Working with Brands & Clients - Free Advice for Creatives
This week I focus on two important topics for creators. On one side working better with brands and clients, and receiving free feedback. Also, what's behind someone calling you "influencer".
This is a new edition of The Creative Draft. This week I’m talking about two really important topics for Creatives. On one side, I’m sharing a post that explains why we shouldn’t be calling ourselves influencers and why this is something that we need to consider when working with brands. The reason is, it brings the value of our creations down.
The other topic for this week is a very common one. Working with clients. I receive many questions all the time about how to get new clients or why someone’s not getting enough clients. In many cases, Instagram or the market are being blamed, but the truth is that we need to know if our offer is good enough for a client to hire us. So I’m sharing below a video you should watch if you want to receive feedback from someone that understands what it means to be creative and a lot about creative business.
Lastly, for this week, you guys asked, and I listened. I just released a new video where I cover my favorite brushes from a total of 280 I made in the past year! In the video, you’ll see a bit behind my process and why I use each brush, and how you can use them too.
The Menu for This Week
👉 Don’t call yourself an Influencer
👉 About Getting Free Feedback
👉 Procreate Brushes for Professional & Client work
Watch out for the Influencer!
It seems cool at first, but Creators are more than that. Way more …
Partnerships and brand deals are very interesting things, and yet I haven’t seen any of my fellow creatives openly talk about them - I myself am touching this topic for the first time here, inspired by Pedro’s article.
Gaining more visibility online usually means getting approached by brands and companies, both related and unrelated to what we do. I’ve also seen illustrators and artists go into collaborations with both, and I think there’s nothing wrong about it! As long as the brand's philosophy and your values as an artist are the same.
I’ve been offered myself to enter into deals that have nothing to do with what I do as an artist, argue with the values I believe in, or, in some cases, were a complete opposite of those. I’ve been asked to endorse products I don’t use or don’t need, and something that happens often is being asked to give up creative control and align with scripted lines and selling points. To all of the above, I always say ‘No.’ If you’d like to know more about the partnerships and collaboration between creatives and brands, go to Pedro’s article. His knowledge and experience once again are extra helpful!
Why are you not getting enough clients?
We focus too much on reach instead of our value proposition.
Need professional and personal feedback on how to improve your website or socials as an artist? You could use some feedback coming from a person who tremendously helped me as a creative?
Pedro helped me identify from a business perspective how to better show my clients what I can do for them and think strategically about my Instagram account and how I use my socials. Also, he is the person who always works with me closely, improving my value proposition, my website, and my YouTube channel. Now he can help you too!
I’m biased, but I really highly recommend going and subscribing to Pedro’s channel. Watch his latest video so you know how you can receive some advice from him. Don’t forget to like and comment!
Professional Quality Procreate Brushes
How I use my brushes in each part of my Illustration Process.
This week I decided to post the video most of you have been asking for, about my Procreate brushes and illustration process. In the video, I cover the most used brushes, depending on which illustration stage I’m at.
One of the most important parts for me when creating the brushes was to make them feel and behave naturally. As close as possible to something we could be using in the real non-digital world. In many cases, I achieved that, and in others, I got new effects that helped add a new dimension to my work. Please have a look at the video below and let me know which is your favorite of them all in the comments!
If you are looking for the best :) Procreate brush sets. Have a look at the sets I created. I also shared 3 FREE brush sets, with 36 different brushes you can use and download for free.