Most of this information is about what it took me to become a commercial artist. I am quite sure that it could apply to anybody that was a freelance commercial artist back in the 50's, 60's and 70's. There is a lot of information on this page so be patient and if you are interested in becoming a commercial artist, designer or illustrator I hope some of this will help you. THANKS FOR VISITING DOUG'S PAGE!
IF YOU ARE
INTERESTED IN
LEARNING TO BE
A COMMERCIAL ARTIST
What It Took To Be A Commercial Artist
In The 50's, 60's and 70's . . . . .
Doug has had a tremendous career as a free-lance commercial artist. He enjoyed doing all aspects of his trade, which included layout, design, illustration, typesetting and printing. He won 20 awards for logo designs, billboards, newspaper ads, brochures, etc. He designed coin art for Evil Kneivel, won a first place award in 1976 for bicentennial artwork for City of Amarillo, Texas, designed work for actors Dale Robertson and Robert Mitchum.
He worked as a staff artist for The Quarter Horse Journal before he stepped out in his own free-lance commercial art business. He is a graduate of the old Famous Artists Schools, which was started long ago by Norman Rockwell and others. Doug was too busy doing his commercial artwork during the 60's and 70's to concentrate on his painting and drawing talent. He worked 7 days a week and at least 3 days out of each week he worked 24 hours. He finally burnt himself out and decided to get out of the rat race.
Doug is 72 years old now and disabled. "I decided that now I do not have any excuse for not drawing and painting for pleasure. I have a God given talent and had better use it." He is now doing his pencil drawings, landscapes in oil, pencil portraits, Celebrity and American Indian art. He also uses the Goauche medium and colored pencils. He occasionally will combine several mediums for interesting effects. He lives in Ozark, MO with his wonderful wife and enjoys doing his artwork and finding galleries to show his work. Doug also designs his own websites and photographs digital photos of his artwork.
Some Personal Observations
This is my observation from my own personal experience as a commercial artist. A commercial artist is one who has a little or a lot of knowledge about quite a few different but related trades. To be a good artist is to acquire as much knowledge about as many of these different trades as possible.
As a commercial artist you do not just simply draw or illustrate something. It is like a lot of professions. Like a good mechanic that you take your car to work on it, you suppose that he has enough knowledge about all aspects of his trade to do you a good job.
Just like your mechanic needs to have knowledge about your engine, brakes, transmission, tires, battery, etc., a commercial artist needs knowledge about the following:
Layout and Design
This one is easy! All you have to do is be a kid. If you like to doodle you will like this one. You'll do a lot of thumbnail sketches. That's a fancy word for doodling. You will carry a pad and pencil around with you and every time you get a "bright idea" just sketch it out. Have fun with your sketching. Learn to do a lot of sketches is your way of getting to the final comp layout.
Sometimes this comes pretty easy and other times you will pull your hair out just coming up with a beginning idea. Take a break and go to the park. Just sit and enjoy looking at the trees. Take along your camera and you might find something interesting to photograph. Visit some elderly people and strike up a conversation with them, you might learn something! Take your kid to the zoo. Take your mother-in-law a dozen roses!
Don't take yourself too seriously. Let me relate to you a story about a particular logo design project I was doing back in the 60's. I was to do a series of 25 comp logo designs for Texas Cattle Feeders Association in Amarillo, Texas. At the time I had built up a name for myself and was doing pretty well and I had my own studio. I was taking on so much work that I had to hire another artist. I needed someone that could handle just about any job that came up.
I had been talking to a friend of mine that worked in the largest Ad Agency in town to come to work with me. He had been there for years and was well known. He really was a great artist. But he really wanted to get out on his own. He was a few years older than I was and I thought he could do better on his own. So, he agreed to come into my studio and take part of the load off me and I agreed that he could get his own clients and for helping me I did not charge him any office rent.
Anyway, I needed help with this logo design for TCF Association. I did 25 comp layouts and he did 25 layouts. We both took them over to let the client see them and boy he really liked them ALL. (I learned then that 25 is way too many). You could have taken any one of them and you would have had a great logo. Well, the CEO looked and looked and looked some more. Finally he said that they were all so good that he just could NOT choose one.
