It’s been that time of year again kids- I’ve got a legitimate excuse for the complete absence of updates in the last two weeks: I’ve been sending out my mailouts! For those who don’t know the industry, as an illustrator you get your work, by and large, by approaching publishers, designers and magazine with examples of your work, writing them flattering/charming/rambling letters and postcards, and getting them so amazed by what you do that they commission you for enormous sums of money.
What I sent people was either a poster or postcard (postcards cost less for my various international friends, and I’m a penniless illustrator), along with a little hand-written letter, as you can see above. I always enjoy handwriting these things because I feel like I want to build a personal bond with my potential clients (or something less ridiculous-sounding), and I’d rather send out fewer individually-written letters than thousands of generic pre-printed cards. What I like to do even more, is draw pictures on the envelopes, because I know that 90% of letters I receive are boring and I hope that drawings on the front will brighten up the day of the people upon whose desks these letters land. I’ve taken a photo of some of my favourite ones, and which is the purpose of today’s update. (Also, these were taken on my phone so the quality is pretty dire). But enjoy!
This one was for a music magazine. You see? Illustration and music coming together!
I can’t remember who this was to. But I’m sure a monkey riding a bicycle conveys some sort of important message.
The Queen playing a guitar? Surprisingly, this wasn’t for a music magazine, but I’m sure the recipient will feel a great sense of newfound appreciation for our monarch after seeing this.
I had this idea of eating the fruit off one of those hats with fruit on it, so I drew it.
This one goes all the way to Portugal, so it deserves an extra wide drawing. I’m keen on fox scarves.
Continuing the bicycle theme, here is Queeny riding a bike. Drawing things around stamps always looks somewhere between brilliant and crappy.
Here’s another music-related one, because gramophones are fun to draw.
But this one, this is my favourite. It’s for a technology magazine-the idea came form while I was tidying my room and found this little robot model, and was thinking about a thing of Your Dreams My Nightmares where someone calls up the show to wind up Sam, but uses one of those “computers-reading-text” programmes to ask firstly if robots will ever replace humans as illustrators, and secondly if Sam could ever love a machine. I wish I could remember which talk that was in though.
So there we have it. That is how I do my mailouts. If by any chance you’ve received a mailout without a drawing on the front, I’m sorry, it’s because I was in a rush to get to the post office before it closed. If you haven’t received a mailout but would like to, just send me a message. If anyone else would like a drawing, just let me know and I’ll make one straight away.
James Albon 