
What is being an illustrator really like? 6 professionals reveal all
We asked six illustrators what their job is really like. And this is what they said
The latest from the world of freelancing. For self-employed professionals who are looking to take their career to the next level.
We asked six illustrators what their job is really like. And this is what they said
Do you want to learn a few tips about styling and photographing your products? Check out this guide Artist, illustrator, and entrepreneur Tatiana Nedialkova (@softerandwild) knows how important it is for your products to look amazing when you promote them. A home photoshoot can be the best place to achieve this if you use the right tools and direction. In product photography, you need to study and plan your setup, especially if shooting at home: props, camera, and various backdrops. Tatiana shares a guide with tips on food photography to inspire setting up your own home photoshoots.
With this professional editing app that features a mobile interface, you can work anywhere For many creatives, speed is critical when working on audiovisual pieces. Those who deal with content that is updated daily on social media, for example, or film an event that needs to be published right away, need the fastest tools available. For all of them, and for those who prefer the convenience of working on a mobile phone, LumaFusion is one of the best options for video editing. Far from the traditional editing suites that require a lot of hardware, everything here works on an iPhone or iPad.
Learn from the experts how to launch your new business, whatever your field of creativity is
Natalia Escaño shares some simple tips to boost the position of your pins among the top search results Pinterest is one of the most visual social networks, with a search power comparable to that of Google, but basing its content strategy on aesthetics and being a tool to find inspiration. This makes it a handy tool for creatives, artists, designers, illustrators, photographers, and even companies who want to share their products differently. Natalia Escaño (@nataliaescano) is a designer and illustrator and one of the most prominent Pinterest influencers in Spain, with more than a million followers and a portfolio of clients that includes brands such as L'Oréal Paris and Disney. As a great connoisseur of this platform, at both a user level and business level, she knows what it takes to stand out with attractive, eye-catching, and extremely visual content that will surely resonate with the audience. Here are the 10 fundamental tips from Natalia Escaño to improve the SEO of your Pinterest pins:
Discover the digital marketing trends that will make their mark in 2021 Business interactions are increasingly taking place in the virtual world. Therefore, planning and developing digital marketing strategies that are relevant to the current market is essential. It is a sure-fire way to help you reach new customers and strengthen your relationship with those already loyal to your brand. To help you with this task, check out the incoming trends for 2021 across this field. This list not only takes into account predictions from international publications such as Business Insider and Forbes, it also draws on information shared in several Domestika courses dedicated to the best digital marketing techniques. Make sure to stay up to date. In a market as vast and competitive as the Internet, every little detail that makes you stand out is vital and may be the factor that determines whether a business is successful or not.
Find out how to gift a Domestika course in a few easy steps Creative people love to learn: for their professional development, to discover new techniques, and to learn new skills. A restless mind will always enjoy the opportunity to learn something new. Find out different ways to buy a Domestika course as a gift, following a few easy steps: Plan your gifts by making lists If you enjoy planning and want to save a list of the courses you would like to purchase for yourself or others, use the option Course list. Simply access the Lists section of your profile page, and click on Add new list. You can make these lists public or private, and make as many as you wish. You can also add courses directly from the Courses page (without needing to go to your profile page) by clicking on the +List icon that appears when you hover the cursor over the course name. You can see some examples of lists shared with you by Domestika teachers on this link.
Find out how you can make the most of Instagram to show off your creative portfolio Customizing your Instagram feed is a great idea if you want to use your account as a portfolio. A well-curated feed can transmit what you do in seconds. If your work is visual, knowing how to order your posts–so that they stand out more as a whole–is key when it comes to attracting new followers and showing off your work. Or maybe you are just interested in experimenting with your personal page. The well-organized and harmonious effects you achieve when you plan your posts in advance are known as Instagram Grid Layouts, Puzzles, or Mosaics. To incorporate them into your feed, all you need to do is follow different publishing methods and try out some of the tools that photographer Pati Gagarin (@patigagarin) recommends in her course, Instagram as a Photography Portfolio.
