StyLitch Chats With Creatives
Hi I'm Charlotte, owner of StyLitch. On my podcast I will be joined by creatives from various sides of the creative industry, to chat about how they got into their jobs, what hilarious encounters they've had, and what makes them tick. Instagram @stylitch_chatswithcreatives
StyLitch Chats With Creatives
S8, EP 6: Darren Dilieto and His Journey Creating Hireillo
What happens when an illustrator discovers they're awesome at finding clients for other illustrators? For Darren Dilieto, it sparked a 20-year journey building Hireillo, a revolutionary platform connecting illustrators with clients while challenging industry norms.
Darren's story begins in the early 2000s before social media existed, when he created a popular blog called The Little Chimp Society as a central hub for illustrators. Recognizing his talent for networking and connecting artists with opportunities, he transformed this foundation into a membership-based community that offers a refreshing alternative to traditional agencies taking 30% of artists' earnings.
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illo.social/@hireillo
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www.hireillo.com
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Instagram: @stylitch_chatswithcreatives / @stylitch
Hello and welcome to Stylist Chats with Creatives. Today on the podcast, I'm chatting to Darren Delito. He is the creative director and owner of HireLO. I've said that right, haven't I? Yep, yeah, and that actually started in 2005, I believe 2004, 2005. That is so cool that you've been a business owner for that long and like doing your own thing. So you're actually you're a trained illustrator and graphic designer.
Speaker 2:You've got that right yeah, originally I did freelance for a couple years before moving into mostly the admin side of illustration oh nice.
Speaker 1:So how did you come up with hirello?
Speaker 2:well, uh, being being an illustrator, um I. I originally started a blog called the Little Chimp Society, which was.
Speaker 2:I started that a couple of years before there was even Twitter or Facebook, so at the time it was a very popular blog and it was a good outlet for illustrators to post their new artwork, their news, news, gallery exhibitions they were doing, and it was all into one central place. There was a few other creative blogs at the time, uh, like I think, drawnca, um, there was pixel pirates and illustration mundo as well. So there was all of these ones and, um, they're all gone. Now nothing, nothing's left anymore. Social media completely killed all of these ones and they're all gone. Now Nothing's left anymore. Social media completely killed all of that.
Speaker 2:But as a result of that and what I'd been doing as an illustrator prior was in my search for commissions for myself as a freelancer I ended up being better as a freelancer.
Speaker 2:I ended up being better Well, it will, yeah, definitely better at finding clients and then convincing them to hire other illustrators that I thought were more appropriate for the projects that I was being offered, so that that does me no favors whatsoever.
Speaker 2:So I had to kind of I was actually really good at doing that and the networking side and the promotional side of it, but I kind of to make that work to allow me to earn a living. I had to kind of rotate that around and uh, kind of bend the rules in some way. So I took the from the success of the creative blog that I had. I created a new website called Hire an Illustrator Hireanillustratorcom, and what that became was we had a migration of professional illustrators from the Little Chimp Society blog, which joined the new community, and I set that up as kind of a membership-based community. So it allowed me to invest my time into just promoting and working with illustrators and connecting them to these clients, which I was constantly sourcing from being an illustrator to being someone that ran a successful creative blog, to being someone who is the creative director a um, a community of professional and freelance illustrators.
Speaker 1:So that's how that got there it's so cool because, um, when I I think a mutual friend or illustrator put me in touch with you and when I looked at it, I was like this is amazing, like it's such a you can feel the community on it. You can see, you've got all your lists of like people, you've got all your podcast lists, you've got lots of other things going on and how insane that you turned it. You kind of found your strength while you're freelancing and thought that's an idea and like just switched it around.
Speaker 2:That's incredible yeah, well, I also had an interest in um coding, so building websites and writing php and javascript and, uh, working with databases. So it kind of it made sense that I was able to do that, although, although for the the programming, coding stuff, I'm all self-taught, I don't have any formal education in that I have national and higher national diplomas in illustration and graphic design. So that's taking that foundation, which I think there's a lot of brilliant stuff at universities and colleges and so on. But what I found was, especially at the period I did my education, there wasn't a lot of foundation in the business side of it and I know some places are brilliant and other places it kind of still lacks a little bit. But I found that side a lot more interesting.
Speaker 2:Just jumped into that side of it and um, hence the building, making connections with the literature society blog and then directly reaching out to um clients and in. In the same way you do podcasts and meet new people. Um, I used to do a lot of interviews. I used to reach out to different art directors and people I admired and just said, um are you interested in being interviewed for my blog and this? This was um before um, obviously facebook and instagram and all that lot on social influences. So I I got quite a lot of positive reactions to that.
Speaker 2:Um, I think I yeah now, it was, it was right back, because I started the little chimp society blog just as I was leaving college. Um and part of my um final essay, one of the I had to write um 10 000 words on a design company I admired and I decided to write it on. Are you familiar with house industries?
Speaker 1:no, I'm not actually.
Speaker 2:No, they they design fonts they said they've done a lot of film work as well, so a lot of uh titles you'll see half the time they'll be their fonts and I don't want to ruin it. Go and have a look at their website after we're done here and I think you'll go wow, how did I not know about this company?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so I reached out to a guy called Andy Cruz and he's one of the owners, one of the primaries at House Industries and he was straight back with, yeah, happy to do an interview with you. And it was basically me at the time. Keeping it simple, I was emailing him 10 questions, answering 10 questions. He supplied some artwork and I was publishing it on the little chimp society blog. Except, I was able to make lots of connections in that way as a result of that one um, when I did a trip to london, there was.
