Luc Latulippe

After almost 20 years of freelancing, lately I find I’m guilty of most of these work-from-home no-no’s. Not long ago, I was a great deal more disciplined. I am, however, looking into a studio space to work out of and may have found what I’m looking for at a place called HiVE here in Vancouver.

As soon as I get out of these super comfy pajamas…

drawnblog:

Today as you paint or draw or design, you’ll no doubt enjoy listening to the most recent episode of Radiolab: Colors.

Turns out, blue is sort of a “new” colour. And our puny three-coned eyes will never see as vividly as the Mantis Shrimp and its mighty 16 cones! BOO-YAAH! They see colours we’ll never see, and don’t even have words for.

Ecommerce: 5 Things You Need To Know

I’ve been using Shopify this week and it’s really blowing my mind. 

drawnblog:

Will you be in Vancouver this weekend? If so, come check out the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival! Well-known creators like Ryan Pequin, Tony Cliff (pictured above.. well, not HIM, but his work, duh!), Angela Melick, Ed Brisson, and Rebecca Dart will be in attendance. I will be there too, fawning over them and many others like a well-meaning fanboy! Sweet! 

(via Vancouver’s First Comic Arts Festival Bolsters City’s Indie-comics Cred | BCLiving)

What I’m doing this weekend.

Getty Images Owners Consider Sale or IPO

Emphasis mine. Not sure what’s more intriguing here; the fact that Getty Images may be for sale, or that the owners pay themselves such obnoxiously large “dividends” when the creators (off whom they’ve made their millions) get pennies a pop on the sale of their own images. 

Also: three guesses who’ll buy them if they DO put themselves up for sale. 

So today I stumbled onto a site selling prints of my work, but I’ve never had anything to do with them: http://www.art.com/gallery/id—a430011/luc-latulippe-posters.htm

PLEASE DO NOT BUY THESE. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THEY GOT THERE. I’m looking into the matter now.

Jeez, they picked some really shitty pieces too. I’d never make prints of most of these. I’m pretty sure they swiped them off Corbis. (So, yay, another way to not make money from my own work. Good times.) 

jockohomo:

Midnight Savari - Phantom Galacton

chrisbattleart:

Brilliant, funny, and (most importantly) inspiring speech from Neil Gaiman to those considering a career in the arts. He makes a great point at the 14:10 mark :)

Wonderful words of advice and encouragement to freelancers, newbie and veteran alike. 

Curious about the quality of Society6 t-shirts?

Be curious no more! Mia Hansen ordered one of her own shirts recently, and I was there when she opened the package. We put on our Old-Timey Monocles of Opinionated Judgement, examined, handled, and harumphed, and came to quite positive conclusions. Here’s what Mia had to say:

I ordered one to check out the quality, and found that the preview (left pic) is pretty accurate. The women’s shirt actually has a bit of a scoop neck (rather than the high crew neck in the preview) which is more flattering and comfortable. The preview t-shirt colour (left pic) is also quite accurate. (via mia hansen)

I liked the translucenty “vintage” effect of the blue-on-blue here (particularly of this heather (?) fabric), and the black ink was sufficiently rich to be solid, without being thick and rubbery like some screen-printed inks. I’d like to see a t-shirt with light inks on dark fabric to see how it compares. What do you think?

Ruffles.

Clever way to make the best out of a bad Yelp review! (Also clever way to make me crave a meatball sandwich…) 

(via Ow.ly - image uploaded by @EmbarkCreative (Jala Smith-Huys))

Stick this in your Instapaper. Really fascinating read. Do you use Flickr anymore?

I hadn’t heard about this story until now. Turns out Corbis hired a company called Infoflows in 2007 to develop software to help them track licensed digital content. Four months later, Corbis dismissed them, but kept using their technology and claimed it as their own.

…the court of Appeals saw this case for what it was — repugnant conduct by executives of Corbis who attempted to deceive Infoflows and misappropriate its intellectual property and then cover their actions…

Today I lunched with my favourite Mia, and Una tagged along. 

(via mia hansen: Ladies Who Lunch)

I recently had a very interesting exchange with a fellow illustrator about reps, so I thought I’d share some of what we talked about here. 

I don’t think illustrators necessarily need representation. I’ve said before: An illustrator without a rep is STILL an illustrator. But a rep without illustrators is just someone with nice business cards. (I sound like a big jerk there, and I’m sorry. If you’re a rep I’m sure I’ll hear from you and that’s totally cool.) 

Click the “read more” link to see the full list and read all my opinionated blathering:

This isn’t intended to paint a negative picture of reps; there are a lot of great ones out there but there are also a lot of bad ones. This is mainly to bring up some important points illustrators should think about when deciding to approach one, and how to protect yourself from getting fleeced. I really feel they should work FOR YOU, not the other way around. You are not their employee, and they are not your boss. They should also not push projects on you that you have no interest in, or treat you as an extension of their brand.