Discover the possibilities of video and YouTube as a way of showing off your talent to lots and lots of people Although it may not be the most popular platform for presenting portfolios, YouTube can be very effective at showing off your work and creative processes. Juan Bermúdez–better known as Kaos (@estudiokatastrofico)–is a YouTuber, illustrator, and writer with a degree in Fine Art. In his course, YouTube: Creating a Channel from Scratch, he will teach you the advantages of using this social network as a means to make your work more visible and what to keep in mind. Here he lists some of his favorite creative portfolios on YouTube and the strategies they use to showcase their products or their creative process: Little King Goods This channel belongs to a leather craftsman who sells products such as wallets, belts, purses, and watch straps. Their videos give the viewer a unique insight into the creative processes behind making each piece. What makes Little King Goods stand out is that customers can purchase the materials and tools and assemble pieces themselves, in addition to buying the finished product. This YouTube channel also teaches its customers DIY methods, showing them how to make the leather objects themselves.
Three professionals working in communications, entrepreneurship, and business reflect on their 'extreme' experiences of working from home It was already becoming an ongoing/long-term trend. It’s now become an imperative: the new normal. Remote working was already the standard for many creative professionals, but for others, it has marked a significant change. Studies carried out in countries like Spain, the United States, China, and South Africa have shown that employee productivity can increase by up to 15% just by working from home. "In the past, the words 'working from home' conjured up images of people lying half-naked on a couch or in a bathtub while tapping away at their laptops. These clichés have been replaced by the truth: people who are able to reconcile their work life and home life, without having to make personal sacrifices, are more productive and happier," says Nicholas Bloom, a researcher and professor at Stanford University in the United States. Nicholas led a macro study on remote working involving employees from companies in China. The study highlighted the benefits of working from home. Marcelo Tas (@marcelo_tas), Mònica Rodríguez Limia (@rodriguezmon) and Cecilia Tham, professionals working in communications, entrepreneurship and business, tell us about and reflect on their own “extreme” experiences of working from home. Discover more in the video below:
Learn how to promote your portfolio and build a community with Juan Bermúdez Romero, aka Kaos With over 700,000 users subscribed to his channel, Kaos (@estudiokatastrofico) knows that using YouTube can be the ideal strategy to promote your career as an artist. A writer and illustrator based in Spain, Juan Bermúdez Romero, better known as Kaos, decided to use his YouTube channel as a personal portfolio and has collaborated with major brands like Disney, Wacom, Fiverr, and many others. In his Domestika course, he teaches you to create your own YouTube channel and share your portfolio with the world. One of the most crucial steps in this process is creating a video portfolio that will be the channel trailer. First, you’ll need to define your goals and values. Then, you can set out to create your channel’s trailer to showcase your portfolio. You must follow three pre-production processes: the idea, the script, and the storyboard.
Learn more about creative block with useful advice from experts Even the most creative of minds and the most experienced professionals will, at some point, fall victim to creative block. It’s that feeling that you’ve run out of ideas, you’re incapable of producing work, or that you are unable to access your creativity. Creative block affects musicians and painters as much as it can affect writers and photographers, or anyone else putting out creative work. If we’re not careful, a creative block can result in a catch-22: feeling uninspired and unable to create can negatively impact one's self-confidence, which causes the person to feel even less inspired and less able to create. As Sylvia Plath famously said, “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” Therefore, it’s important to familiarize oneself with the different tools and techniques available that will help you to combat your fear and get your creative juices flowing. In this blog post, several of Domestika's teachers–from professional writers to top photographers–share their advice. Practice, practice, and more practice Scriptwriter, storyteller, and teacher Alberto Chimal (@albertochimal) says that the best way to overcome a creative block is “practice, practice, and more practice.” If you’re lacking original ideas, pay attention to the world around you and something is sure to spark your imagination. “Inspiration never comes quickly nor when you’re sat at your desk. It could be an anecdote you hear or a news story. It could be a place you discover or an attractive scene you happen across.”
Learn how to photograph your artwork for your portfolio Sharing your work online is a great way to grow your audience and take advantage of creative opportunities. But to do that, you need high-quality images of your work. For analog mediums, that typically means having to take photographs. After spending so much time and care on your final artwork, it’s important to understand how to best capture and showcase it. Find below some useful tips on commercial photography so that you can make the most of your work.
