my work

When I decided to start freelancing as an illustrator over ten years ago, fear was a constant companion for a long time—the challenges of making a living doing what I love most seemed enormous.

After turning down a permanent contract with a global fashion brand and thus financial stability, I started from scratch. I had no personal illustration style, no portfolio, no contacts, and of course, no clients. All I had was my savings, which would only keep my head above water for a few months with a modest lifestyle, on the one hand, and my dream, on the other. This dream had stuck, and it would not let go of me now.

During these months, I woke up several times sweating and breathing heavily. In my dreams, I had given up on my goal. I found myself in a job interview or the office at one of my past jobs. It was a nightmare. That doesn’t mean that working there was a nightmare—quite the opposite. But the feeling of having given up my deep desire made me panic.

Those nightmares, and the fact that my savings were melting away over time, really chased me out of bed to my desk early in the morning. Who knows if I could be living my dream job as an illustrator today without that good dose of anxiety?

Looking back, I appreciate the pressure and value it for the future. Feeling fear can be a sign that we are right on track. It means we are serious, and it matters to us. Instead of paralyzing and blocking us, what scares us now can give us the last bit of motivation to get exactly where we want to go.

When we were at school, we read books, learned different subjects such as math or languages, and did the sports we had to do. School education is a foundation. It’s where we first learn about our strengths and interests.

But when we graduate from school, a new chapter opens. Perhaps it is the most important in our life because now we begin to set the course for our future. It is crucial to be active, take up the reins, be curious, and break old habits, which open up unimagined paths full of adventure. To conquer these, we just must not stand still but keep moving.

The school conditions us to deal with things that do not touch or interest us, however helpful they may be in our lives. From now on, it’s 100% about us. We don’t read what we’re supposed to. We read what we want. We still continue to learn every day, but we focus on what excites us. We occupy ourselves with the things that are important to us, that make us happy, and that gives us a sense of purpose. We try out everything and remain open to the unexpected. And above all, we find the courage to stop doing things if they don’t enrich our lives. A conscious no gives us the most valuable currency we have— time.

In school, I was used to reading books to the end. This compulsion has been hard-wired into me for a long time. Today, if I start a book and realize after a while that the content doesn’t excite me or is irrelevant, I abandon it. That doesn’t mean it’s poorly written or can’t be of value to other people. For me, it’s not enriching, and that’s ok. The fact that I could decide this for myself without consequence felt unusual at the beginning and took a little while.

The same goes for movies, events, video games, and sports. When we feel something isn’t touching us, let’s break it off and look for the things that won’t let us go instead.