An Introduction

For me this module has been a great opportunity to start laying the foundations for my Business, Boo Dillon Illustration, and an opportunity to research, locate and make contact with a network of like-minded people in order to expand.  I hadn't appreciated quite how many different options and choices are out there, particularly online, when it comes to marketing my work.  I want to select carefully and make sure the calibre of the websites I choose to sign up to, is equal to the quality of the work I mean to produce.  I've done a lot of investigating and researched a great deal of the Illustrators out there, who I really admire, to see which roads they've gone down and I'm trying to tread a similar path.

I started with a Facebook Illustration Page last year and have seen its followers grow to 290 (boosted by The London Book Fair promotional material giveaway this year).  I also have a board on Pinterest on which I upload my work - this is a particularly great way of seeing how your images are working publicly as people re-pin them onto their own boards if they like them.  Other people can pin from those boards and so on ad infinitum - you can see the effect you are having and are also getting your name spread.  I recently joined Behance and see.me and I've opened both a Society 6 and an Etsy account.  My next move is to attach a Big Cartel link to my website once my merchandise is ready to go live.


My Future Strategy:

My method of approach, to start off with, will be stealth - I don't feel that I have a full enough body of work yet to warrant launching myself explosively. I want to get started straight away and have a number of projects lined up ready to go.  I want to build up a more varied portfolio of work and make my personal style stronger and more recogniseable - I need to give myself room to make mistakes. Through my Facebook page and Instagram feed I've already connected with a number of illustrators whose work I really admire and I'd like to maintain these dialogues and chat further to fellow Illustrators, shop owners and keep up to date with any Illustration type events that are going on.  I want to make sure I get out to as many Art/Craft/Zine/Fairs/Markets as I can and TALK to people, give away free postcards and ask if I can leave them in cafe's etc.  Over the years I've been watching the career paths of artists such as Sandra Dieckmann, Kareena Zerefos and Belle and Boo - they started small but with a strong sense of what their style was.  My plan is to make a modest production of merchandise from my Menagerie Series (you can find my research in the promo/products tab) and hopefully get it in a number of shops (online and other) that I've researched as well as on my own page and in Etsy etc.  I would eventually like to look at illustrating more than products, but for now I feel my objective is to get my name and style up there as a recogniseable entity.  To stop myself from 'going stale' and to keep my mind fresh, I'm going to be submitting work into competitions and into Magazines such as Popshot, which is a beautiful print magazine for illustrated poetry.