Visual poet and photographer Danny Bittencourt shares interesting advice on how to manage your career as a freelance photographer Choosing which themes to explore in your work, developing your own visual language, managing your routine and timetable, being your own boss... Sounds pretty good, right? Of course, being freelance has a lot of benefits, if and when you can avoid the most common problems. Visual poet and photographer Danny Bittencourt (@dannybbittencourt) is an expert in freelancing. In this post, she shares her dos and dont's for freelance photographers. Discover more in the video below:
Discover these top tips for making your work stand out and showing people what you do As creative professionals, we need to be able to balance intense periods of creation with the time needed to promote what we create. Knowing how to sell your work and show off what you do to secure more clients or gain a loyal following is essential. It’s how you’ll expand your horizons and get jobs, commissions, and opportunities to collaborate. Designer and lettering artist Martina Flor (@martinaflor) shares tips so that you can promote your work and connect with potential clients:
What is the best platform to sell your streetwear project? Smithe presents his favorite options You’ve just created a fantastic collection of t-shirts with your designs and illustrations, and now you need your audience to see it and buy it, correct? Which online shop should you choose to advertise your products if you don’t have a way to set up your website? Smithe (@smithe)–a Mexican urban artist, illustrator, and designer–has been working on his style, perfecting his images’ narrative, and working as a creative for fashion brand, Tony Delfino. Here he shows us the difference between the two leading e-commerce platforms, Big Cartel and Shopify.
Use this template by Ellie Rivers to easily create a multi-platform content and marketing calendar for your e-commerce business Marketing campaigns are a powerful way of attracting customers to your e-commerce. While it’s important to have a content and marketing calendar year-round, they are especially crucial during peak sales periods like the holidays. E-commerce marketing consultant Ellie Rivers has over 15 years of experience working independently and as part of a digital consulting agency for luxury, fashion, and lifestyle brands. In her English-language Domestika Live on October 15, she explains how to use this content marketing planner to create an effective digital marketing campaign for your e-commerce business. If you miss the Live, you will be able to find an archived version of it to enjoy later.
Work more efficiently from home and make the most of your time with these tools The evolution of technology and the democratization of the internet have made working from home a daily reality for many. Managing projects remotely means that teams can be completely decentralized–a designer in Peru can successfully work on a project for a client in Europe without ever meeting face to face. Foncho Ramírez-Corzo (@cholutions)–a digital marketing expert and consultant–embraces and applauds the home office trend. In this blog, he shares a list of project management tools that will transform your working-from-home routine and help you juggle different tasks and stay organized.
We spoke to the work-from-home maestro, Foncho Ramírez-Corzo, about how to make the new normal work for you Working from home was already growing in popularity before the global pandemic hit, confinement merely sped up its trajectory, according to the incessantly smiley Foncho Ramírez-Corzo (@cholutions). The consultant and entrepreneur, who teaches the Domestika course, Home Office: Working from Home Successfully, shared some tips, tricks, and philosophies that will help you or your business stand out in the market and help anyone make the new normal work for them. Whether you’re out of a job or adapting your current one to new circumstances, his perspective will make your situation feel a lot more hopeful.
Explore these resources to promote your work and improve your online presence If you are a professional journalist, regardless of whether you work independently or are just starting out, you will find that an excellent way to position yourself in the marketplace is to improve your online presence. This is true if you do reporting, if you are a photographer, or if you specialize in specific social media content. That's why we've compiled a list of useful sites for you to use, as well as others that will help you with your topic search and productivity. What other sites do you use? Medium This site has gained a lot of popularity among independent writers of all kinds. Its interface allows you to easily upload photos and text, and publish your notes directly. Its monetization system allows you to earn money if your content goes viral and you get a certain number of readers.
From professional social networks to specialized website builders, these five platforms will get your work seen the way you want it to be Every visual creative wants to be seen. A wonderful creation isn’t going to change the world nor pay the rent if it doesn’t get in front of the right people. Knowing where to share your work online to make sure you’re turning the right heads can be instrumental in getting paid. With so many places to choose from, it can be hard to know where to begin, and different sites can work better for different people and different professions. While Instagram and LinkedIn might seem the best places to catch people's eye and find clients, they're not always the best sites for the job. One of the biggest problems, acccording to Laura Varsky, illustrator and designer who teaches the Domestika course Professional Illustration: Turn Your Passion into a Career is that, "They don't last. If you put all your energy into making a good profile for a particular social network, you can end up investing all that energy in something that has a short life." Here is a list of our five favorite platforms for online portfolios, including professional networking platforms and specialized website hosting and design services, so you can get the best return on your investment and see long lasting success.