Speaker 2:Um, when I did a trip to London, there was I can't remember the name of the shop now, but it was a guy who didn't hire. He asked House Industries if he could use some of their work for t-shirts. He owned a little London boutique clothes company in central London and he ended up flooding the market, the japanese market, with their t-shirts and making an absolute fortune off that. But my god. But as a result, I I kind of knew some of this and I went, when I was doing kind of a day trip into london. I went and knocked on the door when it said hello, he invited me in, showed me a load of stuff and, um. Then I got invited to um house industries was having a exhibition in london later that day which I for some reason was unaware of, and I actually got to meet the guys running the company as well, even though it's an american company. It was just all completely coincidence.
Speaker 1:But through just reaching out to people, making these connections and networking, you're just able to get things moving and stuff happens and yeah, yeah, I agree, I think having a network is a beautiful thing and actually like nurturing it is such a it's such a nice thing to be part of and it's a nice thing it must. I definitely get this from podcasts. You must feel this is when you know two people and they start working together and like you're maybe the middleman and they wouldn't have known each other if they hadn't come on the podcast or they hadn't have got in touch with you or you know you hadn't interviewed them, and I think that's it's such a beautiful thing to be able to give back to your creative community like that yeah, no, it's brilliant, that sort of thing I had.
Speaker 2:I had a situation like that recently where, um, I hired one guy to write me a blog post on kickstarter for the higher elo blog and then I hired an illustrator that I thought would be a good fit to create a illustration for the blog and, as a result of them both admiring each other's work, of me hiring both of them. Then, after that, they went on to the author, hired the illustrator to create artwork for a comic series for a new Kickstarter campaign he was working on.
Speaker 1:Oh, amazing.
Speaker 2:So that wasn't even me trying, that was just coincidence that I got connected that way.
Speaker 1:That's so cool. I think you must feel really proud of yourself After 20 years in business and with it you must think oh wow, there's all these people that are connected. You've got this kind of beautiful spider web of illustrators and clients that all work together and kind of meld together. It's so cool. It's like you're a little magician in between.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no, I love that sort of thing, but. But but there is that nagging feeling when you know it's a really, really big job and everyone's getting paid quite well for it and because of the way I work, I don't get a cut. I'm not like an agent. So all these agents, I was going to say 30%. I don't think there's any agents that only charge 30%. I think the minimum you'll see these days is 35%, which I just find ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's their prerogative, but yeah, no, I do love all of this stuff, it's just yeah, it's, yeah, that's the difference in it, I think, is like agencies, that a few stylists I know, um, are with agencies and they're in different situations to myself and they love it because someone's taking care of their invoices and finding the work and chasing the invoices and all this other stuff and I get it because they've got kids or you know whatever. Situations are different but, same as you, I don't think I could be with an agent if they were taking 30%. What's that? If you work five days a week, that's a day a week gone to your agent, isn't it in fees?
Speaker 2:yeah, yep, I, I, I spent almost three months yeah, no, it was about three months working with a client for um I won't say any names, obviously big alcohol company and they paid the illustrator. I think it was just over 20 grand for um full, full rights to one of their pieces to use as part of that part on a bottle and a big campaign and um. I was with them every step of the way. They also got flown out to an opening party, um across across the globe to just be there as the artist that created this piece and um. So, three months. As a result, through their membership fees, I think I got paid. It probably works out about the equivalent of about 60 dollars, whoa. So I don't, I don't mind that, but just I just wanted to put it in perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It happens quite often and I've obviously been doing this long enough. I don't hold any sort of grudge or anything towards that because as long as I make a living, I'm good with that and I get to see all this stuff happening with that and I'm I get to see all this stuff happening. It's just. It's just. It's just I do. I do have sometimes people moaning at me saying why are you charging for this? Instagram doesn't charge me for this. I can do all this stuff for myself for free, but you're not. I'm doing it.
Speaker 2:It takes a lot of work and I literally, if I wanted to. Well, I struggle. I don't have any time for hobbies. I don't have any time. I'd love to be able to create art and do illustrations, and I have. Every so often I force myself to sit down and kind of doodle or put Lego together or something like that. Just, I know Lego is not creative, but it's just using your hands and using your mind and that sort of thing. I just don't have time for it. I spend so much time with admin, which is literally what I do now, but it's the admin side of the artist and illustration job which, at the same time, for a lot of illustrators. They don't have time to do properly themselves because the creative side and the actual creating of the illustration takes up so much time for them yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:It's like it swings around about us, isn't it? And I? I often talk about this on the podcast. When you run your own business, you're wearing about six million hats might be a slight exaggeration, but you're wearing so many hats and then it's really hard to force yourself to have time to do the hobbies that you enjoy. And then you feel guilty for doing a hobby you enjoy because you should be, I don't know, talking to your accountant or chasing an invoice, or pushing your business, doing some marketing or something else.
Speaker 1:There's always stuff to do with that, with running a business, and it's so important to take that time and I can see the Lego in the background as well Very impressive. But I think it's important to take that time to chill out and rejuvenate yourself so that you can give more to your job essentially. But it's hard to do. It's really hard to do and that balance and act. I think we all go, oh, it'd be great being freelance, I can pick my own work in time and I can pick my own clients and all this other stuff, and actually you actually work more than what you would at nine to five yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah.
Speaker 2:You see, you see people that are in-house or they've been at a design firm for like five years and they're like yay, I'm gonna, I, this year I'm becoming freelance, I'm gonna start taking on commissions. Way, look at me go and you you look at them, you think do you know what you're letting yourself in for you? You work with an entire department at the moment. You're you're going to have to replace that entire department with yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah and if you think it's um, just going to be all the fun bits, it isn't. It's all the horrible bits, like chasing for invoices and why is your invoice ended up in a different department under someone who has no idea what you do like? Yeah, yeah, that's what happens. Yeah, dealing with miscommunications.