It certainly can help you to work with someone who understands your goals—both artistic and career—but very few reps work with illustrators on such a personal level (it’s a hell of a lot of work to do this). The word “rep” is short for “representative.” By its very definition, it implies this person is representing you to potential clients.  

The List!

My biggest piece of advice when interviewing a rep is to ask as many questions as you can think of regarding how he runs his business. Here’s a list to start with, in no particular order:

1. Make sure the contract includes a trial period (usually 3-6 months) so you can see if this is a good fit. (Following this trial period, if you wish to discontinue working together, it should be a clean, no-strings break.)
2. How much commission does she take? It’s usually 25% (which for the record I believe is too high; 10-15% seems more reasonable to me), but I’ve heard some artists give up to 30% to their reps. Ouch! That’s 1/3 of your revenue!
3. What does she provide in return that commission? How much of her own overhead is spent on marketing (A) the agency, and (B) you? 
4. Does he want you to hand over your existing client list? Why?
5. What happens to clients you’ve worked with prior to signing up with the rep? 
6. Does she take a reduced commission (or none at all) when clients wish to go through you, rather than her? If no, why not? Does your contract allow this?
7. Does he expect you to pay an additional fee simply to be represented?
8. Will she actively contact new clients you’ve declared you’d like to work with?
9. Are you allowed to experiment with new styles and change your artistic direction as you see fit? 
10. Does she insist on you spending a fixed sum of money for advertising and marketing?
11. Does she let you choose where you’ll spend your marketing budget?
12. Does she insist you get listed in any illustration directories? (They’re quite expensive, usually around $1500/page.)
13. Does he expect you to pay to be on his website? — If the answer is “Yes,” you should seriously question this. A rep’s website is part of THEIR overhead. Not yours. You (and probably another 30-40 artists) already give them 25% of your revenue. If 30 artists each earn $25,000/year, that amounts to $187,500 going to the rep. If $40,000, that’s $300,000 for the rep. Plenty there for them to hire a good web designer.
14. Can you quickly and easily edit your own listing on his website?
15. Does he include a link to your website from his website? If no, why not?
16. What are things she does to increase business and actively reach out to new clients? The word “actively” is key here; I’m talking cold-calling, and meeting art directors in person. Not just passive stuff like sending out emails or taking out ads in Communication Arts magazine. 
17. Are you free to express yourself however you wish on your own blog? Facebook? Twitter? If no, then what are the rules?
18. Does she also want to act as an art director for your work?
19. Does she have any accreditation in art or design?
20. Does he insist that all communications between you and a client go only through him?
21. Does he intervene between you and the client (in rare cases when there’s a problem)?
22. What happens when a job drags out longer than planned, and the client refuses to increase payment to reflect this?
23. How does she handle unpaid invoices from a client?
24. Does she (A) let you bill the client directly or (B) does she bill on your behalf? (There are advantages to both.)
25. If (B), how soon does she pay you after a client has sent her the payment?
26. Does she insist clients pay a late-fee if they’re behind? How does she enforce that?
27. Is he open to asking for more money on a job, if you feel that job isn’t paying enough? Is he willing to negotiate with the client for more money? (You both benefit after all.) 
28. Are you able to turn down work without fear of ramifications? 
29. How does she feel about work-for-hire and spec jobs? 
30. What’s expected of YOU in this relationship?

Partners in business

This is a business after all. YOUR business. It’s how you pay the bills and (hopefully) how you can save for vacations and retirement. And this is a business relationship, one which should be between two equal partners. Meaning, it shouldn’t leave either side feeling that the other is lording it over them, or feeling as though they’ve gotten the short end of the stick. Both parties should feel the terms are fair to themselves and to the other party. If not, you’ll regret it soon enough.

Illustrators in my experience can be terrible managers of their own business—it’s a left-brain, right-brain thing; business is just not our forte. And often we can be all too eager to jump on board with a rep only to realize later that certain aspects of that relationship are working against us, and we can be left feeling trapped and taken advantage of. Keep your eyes open! And good luck!

And while we’re on long lists, here is Alanis Morissette’s 21 Things I Want In A Lover: 

Hmm… what might this be about?

How Shutterstock Made $120 Million Last Year Selling Photos on the Internet

There is NO WAY contributors to Shutterstock earned an average of $1,100 this past year. Not when you’re selling clipart for $3 a pop, and not with a system that relies on an all-you-can-eat subscription model. But they are after all filing for an IPO, so they’re trying to look like the super-stock company, now that they’re intending to go up against Getty and Corbis. (My prediction: Corbis will buy them in a year, tops.)

Take photos on your iPhone, upload them to FOAP, sell them as stock

Foap is a new stock photography market that curates good images from iPhone users for commercial use. If you’ve taken what you think is a particularly impressive photo, you can upload it via the Foap app. If it’s approved for sale via Foap’s team, it will get added to its own market. If a business or publisher uses the photo, they pay $US40; you get half of that ($US20) via PayPal, and Foap gets the other half. (via Lifehacker Australia)

Hm.