This digital campaign tracking template allows you to study metrics over time When creating marketing campaigns for social networks, it is essential to monitor results throughout the entire duration of the campaign in order to correct any potential issues and to obtain learnings related to what has and hasn't worked. Arantxa Beltrán and Guillermo Medina have been working in digital marketing for years, primarily with Google and Facebook Ads campaigns, and beyond mastering various types of ads and the ways they influence user behavior, the pair are also specialists in analyzing and tracking campaign metrics. This template which they've shared with Domestika will help you better manage and understand the metrics generated by your social media campaigns.
This photo editing app will convert your iPad into a mini studio that competes with any desktop software Pixelmator is a family of programs and apps, which serves as a basic and intuitive alternative to Photoshop, available for Mac users and all other iOS devices. Now, the company has launched Pixelmator Photo, an iPad app that makes the most of all the benefits this tablet has to offer for editing photos. Pixelmator Photo has a number of features that demonstrate that we can retouch photos from our iPad to professional standards. These are some of the stand-out tools that the app offers:
Learn what to include in your portfolio, on Instagram and other formats, to sell your work to art directors and publishers
Katya Kovalenko helps boost our presentations and projects with visual examples Katya Kovalenko (@katyakovalenko) is a presentation and data designer based in Barcelona. After working for advertising and communications agencies for ten years, she founded her own business, dedicated to helping small and medium-sized businesses convert their ideas into real brands around the world. Her work combines data analysis with aesthetics, as well as good practices in the use of data to build stories from visual resources. For her, this is the basis for building effective presentations.Today, she shares these design-related lessons that will help you create your own powerful materials to show the world your projects.
We can learn from having good ideas, or at least we can have fun. Discover these keys for awakening your creativity Despite what many might think, creativity is something we are all born with. It doesn’t come from some god-given talent and it’s, without a doubt, something we can cultivate and exercise so it continues to flourish and work at full capacity. In the words of graphic designer and creative director Juan Carlos Fernández Espinosa (@jc_ideograma): "[Creativity] is developed like a muscle, it can be trained like a pet, and harvested like a well cultivated field.”
2D animator and motion designer Caroline Kjellberg talks us through her creative routine and life as a freelancer based in Bali Being far away from home during a global pandemic is a complicated situation to find oneself in. Danish animator and motion designer Caroline Kjellberg had to lengthen her stay in Bali as a result of lockdown measures, and she’s been working from there ever since. The multifaceted artist welcomes us into her house in Bali to talk us through her day-to-day routine working as a freelancer during unprecedented times. She also speaks about the advantages and disadvantages of working as a freelance creative, and shares advice for preventing professional exhaustion, which can set in if we don’t stick to a good routine. Discover more below:
Make the most of these online tools to improve your blog and reach the right audience For different industries and services, blogs are powerful allies when it comes to reaching your target audience. They allow you to communicate with potential clients and share products, creative processes, and future plans. Or, maybe you want to run one just because you enjoy sharing and exchanging ideas with other people working in the same sector as you. Discover seven resources that will help your blog grow without needing to be an expert in design, content marketing, or programming. Optimizing Images: Tinypng Tinypng will help you compress your images in JPG and PNG format without losing quality (in some cases you can achieve compressions of up to 70%). It’s always advisable to reduce the size of your photos so that your web page can load quicker. It has a Photoshop plugin (plus many other useful tools) that will allow you to preview your images and easily adjust their size.
Learn about the advantages and disadvantages of sites like Patreon that allow you to diversify your income More and more creatives are turning to crowdfunding websites to monetize their work these days. There are different platforms where your followers can make small donations to support your creative and artistic work, but not all are alike. Learn about what should consider before choosing any of these platforms, as well as some options available to you. The first thing you should know Donations are not going to start flowing magically. It is good practice to integrate these options into your social media strategy and include information about your crowdfunding account in your social media and website profiles. For example, some creatives periodically make short videos on YouTube or on Instagram and Facebook Stories to ask their followers to contribute. Some will find creatives and projects to support using the search engines on each platform, so you must include complete information about yourself and your work.
Dot Lung shares a template for your social media planning Dot Lung (@dotlung) is a Social Media Expert who has worked with international brands, creating strategies and content for social media and advertising. Among her clients and collaborators are Wix, Facebook, and the OFFF Festival. If you want to promote your social media account’s growth, an essential part of your strategy is content planning. This way you’ll have visibility and control over your posting and workload.