So, he called in his personal secretary and asked her to choose just one. She looked and looked and looked some more. After about 5 minutes her eye caught a particular logo design. She shouted very loud "THAT'S THE ONE". She had chosen one of mine. Now she did not know just who did which ones. The CEO said "Yes, that one is great, that's IT".
That settled it. Now seriously I was already prepared for the other artist's layout to be chosen because I thought some of his were very, very good. And I really expected one of his logos to be chosen. He had been an artist a lot longer than I had and I looked up to him. I had very mixed emotions at that very moment. First I was sorry for him and glad at the same time.
I am sure a lot of you out there have at one time or another seen this logo. It is on small decals on pickup trucks and rear windshields all over the US. Especially in Texas and all over where there are cowboys, ranchers, etc. The logo is a very simple one. It is a large bold "T" for Texas and in the middle of it is a stylized bull head. With the bull head dropped out of the large bold T with the horns curving out into the top of the T.
That logo is still being used to this day. I will dig it out of my morgue pretty soon and post it right here.
My artist friend was very upset about the whole experience. I don't know what exactly he expected. I guess he thought he was better than I was, I really don't know. He was too proud. It wasn't too long before he went back to the Ad Agency. Winning in the art business is NOT what it is all about. It does not matter what business we are in. We are as good or bad as our integrity is. Your integrity is not who you think you are. It is what values you have and in truth what is it that you will not give up no matter what.
My artist friend passed away a few years later. I think he was always worried about what others thought about him instead of what he really knew about himself deep inside.
That one client gave me a lot of work to do. He had his whole corporate image changed with that logo. From TV, billboards, all company stationary, signs, magazine ads, newspaper ads, brochures and all those decals you see everywhere.
You are going to be called on to design anything from a large roadside billboard to a logo for a ballpoint pin. You should be able to design a set of stationary, billboard, brochure, newspaper ad, t-shirt, logo, coin art, magazine, matchbook cover, packaging, etc., etc., etc.
Today most, if not all, of these can be done right on your computer. But back when I started out we had to do all of these by hand. But whether you are designing a brochure or a website you still need to have a good knowledge of design and layout, logo design, photography, copyrighting, typesetting, printing and illustration.
FAMOUS ARTISTS SCHOOL
IS THE ONLY TRAINING I HAD
WHEN I STARTED OUT!
Drawing and Illustration
There are a great multitude of various types of jobs you will be doing. Each one calls for it's own style of illustration, drawing, etc. You might do a simple line drawing using pen and ink. A local realtor might want you to take the small poloroid shot of his new house for sale and do a drawing. It still has the dug up yard with piles of builders trash and piles of dirt. You will have to draw the house and put in all the sidewalks, driveway, shrubs and trees. Sometimes you even have to get inside your clients brain to find out just what they want. Some people do not know what they want. Clients are as varied as the jobs you work on. One client will know exactly what they want and will just about do all the designing for you. Others will just settle for anything just to get it done. And printers! They are famous for waiting till the last minute to get the job to you and then say "I needed it yesterday, do the best you can". So you don't get any sleep that night or maybe for three days.
I enjoyed typesetting so much that along with all the other jobs that came up I typeset and done the paste-up mechanical on two 12 page tabloid college newspapers WEEKLY! These are what you call "bid" jobs. The bid goes out every year and the lowest bidder gets to do it for all the next year. It paid my overhead each month and since it came in month after month it really helped a lot when I needed it. I usually done all my large typesetting jobs at night when it was quite and nobody coming in.
I guess I was really good at typesetting back in my younger days. I remember a job I did for The Quarter Horse Association. They came to me to set a 36 page booklet. It was basically all copy and only a few photos. They brought me a really good double spaced typed manuscript to go by. I rushed through it and in a couple of weeks the guy came back and told me "Doug, me and several secretaries proofread everything and you did not make one mistake or typo in fact we found five mistakes in our own manuscript and you corrected those". I thought to myself, "they really DO expect people to make mistakes I guess".
You will be doing jobs for printers, advertising agencies, TV stations, bankers, and just about anybody that needs something printed or designed. It could be designing a corporate image or some little grandmothers project.
If you are a freelance commercial artists don't look down your nose at those little typesetting jobs. They pay the overhead.
