Today, we are bringing you a rare interview with Riley Wilkinson, Manager of Creative, content development at American Girl! This is an incredible opportunity to get industry insight from one of the biggest toy manufacturers in the world (as American Girl is owned by Mattel).
It’s not a market that artists always consider as a potential outlet for their work, but the toy industry actually buys a ton of art every year. Riley has great advice for artists—plus he’s a fellow MATS student!
(1) What exactly is your job and how did you come to do it?
I’m the Manager of Creative on the Content Development team at American Girl. We imagine and create stories, characters, books, magazines, entertainment, apps, and activity books for girls. I’m responsible for the look and feel of these areas and work with a team of talented art directors, producers, photographers, marketers, and writers.
I’ve spent my career in educational toy, game, and publishing and joined American Girl, a subsidiary of Mattel, after moving to Wisconsin from Los Angeles. What a dream! I love being a part of this team and consider myself fortunate to be a part of such interesting creative ways to bring happiness to girls! We’re always working on interesting projects and we are lucky enough to hear feedback from girls, moms, grandparents and many others. My nieces are especially excited about my job at American Girl!
(2) What do you love about the industry?
The variety of work, the happiness I see in the illustration and design that freelance artists create, and knowing that because we toil over every detail, a child somewhere will notice those details. I can’t imagine working in any other industry. I also really enjoy being part of a team of creators, who evolve and grow with every project that crosses their desks. It’s energizing. From a photoshoot at a barn to laboring over the specific detail in a bird’s wing, the creative details that bring our products to life make it such satisfying work. Kids notice the details!
(3) How do you work with artists? What do you buy art for?
We work with artists from around the world on a freelance basis. The illustrators, lettering artists, and designers we hire work on a variety of projects for American Girl. Book covers, interior illustrations, posters, stickers, title treatments, animation assets are examples of the kind of art we buy every single day of the year.
CHECKING ON IMAGE WITH RILEY
WellieWishers animated series lineup screen.
“This example shows that any illustrator can move into the world of entertainment and moving images, simply by creating their own signature style. Our lead artist brought her own aesthetic to the show and it’s helped us carve out a unique style that girls will remember.”
(4) Do you buy outright or license work?
We buy outright.
(5) Where do you find new artists to work with?
Everywhere. Online, through reps, from samples we see while traveling, etc. We work mostly with reps, since we’ve got good relationships with them and tend to find that sometimes our rep groups will offer a potential artist who may have a certain style or availability that we, the client, may not be aware of.
Lilla Rogers artist Rebecca Jones designed the American Girl Activity Book above for 8 – 10 year old girls entitled School Rules: Math.
Page spreads by Lilla Rogers Artist Rebecca Jones
(6) What do you look for? What makes someone stand out?
A unique style, and often we’re looking for artists who can draw girls and people in all sorts of poses, clothes, and environments. Because our girls range in age, we almost always appeal to them by including illustrations of girls and kids in our products. From books on study habits to hygiene, growing up to making treats, we work to create cute, relatable content for the American Girl fan.
(7) Can you talk us through the process of working with an artist, from signing a contract to getting the product on the shelf?
It always starts with the internal pitch. My team and I will review initial samples based on the particular project. We’ll then pitch that to our editorial or content partner. Depending on the project, this style approval can work further up the chain for more senior approval if the project is of particular importance.
We then send the artist a manuscript, a layout, a brief, and details about the content. Here’s a tip: artists who read the content produce the best work. The artist’s interpretation of the content is what we want, and what will keep a girl interested. Sometimes we send detailed sketches or even a simple layout with written art direction.
Then we get into rounds: pencils/roughs, review, revisions, presentation, color, revisions if needed, then final file delivery to American Girl. After that point, we finesse and route layouts through multiple teams for feedback. Often, sketches go through the same process. As an artist, it’s important to be patient and to always ask the art director when to expect revisions. Even though you may feel like you’re nagging, touch base on the deadline and ask if revisions will be coming to you that day.
I admire artists who push me along, because there are a million projects all moving at different stages at the same time. One artist we’re currently working with is incredibly proactive: she’ll ask first thing in the morning if we’ll have the promised revisions to her. That tells me that she cares about the deadline and our shared success. That’s a dream trait…add it to your list! Simply jot a note down in a calendar or post a note on your monitor or drawing desk…this helps us all remain on schedule.
After routings and approvals occur, the production process begins. This can take many months or up to a year, depending on the project. Buyers and consumers pop in and out of the process, chiming in and giving us feedback. This sometimes requires that we rework a project or add some new content. But it’s worth the scrambling…consumers and buyers are the ultimate decision makers!
Here is a 95 page book designed by MATS alumna Nikki Upsher! (published June 2017)
Nikki took our very first ‘Illustrating Children’s Books‘ class in 2016 and has been a semi-finalist and finalist in our Global Talent Search!
More of Nikki’s beautiful page spreads from the book.
(8) A brand as huge as American Girl can be quite intimidating for an artist. How would you advise they find out who to approach, and then how should they pitch to you?