Speaker 1:Yeah, negotiating negotiating yeah I think that's the worst part. Actually, I find negotiating. When I was younger, I found negotiating really hard. I'm a bit better now, but it is really hard. You kind of like shake as you're writing the email, like I think my worth is this, and you know, oh yeah, I found negotiating quite um interesting recently.
Speaker 2:obviously I've got a lot of experience in doing this and, like almost two decades Well, it has been two decades actually but I help illustrators negotiate their contracts with clients quite often. But I'm in a very weird position because I work with so many different types of illustrator and so many different types of client. I can be literally helping an illustrator negotiate on exactly the same job, so they'll be doing the same work and the client will be expecting the same thing. But, uh, between one illustrator another, the identical job will be maybe, um, a 500 pound job for them, or for the other illustrator it might be four grand.
Speaker 2:There's such a discrepancy and I've I've kind of had to learn and feel my way through to judge, uh, whether this illustrator, looking at their portfolio and their experience, is worth that amount and looking at the client side to see whether, would that client be willing to pay this? Is their return in investment worth it to them? And and how tough is the client? Is the client not going to budge if they say they've got this budget, or will they budge if you can creep it up a bit more? Or are they just trying to pull a fast one and get things for cheap, because the cheaper they get it, the more profit they make, which is just simple business. It's an interesting one and at the same time I need to I'd not be too judgmental, because I don't know the best way to put it. You have illustrators and there's quite a large variety of different worths, which is tough to say because you think all illustrators, if they're doing the same job, they should be paid the same.
Speaker 1:But so much more comes into it than that it's way more nuanced than that, I think and like judging from my point of view as a stylist. There's several stylists who are absolutely fantastic at interiors, so obviously charge that worth. And there's other people I'm good at interiors. I'm not at their level, so I'm not going to charge at their level. But then there's some people who are fantastic but don't charge enough and it's a very uh, I think sometimes I don't know if you find this I think it also comes with age. I feel like it. The longer you've been freelancing and the older you are, I feel like the more you know your worth and the more you can kind of judge compared to others. But I don't know whether that's maybe different in illustration because there's so many different types of illustration. So how can you? You can't really compare.
Speaker 2:No, it is true, um, what I find a lot of it is, um, illustrators change their uh pattern of fees when they suddenly have a client who's willing to pay more. Yeah, if they're subtle, if they're constantly hitting a brick wall, that's all they think they can ever charge and they don't even attempt to charge more. Yeah, um, I quite often uh with well, yeah, not so much. Age is down to experience. I'll have have illustrators who ask me for pricing advice and I ask them what they've been charging previously, if they've worked with a client before or if they've worked with other clients on similar jobs, and half the time it's like you need to double that fee Because that's the other thing. They're charging that half as much. I'm seeing other illustrators charge twice as much and a lot of the time the clients they'll accept what they're offered. Yeah, there's always the argument of who's going to break first when each other's asking what their budget is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's exactly that. And I think sometimes you get to negotiate. Sometimes someone's got a budget or they've got an expectation of what it should be, and not always clients aren't always forthcoming with that. And then sometimes you don't want to play your cards too quickly and then be like, oh my God, this is amazing, Bite your arm off it and you'd be a busy fool. That's the saying, isn't it? Like you're too busy for anything else but you're actually not earning enough. You know, it's a very difficult. It's difficult to have the conversation as well with peers, I think, sometimes because you don't want to upset the apple cart and you know you don't want to kind of be like oh, is this your price? Am I in the right gauge? So I see why people come to you, because you've got a wide range and you're kind of independent from it all as well.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I have it from both sides as well. We're saying about um experience and stuff like that. It comes exactly from the client side as well, so you'll have very inexperienced clients. They won't know what something is worth. They won't have done the maths which I'll be a creative that does do maths yeah, that's what that's.
Speaker 2:One of the things I do constantly is when I get a new job brief coming in and the client's not sure about the budget, I'll be working out um, I'll be looking on wikipedia, looking up the company, seeing their value, seeing their turnover, seeing what sort of items they produce and how much they utilize their assets. So if they can take a single illustration and turn it into a multimillion pound campaign, that means illustration and that sort of thing of value is worth more to them, so they'll have a higher return on investment and that sort of thing of value is worth more to them, so they'll have a higher return on investment. But then you also look at the usage and percentages and large campaigns. You want to kind of be taking a 0.3% of the client's return of investment for large stuff, whereas smaller campaigns or even private individuals who are are commissioning if it's for something commercial, still you're maybe knocking that percentage even up to five or ten percent, because, yeah, so many variable to go into.
Speaker 2:But normally, normally for most jobs, there's a, a mathematical sort of equation you can do where you're working out how much time it'll take, what the value is that's your base rate and then you work out, um, how much time it'll take, what the value is. That's your base rate and then you work out how much the license is worth to the client. Are they asking for all rights? Because then then you've got to knock the rate up because then you've got no further earnings from that artwork that you're creating and it just yeah. It all comes down to numbers and you can work it out. But being able to work it out with so many variables is something that you learn through experience. You can't just say here's a spreadsheet, you do it this way. This is what people starting out just can't get their head around.
Speaker 2:How did you work that out?
Speaker 1:Well, that's a long conversation and it's going to take you 20 years to learn it yeah, and I guess it's changing all the time as well, because, um, it's the same with models when they're booked, they have like a usage fee and there's something out. There's another fee on there as well, from what I remember and it it's working it all out and then knowing your worth, and then taking your tax off, that put the money that you earn, and then taking your like I don't know your other fees off, say running your office or anything else, and then what you're actually left with is your earnings, not the end number that you're paid. But, yeah, it's maths is, oh, figuring it all out. I admire you for figuring it all out, because I would be stumped. I'd be stumped, I'd just be like, yeah, I think it's that, I'd just do it like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, luckily that's for me. That's all I do. That is literally my job.
