Just one week to go until the start of Editorial: Illustrating for Magazines and More (The Popular Culture Edit)! Hurry – book your place here!
What do you need to show in your portfolio to land editorial illustration jobs? Art agent and former illustrator Lilla shares her tips below!
As well as being a top art agent and an excellent educator who has taught everyone from professional artists to little kids, Make Art That Sells co-founder and teacher Lilla Rogers was also a successful illustrator, so she has boatloads of advice, tip and insight to share with you.
What’s editorial illustration? Broadly, it means anything having to do with text (words). For example, it could be something like a magazine article, a newspaper article, a blog, a news site like the Guardian or the New York Times, or a book cover or interior. Hear Lilla explain what an illustration can do that a photograph can’t.
Illustrations by Lilla Rogers for The New York Times Magazine and more. Let Lilla show you how you can get cool gigs like these! Book now! [See some of Lilla’s illustrations in the short video below.]
In her thrilling course, Editorial Live: Illustrating for Magazines and More, she’ll be sharing her wisdom to help you build an incredible illustration career. Book your spot now!
As well as weekly LIVE sessions, in which you’ll be able to chat directly to Lilla, add comments and ask questions, you’ll also get tons of beautifully designed downloads that will tell you everything you need to build an exciting career in the lucrative editorial illustration market, including:
- Lilla’s insightful concept game to help you come up with concepts for your work (get your FREE download of the game from May’s class here!)
- The six layout styles for editorial illustration
- Bonus video tutorial on animating your work, to keep you ahead of the curve
- How to find clients
- What to do when you get the job
- Tips for thinking about your rough
- What to put on your site to get work
- The purpose of editorial
… and more!
The top 5 things you need to show in your portfolio to get a lucrative illustration career
We caught up with Lilla to find out her tips for the top five things you need to show in your portfolio in order to snag exciting and profitable editorial illustration jobs. Here’s what she told us …
What’s the number 1 thing you MUST show on your website or portfolio to get editorial illustration work? Read on…..
Must-Have #1 People doing things
Art directors always need images of people doing things, from literal to the conceptual, like the image below on morning routines. (Worried about drawing faces? Check out Lilla’s entertaining and educational self-paced course, Lilla’s Art Recipes: Drawing Faces and get ready to give your career a huge boost!)
Art created by Jacqui Langeland for our first Editorial course, in Spring 2019. That course sold out before it was officially launched – so hurry and grab your spot for Fall 2019 now!
Must-Have #2 Maps
Make Art That Sells student and Lilla Rogers Studio artist Katie Vernon’s map for National Geographic magazine.
Maps are visually striking and have a huge range of applications, from editorial, wall art, prints, stationery, gift and more. You could show the whole world or just your local area (and click here to read about how a pretty map of her home county of Somerset created for Hot Markets for Your Art Part B led Make Art That Sells student Annabel Tempest to an amazing illustration gig!).
Here is Lilla talking about why maps are so important for your portfolio.
Map for Honest History magazine by artist Sarah Walsh, represented by Lilla Rogers.
Must-Have #3 Full-page illustrations (vertical)
Sometimes you’ll be asked to create a full page illustration. An art director isn’t going to book an artist who can’t deliver, so make sure that you show full page work in your portfolio. Plus, the larger the illustration, the more you get paid.
This beautiful art created by Make Art That Sells student Annie Bakst appeared in Uppercase. Click here to see more MATS student work that made it into the magazine!
Must-Have #4 Spot illustrations (small illustrations)
Equally, you may get asked to do smaller spot illustrations to enliven a piece of text, like this one for Better Homes and Gardens by Anke Rega. Try to show a range of different subjects.
Spot illustration by Make Art That Sells student Anke Rega, represented by Lilla Rogers.
Must-Have #5 Lettering on your illustrations
Art by Helen Dardik, represented by Lilla Rogers.
Lettering is wonderful to have in your portfolio, whether it’s just part of the illustration, as in Helen Dardik’s artwork above, or the entire image, as in Clairice Gifford’s illustration for Flow magazine, below.
Why? Art directors love it because it’s a break from regular typographic fonts.
Illustration for Flow magazine by Clairice Gifford, represented by Lilla Rogers.
We hope that you’ve enjoyed the eye candy and got tons of inspiration for things to include in your own portfolio as you build your own amazing editorial illustration career!
Don’t forget you’ll get to find out more of art agent Lilla’s Must-Haves and Nice-to-Haves for your portfolio in Editorial Live: Illustrating for Magazines and More. Class starts on Monday, October 28th! So hurry and sign up now!
See you in class!
Lots of love
The Make Art That Sells team xxx