Typographic Copyfitting
The actual fitting your original manuscript to a given layout you have done for the client. You determine whether it is justified right and left, ragged right or ragged left. What is your primary paragraphs and headlines. A good layout will break these areas up into a pleasing and easy to read presentation. If you are smart you will have already done this in your layout which your client has approved. Although you should always be prepared for them to change a few things before the final production is ready for the printer. Unless it is a vast technical manual you will use a combination of art, photos, logos, headlines and body copy to tell your clients story.
Your clients are proud of their logos. They should be if it is a good logo. They want to keep that certain logo (image) in the publics eyes until they know at a glance who it is and what they have to offer. A lot of times all they want to do is take their old ads and present a new and fresh image out. This is your job to get to know your clients. The more you do this the more your clients will appreciate what you do for them.
Many times an ad agency would call me to go with them up to the 30th floor board room of some bank with them and talk to the client about what I need to do for the agency's client. Now your dealing with TWO clients at the same time.
I would take my pen and pad and always my little tape recorder. I recorded everything that was said. I found that that was a very good thing to do. When I finally got to their job I would layout all my notes and start my recorder. Now it was just like I was back there again. I would take all my information and do up a couple of rough layouts and at least one good comp layout.
When I finished I would call the ad agency and me and the account executive would go over my work. He would just look and look and look some more. He would not say very much. Then when we got up to the 30th floor again to go over things with his client I would let them look at the rough layouts for a while and then I would get out my finished comp layout and let them see it. "Boy, now that's it! That's what I want. Boy, Doug, you sure got it there, thanks!"
The account executive would look at it and say "Yea, Doug, that's real good, we will go with that one".
On the way back to my office he would say "Doug, I think we can use that in his whole campaign coming up. Would you work up a few layouts on that? I'll bring you by some copy".
and "I also have another client you might want to do some work on". Sure, that's fine, no problem!
You can learn a lot about what your client wants just by listening.
More Personal Observations
My freelance commercial art studio was setup in such a way that, when a client (individual, printer, ad agency, etc.) came in and left their job, they could take it directly to the printer. I chose to do everything in-house. I was the layout designer, illustrator, typesetter, paste-up artist, photo re-toucher, coffee maker and gofer.
Now, you don't have to do all of this if you don't want to. You could just work for the printer, ad agency or corporation. If you live in a very large city you could only specialize in logo design for instance. But, if you want to be a Freelance Commercial Artist, you will be under a great deal of pressure from all directions. Even printers who know better will sometimes bring in a typesetting job that is all hand written from their client. They knew if they did not have time to have their secretary re-type it into a readable manuscript that I could typeset it and fit it to the layout.
Personally, I have had anywhere from 10 to 50 different jobs in my studio at any one time. And, juggling that many jobs around to get them out the front door takes a lot of planning and expertise to do a good job and satisfy your client. So, you had better learn every bit of knowledge you can about everything pertaining to your business trade. Sometimes you will find a printer for your client when you finish their job. Other times the printer will find an artist for his client.
I had a great deal of clients just because I did everything in-house. They knew they could save time by coming to me for everything. I loved typesetting and could set type at 120 wpm without any typos (back then). The printers liked my work because it was very clean and professional. I learned what NOT to do by working for a local printer part time before I got into my commercial art business. I watched in the darkroom of the printer and I asked a lot of questions. I had a full time job which was shift work. So I could work on my off hours at a local print shop. I didn't request any pay. I swept the floors during the day cleaning up around all the pressroom operations and production department. I followed the finished artwork from the darkroom where they shot all the negatives and burned the printing plates. I observed everything the press operators did while performing their jobs. There were a lot of dirty, sloppy mechanical paste-ups coming in to the darkroom. For every speck of dirt or smudge that was on the mechanical the darkroom professional had to opaque it out on each negative that they shot to make the plates. THAT IS WHERE I LEARNED THE IMPORTANCE OF CLEANLINESS.
For every mechanical paste-up there is a paper overlay giving the darkroom professional and pressman instructions as to what color each particular overlay was to be printed in, whether the type, logo, etc. is to be "dropped out" or reversed, beefed up and overprinted in a different color, etc. Every printer in Amarillo appreciated my work because I respected their professionalism also. After all, you and they are only as good or bad as the finished product. A printed mistake reflects on everyone that had their hands on it.