Speaker 1:So how do you find sorting contracts out for people? Is that something that you started off doing when you opened your business, or was it something that came as more people requested it?
Speaker 2:Well it was. It was basically through necessity. I thought about contracts myself when I first started because I thought it was sensible to do. I realize now I was in the minority. Yeah, yeah, I, I really. I realize now I was. I was in the minority. Yeah, yeah, the contracts, um, even clients, um they'll go. Oh, there's a, you want to have a contract and yeah and it gets done, but I have a lot of time.
Speaker 2:Um, it's only. I'd say the five-year experience mark is a good benchmark. After that point you know whether the client and the illustrator they're both in their respective jobs for the long term. That's what they're doing for a living now, but at that point that's also when there's the realization they need to have contracts and they need to be paid properly for the work they do.
Speaker 2:Yes, so yeah, I read so many contracts. Some of them are absolutely terrible. Others, people just steal them off the internet and wherever they can find them and I look through and you know it's completely inappropriate or there's stuff in there that just makes no sense and it's the the people are worst, for it are the independent authors who are hiring illustrators for cover work for their self-published stuff that they're sticking on amazon because they automatically I don't know whether they find it on Reddit or some other site like that, but there's, there's a contract which I've read it. I've read it a dozen times and it makes no legal sense whatsoever, but it's basically a work for hire contract oh, okay and every time I have an illustrator that says my client's given me this contract, um, is that right?
Speaker 2:uh, do I? Should I sign this? And I'm like, no, no, do not, do not sign, it makes. It makes. Yeah, it's just you're. You're basically handing over your firstborn to them with this contract, and it has nothing to do with your actual artwork, it's just anything you produce while you're in, uh, being hired by this author is their property from that, this point forward, in perpetuality.
Speaker 2:It's just yeah no yeah, but I do see that quite a lot, but normally it's not a problem. I normally source a contract for them or I've rewritten their contracts several times, if the illustrator supplied one is not great.
Speaker 2:And I don't often at all see issues from clients where they go. No, I'm not signing that, because when you have a decent contract, it makes perfect sense for both parties. And the thing is I don't know, I say this all the time if neither party is happy, that's a good contract. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you never want it to be one-sided, you never want it to, um, be such a compromise that it's gone too far into rights going for one thing or not enough rights going that the client can actually use it properly. You just want it to be you.
Speaker 2:You need them to be just completely meeting in the middle yeah and that's, that's, that's how it works, that's that's what a good contract is, and, and on that note, I am actually writing a new artist agreement template where, where I've, I've, I've all basically half of it from scratch. I've got a lawyer looking through at the moment and I should have it ready in about two, three weeks and it's going to be something that I'm going to be offering to pyrolo members and I'm going to have it available. I'm tempted to use gumtree at the moment.
Speaker 1:I'm always an advocate for having your own shops, but I'm tempted to put it up in there for people to purchase as pdf for usage that sounds like a really good idea actually, because I think it would help a lot of people out um in the creative world who maybe get a bit stumped and often like, from my side of things, I just get a client contract, I don't really offer one out, they quite, is not really done, I guess, and you kind of sign their contracts and if you don't sign it you don done, I guess.
Speaker 1:And you kind of sign their contracts and if you don't sign it you don't get paid, basically, um, so you have to sign it. And then every so often something will come up and I don't know say like you get canceled last minute. And then I go, oh, normally, charge for that. And they go, yeah, we can cancel you up to 5 PM the day before. And I go, all right, well, cancel me. And then I log it in my head and go, ah, okay, cool, see you later. Um, I can't do tomorrow. You know it works both ways, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:But, then you have to be. You have to be nuanced and a bit careful about it, because you can't go pissing off clients all the time. But you know, contracts like that work both ways and sometimes you have to drop something because dog's got to go vets or I don't know I had the other week. My tire blew on the motorway. You know, tough shit sometimes, isn't it? You've just can't be helped.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you always read your contracts.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then I fall asleep and then I get, I shake myself back awake and think, oh, yeah, but then, because it's a lot of writing often, I'll look at it and then I go, yeah, I've read that, signed it, and forget it. It's probably not the best thing to admit, but I do forget them. That's the only, that's the only thing. But they're all very similar. They're all very. I could probably pluck five and they'd be along similar lines have you?
Speaker 2:have you ever asked for changes?
Speaker 1:no, because I work for very large companies and if you that makes, no difference if there's anything.
Speaker 2:If there's anything you you're not sure about or you don't agree with, always ask for changes you. You will be pleasantly surprised really yes because I would have thought they would have just told me to fuck off I've I I get illustrators to ask for changes all the time big companies, small companies and most of the time they try to accommodate them oh really, yeah, that's really interesting, it's it's expected that if it's not a great contract, that a uh creative will ask for changes, but there's always the hope that they won't oh, that's interesting yeah so, and and what's the worst they're going to do?
Speaker 1:say they'll just say no yeah, and then it's up to me whether then yeah, then it's take it or leave it yeah it's that simple.
Speaker 2:Or or you use the contract as a negotiating point, saying I'm not sure about this term, but I'm happy to keep it if we can knock my fee up to this amount that's clever, because that's, that's what they're paying for what is being? Uh announced the terms of the contract, so that's that's where that comes in what a clever way of using it as a negotiating tool.
Speaker 1:I'd always just gone okay, read it, I'll sign it. Okay, complain to me a brav about it. And then, yeah, I do think it's hard, though, like we were saying earlier, when you start as a freelancer, there's so many kind of things that could trip you up, or that people just expect that it's going to like, they just kind of go. That could trip you up. Or that people just expect that is gonna like, they just kind of go. Oh well, I'll just accept that as part of being a freelancer. I mean, I've been freelance for like 12 years, 13 years, something like that, and I never knew that I could negotiate on a contract.
