Full time illustration - here we go!
I have been going through many different stages of becoming an illustrator - from hobby to first paying clients, from side hustle to quitting my day job to founding and 2022 is finally the year I can say: I am a successful freelance illustrator In Berlin, I support myself and have a good life only by drawing and that’s huge for me!
Last year I still had the help from Berlin itself. After maternity leave I couldn’t go back to my job, which became obsolete due to the corona crisis so I applied for Gründerzuschuss. It’s a kick start if you want to found your own company instead of applying for jobs while on unemployment benefits. I decided to give this full time illustrator thing a try!
The ups and downs of freelancing full time and my support system
I got myself an incredible mentor, who stood by my side the whole year and was and still am in a mastermind group of amazing women who support, inspire and help each other, so I never felt completely alone. Still there were a lot of insecurities, ups and downs and frankly - doubts.
My mentor Cludia and my during one of our last mentoring sessions
If you come from a long career as an employee, always knowing where the next paycheck is coming from, how much money you’ll get, paid holidays and sick days, payment which is not in direct correlation with your daily performance, then it is hard to jump into freelance waters and lose all of this stability. I struggled and still struggle to let go of control, to have faith. Obviously I’m not talking about sitting around and waiting for clients to find you. I did work out a very specific plan of approaching clients and getting steady income and am diligently working on applying it. I’m sure that is one of the reasons why in my first year of fully supporting myself from illustration, I am doing even better financially then I did while I was employed. Still, even with the best plan and execution, there’s no guarantee. It’s not like you push a button and you get a new commission. It’s trial and error, it’s patience and probably most of all perseverance.
Illustration for the good - implementing my values into my creativity
But let me have a look at what has happened during the past year or so. 2021 I got contacted by Deutsche Umwelthilfe, an NGO fighting for climate protection and got a beautiful, long project with them, the results of which you can still see here: Illustration For Climate Protection.
Once I got the hang of it, I felt so fulfilled and happy to be working on such an important cause, I decided to continue in this direction (the direction of working with change makers and illustrating for good). I was lucky enough to get contacted by another amazing organization in 2022, which is the Special Olympics World Games Berlin 2023 Organising Committee and took on another long term project with them, illustrating inclusive sports. The finished results of this project will be shown on my webpage once they are ready, we’re still working on it.
One of many illustrations I made for Special Olympics
Another project that touched my heart in so many ways, was a children’s book for Ukrainian refugees. I’ve never done children’s book illustration before and I couldn’t have imagined a better start into it. The publishers Rossberg Verlag has done an incredible job of printing and distributing 100.000 of those children’s books for free.
My first illustrated children’s book “Hallo, du kleiner Hase”
I am still loving working with magazines, so I was over the moon to illustrate an article on job applications for women 50+ for Courage Magazin and and article on the passion economy for Flow Magazine (not released yet).
Editorial Illustration for Courage Magazine
I think I can summarize this as I did on my landing page: I am helping change makers to visualize their mission and it is making me incredibly happy and proud.
I want to continue to go in this direction, to work on projects and with organizations that share my values and to leave the world a tiny little bit better and more colorful.
What’s next on the horizon?
My next dream and goal is to illustrate for an organization which supports women in any kind, may it be business, education, rights, equality. If you know of any project that could benefit from my illustrations - please let me know and connect us!
P.S. In part two I will dive deeper into the “how”. Which strategies do I use to organize myself, to approach clients, to find projects and on - so, so stay tuned!