You will invariably take on more jobs than you can do in a reasonable amount of time. So you begin to become pressured by that one thing that everybody has to put up with but nobody likes. It is DEADLINES. The better you are at controlling these deadlines, the better you will have satisfied clients. After all, you chose this profession, and if you don't like what you are doing: DO SOMETHING ELSE FOR A LIVING.
My first job as an artist was as a paste-up artist for a local freelance artist in Amarillo, Texas. I was there for six months when I took a full time job with The Quarter Horse Journal as a staff artist. There we designed all ads for quarter horse ranchers all over the country. We performed all aspects of production except the actual printing of the Journal.
It wasn't long before I started taking on freelance jobs in my spare time. My clients would come into the Journal on our lunch hour and leave their jobs for me to do. When I got off work at the Journal I had rented a small office space to do my work at night.
I gradually acquired all the equipment it took for me to do all the production work in my own studio. I had my own typesetting equipment: a Compugraphic Headline machine which set photo type on 35mm photo paper which was in rolls. It set headlines in eight sizes from 14 point up to 72 point. I also had another Compugraphic machine which I set all the body type with (anything up to 8" wide). It set type from 6 point up to 14 point. After all type was set you would develop it through a chemical processor, let it dry and then wax, cut and paste it up according to your layout. THERE WERE NO MACINTOSH COMPUTER THEN.
Then I had my own darkroom setup where I could reduce or enlarge my line illustrations or drawings to fit the layout. I even at times could produce my own quick halftones in 65 or 85 lines for quick and fast jobs.
I remember one time a client that had a chemical company where he produced spray chemicals for TV parts. He had me do all of his different can labels, mostly paper wraparound labels from 6, 8, or 12 oz. sizes. But, sometimes he wanted litho labels printed directly on the cans. He had a product that he called Blue Frost. He wanted me to draw some frost for him, yea sure I can do that? He said, "you know, how a windshield looks on a frosty cold morning?" I said, "sure, I'll give it a try. Well I wracked my brain for a couple of days and finally went and purchased a brand new piece of galvanized sheet metal. I took it to my printer friend who did all of the printing for him and told him to put it in his camera and shoot a halftone of it on a negative but to drop the exposure by about 10 seconds. Then I told him to burn a print from that negative and to take the print and shoot a dropout negative for me to work with.
When I finally had the artwork finished I had the printer "drop this image out of the solid background which was a light blue. The dropout gave me the "frost" texture and the can metal itself showed through as the shiny frost. He was very pleased with the end result.
This is some of the things your clients will have you do. Thankfully this does not happen every day! But, you better be prepared for these things to come up.
What To Charge For Your Work
When I first started out as a freelance artist the going hourly rate in Amarillo was around $7.00/hr. I could see right away that was definitely not enough to make a living on much less pay for all of the art and typesetting supplies I had to stock just to stay in business. I raised my rates up to $8.50/hr and some of my artist friends told me that all the printers and agencies would not pay that much. Well, I went up to $9.50, to $12.50, $15, $18, $25 and finally $30/hr. I did notice one thing: every time I went up all my competitors went up just below me. I KNEW WHAT I COULD DO AND I CERTAINLY WAS NOT GOING TO LET ANYBODY CONTROL THAT PART OF MY BUSINESS. Printers are funny people. I noticed they and all their family lived in large homes and drove nice cars. If they could keep my costs down then that was more money in their pocket.
I have had them get very upset with me and go to others to do their work. And, most of the time after about a month or so here they were in my office complaining that their client was upset because someone made a mistake in the typesetting and they had to eat the print job. They would sometimes bring in the paste-up for me to do over and clean up for them. They never complained about my prices from then on.
Be reasonable, but don't let others tell you what to charge for what you do. Just be as professional in every aspect of the business, and IT IS A BUSINESS. As the Bible says, "Count the Cost" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". After you are in business for awhile get yourself a good reputable Accountant. You are working for yourself and your business is paying your salary. So be reasonable and work up to your own salary as you acquire your experience. This is why a lot of artists choose to work for the printer or ad agency. Let them worry about all the overhead.