Speaker 1:So now you know learn something new every day. Yeah, so when you were illustrating, what was your kind of style, what was your, what were you, what were your projects like?
Speaker 2:well, um, oh, I drew quite complex cartoon mazes. Oh, cool, so I it's. It comes down to that. I'd always been interested in organizing lots of data and I'd always, uh, been quite creative and, like, always drawing sketching. I thought from a young age that's what I thought I was always going to do and that's what everyone else thought I was going to do. Um, but also, um, I, in a weird way, I'd always been collecting data points and creating complex systems.
Speaker 2:I used to I'm going to sound really old now On my ZX Spectrum I'd always be getting the magazines and you know I don't know whether you know or remember at all you'd get the magazines with the pages and pages of code for typing in your program that you could then run on your spectrum system. It was like when you used to get free cds or magazines, but it was, it was text, so you'd get, you'd get all this code right in it and then you'd be rewarded with a small little adventure game or a pattern that appeared on the screen oh, that's cool but I I use that for um, creating um kind of like databases.
Speaker 2:So I'd spend um several days um this is going to sound weird knocking on all of our neighbors doors asking what their names were. Um, so I could put them into a database with the their front door number, so we could organize it, and but then I'd have a database system which, on my quite um archaic computer now, which we could use for sending all the christmas cards no, no, put names, which names? And I must have been, if I had to guess. I was maybe eight or nine years old when I was doing that.
Speaker 2:So when it, when it came to illustrating in a professional manner, I was drawn to creating complex patterns. So this this materialized in um creating um kind of one job I did, which which was a kind of a quite a small, minor job. Uh was, there was a company called moody bill, moody buddha, who created lamps, um, and I created a wraparound, uh, repeating pattern of um little skeletons which created a maze pattern throughout the thing and wrapped around the entire lamp that's cool but that that was the sort of thing I was doing and it felt like, um, something that was slightly different.
Speaker 2:I did celebrity, some celebrity portraits for my personal portfolio where I would have, uh, several different, um, celebrity chefs. But looking at it now it probably looked like I'd drawn them with all broken limbs, but it was flat on the page and it was their arms and legs, all at different right angles, all connected together with fingers going off in different directions. So it was a cartoony image with, like, gordon ramsey and jamie oliver and oh, I can't remember the name of the other chef, but anyway it was. It was a cartoon portrait of all of them, but in a big maze pattern.
Speaker 2:And I did that for politicians and I did old series and then did one of clowns and but, yeah, I did attract clients with that, but, um, they essentially wanted different types of work and, um, although they were asking me to do it because they liked the general style, they didn't want the maze stuff. But then, as I said earlier, I I started suggesting other illustrators and it kept going that way and a few times I had the same clients come back to me asking me whether I knew anyone that'd be suitable for this job or that job, and yeah, yeah so yeah, I could have carried on with the illustration, I think, and could have, my style would have matured, but I, I went in a slightly different direction.
Speaker 2:I, I, I made up a job which didn't exist at the time. Really, obviously, there's job recruiters, but not for that sort of thing and they're not generally independent yeah, I think it's a really like, a really cool thing that you've done and like.
Speaker 1:Your journey is so cool that you came from like an illustrator and kind of have nuanced it. It's like you've honed in on what you could have done with you could have done with someone like you 20 years ago and like what a cool thing to like. Like we said earlier, like give back what is? This might be quite a hard question actually, but what's the hardest thing do you find about running your business, other than we were saying earlier about needing a break or let burn out? What's the hardest thing that you find?
Speaker 2:oh, it's definitely turning off. It's, yeah, even even like, uh, when it's later in the evening turning off my phone, um, making sure I'm doing something, relaxing it's. You still know, when you work for yourself, uh, when you self-initiated projects, essentially that it's hanging over you and it's not going to get done until you do it. Yeah, and and I I think I don't know whether I've mentioned already, but the way I tend to work, like the way I'm talking at the moment, is our start task, and, although I'm dead silent, I sit in front hunched over my laptop or looking at my screen. I'm it's like I'm running a hundred meter sprint. Constantly. It's and I need to do this, I need to do that, and it's just, it's non-stop. And this is actually um, a problem I've had, and I sympathize with a lot of other people that um, run their own businesses like, like yourself, is it's so easy to fall into that trap and end up in complete burnout, and just that.
Speaker 1:That's the aspect that I find most difficult about running my own business yeah, I think burnout's a very real thing for us creatives owning our own businesses and it's so hard to switch off. It's one thing I found that has helped me the last year maybe was I got a personal phone, so my work phone gets turned off. Generally by now it's normally turned off and that has all my social media, and this really annoys my husband. But I don't have any banking apps on my personal phone because for me, if I'm on my banking app I'm going oh, that bugger hasn't paid me that person's due me money and like it's. I'm still switched on with business.
Speaker 1:So the only way I've found to switch it off is to literally have a burner phone essentially that's like a tenner a month whereby I just like turn it off. There's not many people who have that phone number. I love all the people I work with, but not everybody has that number because I don't need texting about work at nine o'clock at night. Do you know what I mean? Um, I think it. It's helped me, but it's not always feasible to do it either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Two years ago my phone. I turned all of the notifications off. Oh amazing For all of the different, because we've got several different social media accounts and there's always something going on new messages or notification this, that or the other. But I still get this feeling when I pick up the phone and wonder why isn't it buzzed? Yeah, or you feel it buzz in your pocket and you know it.
Speaker 1:you know it hasn't yeah, oh, that phantom buzz is so weird, so weird and I think as well, like because nowadays we have so many social medias that are available to us to promote our work and promote ourselves on. People also think that it's acceptable to message you about work on these social medias at whatever time in the day, and actually we're not always accessible. Maybe we're just scrolling to disassociate for the day or because we're finding some nice pictures to look at, or maybe I don't know maybe you're talking to friends, like I've got a few friends in different countries that I chat to on Instagram doesn't always mean that I'm available to chat about work, but it's so hard to turn the work switch off, especially when it's your own business, because you're like, if I'm not nurturing it, nobody is and you mentioned friends I have.
