Tag: commercial art

SELLING IDEAS INSTEAD OF ART…

by adamhalevi, posted in Adam Green, Commercial Art, Greetings Cards, Humorous Cards, Jeff Thomson

…my brief spell “DESIGNING” JOKES FOR A top GREETINGS CARD COMPAny.

In previous posts I have described the frustrations I often experienced at the hands of unscrupulous greetings cards companies (of which there were a surprisingly large number), who would reject my artwork but then use my jokes and ideas without paying me. As described, I would submit a folio of cards designs; the company would sit on them for several weeks (sometimes months) and then return them with barely an acknowledgement (sometimes none); and then, a month or two later, cards with my jokes and ideas would suddenly appear on the shop-shelves made by different (presumably in-house, and thus far cheaper) artists.

“Love skiing”

I don’t know if things have changed since, but the problem back in the late 80’s, early 90’s, was that, unlike in almost all other areas of commercial art/illustration, there was no formal contract system in place for freelance artists doing work for greetings cards companies. Normally, you sent in your work on “spec”, and took a chance on the integrity, or otherwise of the company.

“Mernaught”

Thus it happened, that around 1990, I found myself with a pile of ideas and jokes, but wary of being stung yet again, I decided to try a different tack.

“Ashes to… ashes” (This could be a touch oblique for non-cricket lovers, however for those in the know, the bowler is of course the one and only Jeff “Thommo” Thomson.)

I telephoned the-then biggest card firm in the UK (they might still be, for all I know now) and asked to speak to their art director. I had never approached them before because I knew they only used in-house artists for their finished cards, but as I’d now reached the point where I would be content with at least earning something for my ideas, I guessed I had nothing much to loose.

I was put straight through to the lady in question, and told her of what I had experienced at the hands of several of her rival companies, and asked her frankly if I would be taking the same risk sending my material in to her for consideration.

When I told her of my “Polar” series of Christmas card designs she said she knew of them, and from then on took me very seriously.

My guess was, perhaps naively, that such a large company would be more straightforward to deal with, for the sake of their professional reputation if not for their innate honesty. However, she explained that they could not enter in contractual arrangements with freelancers as this undermined the morale of their in-house artists. Nevertheless, she offered to put a non-binding assurance in a hand written letter that her firm would definitely pay me a fair price for each and every idea of mine they liked.

(There’s a cereal ad currently on UK TV which tells a similar joke…I wonder?)

Good to her word, the letter arrived a day or two later, containing her assurance, and a request for sketched roughs of my jokes and ideas – about 12 of which I duly dispatched to her, albeit on a wing and a prayer.

“Birdy – no birdie”

After hearing nothing for weeks I began to think the worst, but about two months later I was pleasantly surprised to not only receive back my roughs, but also a cheque for the half-dozen or so ideas they had decided to use.

Wrong ball!

Several of those roughs are displayed here, and I wonder which, if any ring a bell…?

TRIPLE-TAKES AND DOUBLE CHOICES

by adamhalevi, posted in Adam Green, Alhambra, Andalusia, Arcos de la Frontera, Art Photography, Artist's Agents, Commercial Art, Commercial Art Commissions, gouache, Photoshop, Poster Art, Seville

During my ten  years or so as a commercial artist I had spells with two top London artist’s agents. The main and obvious advantage of having an agent was that they went out and got you commissions.  Most artists by definition, tend to be ill equipped, emotionally and attitudinally for the tasks of both finding and especially negotiating with clients. Artist’s agents on the other hand, often with backgrounds in advertising and / or art production have extensive lists of contacts and the wherewithal for exploiting those connections. 

This scene from a street in the Andalusian town of Arcos se la Frontera remains my favourite image from the series…

The big disadvantage in the artist / artist agent relationship however was the near-total lack of control the artist has over the process, from commissioning to payment.  And, it was ultimately the payment issues which trumped the advantages and convinced me to toughen-up and go it alone. My final artist’s agent’s commission was a case in point and also the last straw. What began as an unusually free brief – to paint a series of of 24 poster-style gouache paintings to decorate 12 luxury, first-class cruise liner suites for a seriously good fee, manifested as an exercise in frustration and acrimony. The fact I had to resort to the threat of lawyers against my own agent to extricate partial payment gives a good idea of just how sour things got.

This is a scene from a courtyard restaurant in Granada, right by the Alhambra Palace…

In the normal course of events, I worked directly with the clients, and delivered my work to them myself. For some reason never fully explained, on this occasion I did not get to meet the client and instead dealt exclusively with my agent. What exactly went wrong between the time of me handing over the finished pictures to the agent, and her passing them to the client – or indeed, if she ever handed them to the client, I never discovered. All I did know for sure, was that two months of hard work was never fully paid for.  Fortunately, during my ongoing film-to-digital trawl, I recently came across colour slides of several examples of the artwork from that fateful commission and the original photographic templates.

The delightful “balcon” at Arcos…

If I was ever to receive a similar commission again, apart from making sure to deal with the client on a one-to-one basis, I might also decide to produce Photoshop images (presented on the similar art papers to the original gouaches) rather than paintings. For me the finished results, especially with these highly graphic, minimalist images are at least as good as paintings, and in the awful prospect that I again would not be fully recompensed, would have expended a fraction of the time.

And finally, the Bishop’s palace in Seville.

Presented here (within the text) in triptych form are four of those very images. The photo templates comprise the central images, with the original gouaches on the right, and my new Photoshop treatments on the left. See what you think and don’t be afraid to let me know…

MY POSTER PHASE…(1)

by adamhalevi, posted in Adam Green, Art, Uncategorized

For a while during the late 1980’s and early 90’s there was a resurgence of classic poster design in British commercial illustration. For about ten years add agencies got a nostalgia pang for the poster images of the early half of the century—especially the great travel posters of companies like Cunard and P&O.

Photo-sourced images, distilled into simple, screen-print-like blocks of colour were once again all the rage which meant for me, as a keen exponent of the form, a fairly regular stream of commissions.

One of these days, when I’ve completed the transfer of all my old work copy onto a digital platform I’ll put up one or two gallery posts showing the sort of stuff I did for the likes of Thomas Cook and Legal & General.

For now, here is a small gallery of highly disparate images I made for my own pleasure and exhibition.

They comprise a truly odd bunch, including as they do some kind of anti-communist poster (can’t recall if it’s aimed at Russia or China?) and a slightly weird self-portrait of me looking very miserable (suffering with heat-stroke) at a bus stop in Israel. Somewhere, I have dozens of colour slides of many more, less quirky; mostly travel related images which are now all happily sold. They too await digital conversion.

Meanwhile, these are fun—I think!

 

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