Eventually I had to hire beginning artists right out of college as pasteup and mechanical artists. Back then we did a lot of ruled forms of all kinds (no computers). I always sat a beginning artist down and asked them to draw me a straight line with the T-square and a rapidiograph pen. You would be surprised how many people cannot draw a straight line with this equipment. All the printers in Amarillo, Texas usually knew that after I trained my helper for about a year that they could hire them away from me and have a good all around in-house artist. I became a school for every printer and ad agency in Amarillo.
It's been a long time since in 1958 I made my own drawing board out of some white pine scrap lumber and started putting a pencil to paper. That's fourty-four years ago and I still love it so much I just cannot get away from it (not that I want to). You name it and I have designed it. I won 20 addy awards for my work and that says something from your peers.
I am very proud of what I have accomplished. It puts a real good deep sense of well being inside of me to hold on to in my "getting older years". After all these years, there are still artists that I have trained working in Amarillo and other places. I sold a few watercolors as time permitted. Now that I am disabled I have so many art projects that I want to do and now that I have all the time in the world to do them, I can't wait to get started on the next drawing or painting. Finally I had to teach myself all about my computer and webpage design. Having a website is a great way to let a lot of people know what you can do. I find sometimes I am spending as much as 16 hours a day on my computer. Then I have to break away to get back to my pencil drawings or whatever art project I am doing.
You have to understand that typesetting is an art all of its own. I enjoyed my typing class in high school. I had a great teacher. I earned 40, 50, and 70 wpm typing pins. After high school I finally could type up to 120 wpm on an old manual typewriter.
There are so many type styles around it makes you want a drink just keeping up with all of them. Every commercial artists should purchase a good book on typesetting. Back in the 60's we went to a linotypographer. They had a great large machine that was as large as a SUV. It clanked out lines of lead type which was then placed in wooden blocks. Then they placed them into a hand press and made you two or three proofs. After proofreading the copy it was then corrected and printed on paste-up quality paper to be waxed, cut up and placed into your finished mechanical.
Now I can sit at my computer and let it do all the work for me. Very few people appreciate the PC like I do.
Everything is still basically the same. Your clients are still wanting a print piece, advertisement, magazine, or even a webpage design. I look at a webpage as just another piece of paper to place something onto to look pleasing as possible. I don't like all those confusing animated graphics you see on webpages now. A webpage should be simple and to the point with a lot of content telling your potential customer what they need to know.
Although, I do believe having some good logo gifs and pleasing headlines is great. I look at webpages just like when reading a newspaper. It has a lot of pages and when something catches my eye I take notice. Sometimes when I am scanning a newspaper or magazine a real good illustration or photo will catch my eye and I become interested even though I am not looking for anything in particular. If I go to the classifieds I usually know what I am looking for. But, generally I think everybody just scans through the display pages until they see something interesting.
I think this is the same when people searches the web for something interesting. There is a lot to learn about website promotion. A search engine takes you directly to all the pages of your particular interest. If you search for "John Wayne Pencil Drawings" you will maybe find my website at the top or near the top of some of them.
I see so many typos on a lot of webpages on the Internet. Typesetting is a very important, if not THE most important part of any design piece. After spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a website and to see it cluttered with a lot of typos is amazing to me. Maybe I am too much of a perfectionist. There are a lot of webpage designers that simply have not acquired the ability to type professionally when what their clients are looking at mostly is a lot of content.
Anyone seeking to be a commercial artist will do well to get a great deal of knowledge about typesetting.
Photography
What can I say about photography other than a good photographer is worth their weight in gold. Photography is an art itself. A commercial artist will generally use photographs in an job they are working on. As an artist you will be working very close with photographers. Through experience you will find that the good ones stick out like a "sore thumb". A good picture is worth a thousand words. And a great photographer is worth a million. Good photos can say a lot and photographers are some of your best friends so get to know them.
Photo cropping and re-touching
It is sad to see how some print piece is ruined by just the way it was cropped. You will be cropping just about every photo you work with in any layout. Sometimes you will have a great photograph except there might be something you have to take out of it to make a more pleasing appearance. Get some old 8 x 10 black and white photos and practice using re-touch grays using brushes and/or your airbrush. You will need this experience sooner or later. Now you can just scan it to Photoshop in your PC and do it. Now you kids see what us old timers went through to finish a job.