Speaker 2:Well, I'd say a majority, if not all, of my friends are people I work with. So that becomes difficult as well, because it's only occasionally we do personal social stuff with people that we're friends with who are people that we work with as well. But there's still the expectation from um the people that let's call them work friends, um that you're there as a friend to lean on yeah yes I do.
Speaker 2:I do have a few that, um, it can be. They'll send me a quick message, which is something very work related and it should take, uh, like two or three minutes if that, and it's something you can just answer quickly. But it turns into them offloading an hour or so rant, and this is in like half six in the evening when you're in the middle of cooking dinner and you've got them in one ear and your headphone connected to your phone while you're cooking a stir fry. But it's it's difficult to draw the line, because when you do say something, they completely understand and it it's fine. But other times you don't mind because you you feel you could do the same to them if needed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Although, because you're aware of it, you never do. Yeah, especially with the length of time we've been freelancer and the connections you make, it does become such a blurry line, doesn't it? It's a tricky subject to navigate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, massively. And I think with my really close friends, if I don't message back immediately, they're not bothered. If it's three days and I've not messaged back, they're like hello, are you alive, are you okay? What's going on? And I think with work stuff now, because I don't answer straight away. I think the expectation is that I will answer at some point, but it's not going to be immediate and I think that takes the pressure off me and the pressure off them to feel like they have to answer me straight away, because sometimes I get excited and I'll go in a flurry of texts or voice notes and I'll be like, and then forget my boundaries as well, and sometimes you're like, oh, and then you never guess what, and then this happened, this happened, this happened this, and then you've sent a seven minute voice note.
Speaker 2:I would have been better calling them yeah yeah, my other problem is that, um, about 60 of our members on higher elo are based in the us. Oh, so I I'm dealing I'm dealing with different time zones all over the place and a good uh, half of that they.
Speaker 1:They wake up just as I'm finishing work, so yeah, yeah, fun yeah, that's almost like your time zones are weird as well, because then if it is something urgent, oh god, I could. Yeah, I can see how you're close to burnout. To be honest, I can see it. I can see it because I can. I could feel myself then going, oh god, but then what if an email came in and it was seven o'clock at night our time, but 7 am their time, or 8 am their time, and they needed to know by 10 am and it'd be midnight, and I could just feel myself going like, oh god, I is that how it feels for you well?
Speaker 2:yeah, I run a small hosting company as well, uh, which I do kind of um indirectly. We don't have a website or anything else, but it's through the connections I've made over the years. I host people's websites, but I I have, on the odd occasion, uh, my website's not working, my website's down, and it's like nine in the evening but, it's, it's normally. I, because I've got a lot of experience with that I can always solve things relatively quickly, but for them it's the start of the workday yeah, so so what?
Speaker 2:what do I do? Do I do I ignore it until the next day and leave them hanging?
Speaker 2:or yeah, the thing is the thing is with website hosting, um, most of the time what you're being paid for even though half the time it's a pittance, um is they're paying for the support because server space is it's. It's quite, it's actually quite cheap. But people tend to host their websites, especially if they can, with people they trust, rather than somewhere like godaddy who doesn't care about you in the slightest. You You're just another number on their call sheet or whatever they're. Just if they can help you they will. But for me, I'll go out of my way to make sure everything's working correctly and that's why I have some clients where they first started up hosting 15 years ago with me and every time they've got a new website, a new client they're working client they'll come back to me again to add it to their account Because they can go with a large company. It'd be slightly cheaper, but they know I'm there if they ever need me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're paying for your expertise and your service and it's like you say, it's probably better than one of the bigger ones. I think I'm with one, two, three reg, maybe yeah, well, that'd be for your domain name they do host. Yeah, yeah, yeah they. I think they host as well but have have.
Speaker 2:If you've ever needed support, have you ever spoken to the same person?
Speaker 1:probably not, no, probably not. That's the issue, isn't it? And then, especially if you're not, if you don't fully understand what's gone wrong with your website or whatever, and then you're speaking to someone and then you're like right now I've got to start all again because that person's not there or it's a robot or whatever. I think you know that's the difficult thing. It's really interesting how you've gone into like the data side and like the, the kind of hosting and the whole kind of network.
Speaker 2:I think this is really intriguing, because I think you found your niche and you were like let's go well, yeah, the thing is I knew how to do it all through, just, uh, time and experience and having an interest in it. And for the illustration side, um, for the illustrators I work with, they all generally all need their own personal website, so it just made sense to kind of offer that service.
Speaker 2:But, as a result of that, because a lot of illustrators, when they're starting out to supplement their income because they've had to build their own website, they offer to build websites for other people. So then they normally need hosting for that as well and as a result, I've got, uh, several different hosting clients. One runs um, a large industrial roofing company, I've got um, a music producer that I host their website, and a fitness coach. It's just, yeah, it just it all kind of branches out from there. But I purposely, with all the stuff I do, I don't push it too hard. I try to keep things manageable because there's only one of me and we actually talked about this before you started recording this podcast, didn't we? That outsourcing work and tasks is difficult when it's something that's specialized yeah that there are.
Speaker 2:There are people that can do the same job as you, but you find they either cost the same or they cost more. So and if if they don't have the same experience as you, you have to train them up. So if there's a job you can do in 10 minutes, do you really want to spend three hours or a day training someone else to do a job that you can do quickly to? You will also have to pay them for the time you're training them and it just it's. It's a difficult to break through that aspect and there must be, there must be a point or threshold where it makes sense to do it.