Send something in the mail. We walk by our empty mailboxes every day, back to our desks and a million emails. Email comes through at such a rapid pace that it’s sometimes forgotten. There is nothing like breaking through the humdrum by sending samples in a handwritten envelope. This shows you care, and that you really want to work with us. In general, be sure you’ve got the correct spelling of the recipient’s name on the piece when mailing.
Can’t afford mail? Then go crazy on Instagram and Pinterest. We find many, many artists through social media channels and often repin/email them to one another on the team. I spend hours on Pinterest as I doze off at night, so be sure to take advantage of those channels!
(9) A little bird tells us you have created your own game, ‘The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game’. How did that come about? Can you tell us about the process of bringing that to life? Any advice for an artist wanting to create a game with their artwork on it?
Yes! The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game has been a dream. I developed and designed the game with my colleagues at a former company, inspired by a trip I took to Japan. At the time, I was taking a night painting course at Art Center in Pasadena to get back into the groove of traditional mixed media. The Clayton Brothers taught the course and noticed the crude charcoal/pencil/marker sketches of squirrels, beavers, and forest animals in my sketchbooks. They told me to follow that obsession.
Back at the office, I began tinkering with the toddler training chopstick idea I had seen in Tokyo, and I molded some baked modeling clay in the form of a squirrel, imagining that he’d harvest acorns in some sort of preschool game. I had also seen shaped boxes at the Nuremberg toy fair and began obsessing about a tree shaped “house” that a squirrel would live in, not unlike the Fisher-Price Woodseys log house I had as a kindergartner.
As we noodled around how to develop my kitchen creation into a molded squirrel “squeezer,” I stumbled upon a little box of cookies at Starbucks illustrated by Lucia Gaggiotti. Again, I was obsessed. She was nowhere to be found. Late one night, I emailed the cookie company asking about this artist. Weeks later, then sent me her name. That was so nice of them!
So far, the Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game has made it into Target, Wal-Mart, and in foreign markets. There are a number of sister games based on the same concept, all by Educational Insights in Los Angeles, where I worked before American Girl.
My big takeaway: follow your obsessions, work with really great people, get feedback from others, and make your work as beautiful and unique as possible. The biggest factor that led to the success of this preschool game was the illustration and the packaging…it’s got its own flavor and personality.
Advice: send your work to toy and game companies, attend trade shows like Toy Fair or Nuremberg, or look into purchasing a member list from a toy organization. ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS, remember who your client is. The more your work matches their needs, the more they’ll remember you.
Advice: give an art director something they’ll pin to their wall. An artist once sent my team and me a batch of hand-pulled silkscreens packaged in a box that was taped up in custom-designed tape. We hung those on our walls and commissioned him for multiple projects. It was like receiving a gift in the mail! It makes a difference.
WellieWishers full-color book cover.
“Our artist has worked to develop the nuances in expression that tell these stories beautifully.”
(10) What about your own creative life? What do you get up to outside of your role at American Girl and toy creating?
I love mixed media, woodburning, snapping shots of sprouts and bulbs that pop up in the woods behind my house, and spending time doodling or sketching on the iPad. Because I spend so much of my time working on products for children, I supplement my own creative needs with media of all types: embroidery, pen and ink, digital repeat patterns, photography, you name it.
My parents were artists. I’ll never forget the most memorable Christmas gift: I was four years old and we spent it at my Grammy’s cabin in Durango, Colorado. My mom presented me with a giant blue diaper wipe box filled with glitter, glue, tape, pipe cleaners, pom-poms, and crayons. It was a world of possibility. To this day, I close my eyes and hold scotch tape to my nose, just to remember that moment of creative freedom and the supplies to make anything possible. So there’s my long answer and personal flashback!
Riley is a child pretending to be a grownup! He considers himself a lucky guy, leading content visual development at American Girl, a premium Mattel brand for girls based near Madison, Wisconsin. Riley and his team of creatives design and art direct fiction and nonfiction print titles for girls. Apps, magazine features, and online games are also part of the American Girl offering that tie beloved historical and contemporary characters to rich experiences. Riley’s 20 years in the educational toy and game space include the creation and design of The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game, illustrated by Lucia Gaggiotti by Educational Insights. His early memories of glitter, scotch tape, and “crowns” (crayons) keep him forever obsessed with play and all the joys that his work brings to children and adults who never grew up.
Find Riley here: Website | americangirl.com | Instagram
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Do you dream of illustrating a children’s book? Would you love to create a magical world with characters that you’ve designed? Do you love the magic of children’s books and feel that you have something to offer? Then this course is for you. Hurry! The class begins on Monday, October 2 and places are filling up!
Lilla says: “We’ve created a course that breaks down the process into totally manageable chunks so that you can focus on having fun creating your very best work. I know you’ll be surprised at how much progress you make over the course of the 5 weeks. I’ve seen it over and over in my courses”.
Look out for our FREE video series on ‘Illustrating Children’s Books’ on the MATS blog next week!
What a lovely interview. You can feel Riley’s creative energy come through via his honest answers – awesome insights and inspiration. Thank you!