Darkroom Production
Even though the printer will do all the darkroom work you really should have a good working knowledge about what is done in the darkroom of a print shop. Needless to say you do need to acquire the necessary knowledge about the darkroom procedures. This is not hard to do. They are proud of their work just like you are. Get acquainted with one and ask a LOT of questions. Follow them around in their place of work without getting in their way. They are interested in their work just like you should be in yours. This knowledge is very necessary and it will certainly save you a lot of time as your are doing mechanicals or working from a PC.
Paper Stock
Another part of your job is to know what paper stock is available at each print shop. Have the printers send their paper salesman by your studio. They will be more than happy to provide you with their designer samples. Get on their mailing lists. They will keep you informed about their new and latest stock. Besides, the paper is real handy to have around when you can do your layout on the very paper your customer might like. Learn all you can about the different kinds and brands of paper stock.
PMS Ink Specification
This is the trade name for the Pantone Color Matching Specifications for the printing industry. Get one from your local printer. You will be using it to specify what colors you are going to use in your layout and/or final print piece. The printer knows what colors to mix to make any one of these colors. Along with the standard process colors Yellow, Blue, Magenta and Black there is no limit to the colors you can use. Learn to use certain percentages of the process colors to make different variations of colors. For instance you can print a great gold color by specifying Solid Yellow, 10% Magenta and 20% Black. And also a great process brown by combining 100% or solid Yellow, 40% Magenta and 20% Blue.
Along with the PMS colors and the standard Process Colors there you have practically an unlimited choice of colors.
Printing
There are what are called quick printers such as Kinko's, Zip Print, Pep Print and any other "quick and easy" name they go by. Some large print shops specialize in every kind of form there is. Then there are those print shops that can do any and all types of print jobs no matter what it is. There are so many makes and brands of print machines as there are print shops. A web press prints on large rolls of newsprint. You will usually find there are printers that specialize in one kind of job. Others are what is called "job printers". They can handle all sorts of print jobs limited only by the size of their press. Some specialize in the production of high quality magazines and brochures, etc.
You should get to know all the printers in your area. Learn which ones can do what kind of jobs. Sometimes your client is someone that comes to you before they go to a printer. Other times a printer will send someone to you to do their artwork. ALWAYS try to send the client back to the printer that sent them to you. You need to be pretty careful about letting all the printing salesmen see all the jobs your are working on. Not all salesmen are reputable. I have had salesmen see what I am working on and then go to the client and undercut the other printer just to get the job. So treat everyone with great respect.
Find out all you can about the printers in your area and stop by now and then and let them see your portfolio and leave your card. They appreciate it. Being consistent is very important in this business.
Just Some Of Your Tools
It certainly is not all just brushes, pens and pencils. You are going to be working with so many tools as a commercial artist that you need to know how to use each one. Below is just a sample of what you will be using:
1 One or two drawing tables
2 A good T-square or drafting machine
3 A light for your drawing table
4 A great variety of graphite pencils
5 A good set of designers permanent markers in various sizes
6 Layout pads of different sizes
7 Drawing paper
8 Stock a good grade of Illustration Board in smooth and rough finish
9 A good set of pastel pencils
10 A set of colored pencils such as Prismacolor
11 A pica ruler
12 An electric pencil sharpener
13 Kneaded erasers
14 Rubber cement
15 A good wax machine
16 An artists taboret to keep your supplies in
17 A couple of 6 or 8 ft. work tables
18 All sorts and sizes of brushes (it pays to buy the best)
19 A drafting pen set with compass
20 A full set of rapidograph pens and humidifier
21 Circle, elipse templates and French curves
22 A set of 5 retouch gray paints and also in pastel
23 Various drawing pens and India ink
24 A pallete to mix your paint in (I used a porcelain butcher's tray)
25 A good comfortable chair
26. A good air brush
This is by no means all the equipment you will learn to use and master. If you can master all of your equipment you will be prepared to do just about any job.
I hope you get what I am trying to say. Learning the commercial art and illustration profession is a very rewarding career indeed. Good luck and by all means HAVE FUN!