Speaker 2:But for people like us, it's. It's very difficult to get to and there has to be a lot of investment outlay from the from the start to be able to create a business in that fashion. For me, I'm just it's me and my other half, morgan, who helps me manage a lot of the admin and, uh, does a lot of the kind of creative stuff like thinking up different blog posts or social media posts, that sort of thing, and also manages a lot of the bookkeeping. That's good yeah.
Speaker 1:I think it's good that you're working in that partnership as well, and you're so right. It's so hard to find somebody who gets it and also it's very difficult when we have our own businesses that are kind of like our babies, it's very difficult to hand part of it to somebody else and fully trust them to do it in the way that you would do it. That's the hardest thing, I think.
Speaker 2:And not to have them do stuff and then redo it all yourself afterwards oh, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:Not like have to follow your own footsteps again. Like that's, yeah, that's a massive part of it, I think. Um, it's yeah. I mean like for for me with the podcast. I'd love to pay somebody to edit it, but I can't afford it, so I have have to do it myself. The same with the. I do have an accountant, which I pay for, because that side of things blows my mind. Like we were saying earlier, maths is not my strong point.
Speaker 2:Plus there's penalties if you get it wrong.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, which scares me shitless. So I'd rather pay someone else to do that, I'd rather go to work for a day and pay him, and that's the only outsourcing I do, or it'll be. My poor husband gets like what do you think of this? What do you think of this, what do you think of this? And he's like, well, I don't know, I'm not a creative, I don't know, try it, see. And then you have to try lots of different things and it's just so hard to give up a part of your business that you've grown for yourself and for your partner, and to have your own living off. But what's the best part of having your own business?
Speaker 2:Completely contradicting what we just said Getting to hire writers and illustrators Personally, getting to hire them to create stuff for our business that's cool yeah, so not not outsourcing the actual job I do, but um it's um allowing me to do what the clients which I introduced to illustrators do and um art directing it, and I just love that sort of thing and supplying the brief, supplying sketches to give the illustrator inspiration of where to start from when I'm looking for something specific.
Speaker 2:Or writing summaries for authors to base a blog post off or copy that we need. Just saying that there. I do like to try and give people chances, so I sometimes look for writers or illustrators that don't have maybe as much as experience as I'd like, but there has been the odd occasion where, as I as I said, we we've asked them to write something, we've uh paid them to write for us, uh, but then they've sent it in and I've basically rewritten nearly the entire thing, which, which I don't mind because there has to like. Like, if you were to uh call in sick for a day but you had to hire someone to cover your shift, you would still want it to be to the standard you expect yourself to do, don't you?
Speaker 2:yeah and the thing is, someone that's working for you who's inexperienced, might not be able to grasp that concept, because what they've produced is to the best of their ability, but if you were to hire the same person two years later, their best of their ability is going to be exponentially better. So that that's the thing, that's the important thing about experience, which a lot of people miss because they just see tasks and jobs as something you do rather than something that you accomplish.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I think it's really important to remember that we all accomplish little things, like if I looked at myself five years ago and then saw the work I was doing now, I'd be like we're doing that, wow, cool, you know, like it's kind of and forgetting that, actually, but at the time you thought it was amazing yeah, yeah, yeah, and like now I'm like, yeah, I've done that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, shrugs you know, yeah, cool, um, but I think, yeah, when you're younger as well, you just take. You take jobs because you're just trying to gain experience and you're trying to better yourself, and you do it like you say, you're younger as well, you just take, you take jobs because you're just trying to gain experience and you're trying to better yourself, and you do like you say, you're doing the best of your ability in that moment. Yeah, oh, it's so, it's so nice that you give people a chance like that as well.
Speaker 2:What are you it costs too much. Yeah, I, I'm always. I'm always telling illustrators they need to charge more. They need to charge more, they need to charge appropriately. I'm telling clients they need a larger budget. So I can't be hypocritical when it comes to that. Annoyingly, it costs me an absolute fortune. Sometimes when I hire people, especially people I've worked with, where I know what they've charged clients in the past, I'll be negotiating with them and because I've given them the confidence and they're working with me, I'm ending up paying double what they're charging other people, frustratingly.
Speaker 2:But I cannot begrudge them that it's fine.
Speaker 1:But yeah, at the same time you need, like a mate's rates discount.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, oh, the worst thing is when I see illustrators um where I know I would pay them x amount, where they're working for certain clients for free oh, that does my head.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the and they're grateful for it. Oh, no, it's the. Um, we get it in our industry where it's oh, you'll get paid in exposure, in air quotes, and that can get in the bin. There's nothing wrong with doing like personal projects and like I do, test shoots and stuff, and it's all personal and like you both have between me and a photographer, it may be 50, 50 ideas, or someone asks you to come on board and it's their idea and you're like, yeah, I've got props for that or whatever. But it's not to sell a product that you're styling. It's not to say to get I don't know Nivea stuff and for Nivea, if that makes sense, it's for you guys to practice and then maybe pitch out to clients. But it really frustrates me when creatives kind of get hoodwinked into doing shit for free, because then it devalues the whole industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, completely, especially from my point of view. I see it with illustrators on certain jobs where you'll have a cover art for, say, a magazine and you'll have the magazine do an open call. You'll have a, I'd say, a semi-experienced illustrator. Do it with the hope of getting more work, where I know a month ago they paid 800 or a grand for the same work when they hired someone individually.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just the money. The money's there, but it's always. If the business can make more profit, they will. That's what they do, and they legally have to because of when they are owned by shareholders. Yeah, because it's the way the laws work. If they can get away with making more profits and the shareholders get more, it's their legal obligation to do so, which, which, which is, is horrendous when you think about it yeah, that's really horrendous, isn't it yeah, but that's that's what you need to keep reminding yourself when you're negotiating, working with these companies.
