Central Illustration Agency: Ben Cox's Visit

Today we were lucky enough to have the founder of Central Illustration Agency visit, Ben Cox. His visit was extremely helpful, and opened my eyes to potentially looking at registering with an agency in the future.

Key points/tips from presentation:

• The agency presents a diverse roster of artwork and provides a match making process with the client and artist
• It's important not to put yourself in a box and limit yourself-the creative industry is very fluid 
• Advantages of being associated with an agency: you can work anywhere, in teams, collectives etc
• There is no room for divas in commercial art as you are selling something. You need to be aware of the clients methods, which can be challenging but you have to find a suitable solution
• There isn't a wrong or a right way to work
• There are different reasons why people sign up to agencies. Some people want to be given work, and some want help managing their work load
• All artists can promote themselves and get their own work too
• A portfolio has to have a continuous thread. The work has to speak for itself and have its own visual language
• Passion+Skill=freedom to speak through your work

How they set up a job:

First Contact:

-What is the brief?

-How many illustrations?

-What is the schedule?

-Which artist?

-Who is the client?

Quoting:

-How many illustrations?

-Which media?

-What time period?

-What territories?

Copyright:

-Who owns it?

Process:

-We agree the deal

-Introduce the artist and client

-CIA sends a bill

Starting out/Important terms

• Graduates usually start with editorial as they are quick turnaround jobs and fairly straight forward
• Publishing houses are good too, but they can be a bit cheeky with rights sometimes
• Advertising, however is a different kettle of fish involving intellectual property
• MY WORK IS MY WORK- it is MY intellectual property and I give the client permission to use my work. There is only a limited number of things that they can do with it
• Production fee (years of graft)/origination fee e.g. £1000 per illustration
• How will they use it? Online? Social? Billboards? 
• More media-greater benefit. It all adds up!
• They are buying very specific usages of your work

What makes a great portfolio?

• Consistent style- you're not going to be able to talk through your work all the time, it has to speak for itself
• A variety of clients, lots of mockups to show that you're adaptable. For example, if you read a book and really enjoy it, make a cover! SPOON FEED THE CLIENT
• Variety of subject matters
• Originality
• Outstanding quality

One-to-one chat with Ben

When given the task to select four pieces of work I was a bit overwhelmed as my work is all quite different (but I wanted to show that I am adaptable)

This was the first thing that Ben noticed, but he really appreciated my level of craft and use of different media. 

Points from his perspective:

• One consistent style is required 
• Go with something that I enjoy the most
• The more narrative, and connection with people, the better
• My work could work well for restaurants, travel brochures and those kinds of things- 'life improvements'

I then told him about my FMP ideas about producing a body of work based on my trip to Amsterdam, and he liked the sound of it, so that has given me a positive boost to put all of my energy into producing some really good work.