Speaker 2:But yeah, yeah, you'll have the people you're dealing with which are more sympathetic and they'll try to get you paid, but it's the higher ups which their job is disconnected from the creative side and the actual workers. Their job is to satisfy the share price, satisfy the shareholders, and that's literally how it works, and it's really cold and really harsh and a really horrible environment. But you need to keep that in mind. That's what you're working against when you negotiate these fees, you negotiate these contracts, and that's why you get um not not so much at the moment, but there was um maybe five years ago. It was everything being pushed towards crowdsourcing and it was because that was free marketing um and it had lots of people working for that company, free.
Speaker 2:They had contracts where uh didn't matter what you submit, they owned full rights to it, and it was get maybe several thousand uh artists, illustrators to submit work. We owned rights to everything. So that's a huge archive and then we'll, we'll, we'll choose a winner and um pay that winner. Maybe uh 500 pounds or a thousand pounds, which is a lot of the time, would have been less than what they would have paid if they had hired an individual freelancer. But at the same time, what you don't realize is normally there's an agency working behind this campaign who have pitched the campaign to the company and they they're charging the company, say 10, 10, 15 grand, so it's it's kind of it's that um, really hobble, trickle down effect where there is the money but it's not going to the people that are actually doing the work yeah, yeah, I can't really add to that, because I see that as well, yeah yeah, no, it must be so common.
Speaker 2:Especially, yeah, do you a lot of low-paid interns in the sort of work you do?
Speaker 1:They're trying to stop it a little bit now, but I think more so. In London there's a lot of paid interns and that means that it pushes out certain classes of people.
Speaker 2:It pushes out certain creatives. Yeah, you have to have a lot of privilege to be able to do a position where you're getting paid next to nothing, you've still got really expensive rent to pay and bills and everything else, because, yeah, very few people can actually do that no.
Speaker 1:So, um, I do think it's getting better, but I'm not in that part of the photography world now, so I don't really see it. Mostly the people that I work with have studio assistants who are paid either a decent day rate or they're full-time and they're you know, there's not really interns anymore. There's maybe the odd work experience person who comes for like a week, but it's not like an internship really. But then, like I say, I'm not in the high end fashion side where, like you know, fashion magazines and stuff used to do that quite a lot, but it's a hot topic of discussion because it is a sign of privilege really to be able to do that, cause I couldn't afford to go and work for free for three months no way on this earth, let alone like somebody who is wanting to be in a creative industry but has comes from a background where somebody can't even afford to pay the rent that you need to pay in london or you know, and they've got to travel in and all sorts of things. So yeah, I think it's travel.
Speaker 2:Travel cost a fortune, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:oh, did, I, did I see the other day.
Speaker 2:Um, I think I saw in a headline that, uh, the lond London Underground is the most expensive public transport in the world now, which I think overtook France or something.
Speaker 1:That doesn't surprise me but also, isn't that disgusting?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's subsidised as well, isn't it? The London Underground?
Speaker 1:Oh God, yeah, I've got a. Actually. You've just reminded me I do need to buy some train tickets to go into london. Actually, oh god, I should have probably done that about four months ago. But yeah, it's so expensive like this is why I don't really do jobs in london anymore, because it's just too expensive to go down. It's not worth it. I don't know how creatives are surviving in London, to be honest, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Privilege yeah, yeah, yeah, no, probably yeah, they're all lovely, all of the London illustrators I know they're all amazing and they're really good at their jobs, but at the same time, a lot of them own property there where they have no mortgage, which is either done because they got in early, they inherited it, but it's just. I don't. I know there are the odd few which pay an absolute horrendous fortune on rent, which I have no idea how they do, but it does come down to that uh background privilege allowing you to do certain jobs like that. Because, yeah, how, how does any normal I'm gonna say normal with air quotes person ever afford to do that?
Speaker 1:yeah, exactly, and I think, like people are even getting outpriced in manchester now you know it's becoming expensive to live there and you know it's. Hopefully it doesn't turn like london and go super expensive, because I think it'd destroy the creative scene. Um, you know, and there's some bloody lovely creatives up there, but yeah, I don't know how people do it.
Speaker 2:I really don't, well, I do I do an annual illustrator survey, which, um, I call the state of illustration and, um, I think I'm working on one at the moment which will be the eighth published report, except, ok, so 2023. So we record people's, it's all anonymous. We record people's income and we had, for the UK, we had six illustrators who earned over200,000 in the last financial year. Wow, yeah, you say wow, 2024? Zero.
Speaker 1:Oh shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, none. I don't know why that was, whether the same people didn't have a partner survey. The survey was done by 1 1492 um illustrators. The year before it was done by uh, 1580 or there ish um, so it may be coincidental, because you can only?
Speaker 2:all this stuff is guesswork at the end of the day, yeah but it's just surprising because every year prior to that, there's been maybe four to nine illustrators in that range. In the uk there's there's always more in the us, um, because, uh, I do a conversion on the currency, so each you got europe, you got uk, you got us and um, I do it measured off the uk brackets with the equivalent us value at the time, whatever the conversion is, and there's always um around 20 plus um, us illustrators in the 200 000 plus mark, so, but that always stays consistent, whereas in the uk it's just been slowly dropping each year. Yeah, there, and what makes me worried is there was more in the, I think, 62 to 75 000 range, um, but I don't know with the numbers above that, uh, below the amounts below that, staying around static so I don't know whether the ones that were earning more have dropped or um, because it's anonymous, I can't correlate individuals to their age groups in the same way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it may be.
Speaker 1:The ones that were earning a lot were at the end of their careers and they've retired it may well be like you say, they hit their peak in their career, hit the 200 grand mark. They thought, cool, I'm 55. I can retire now because I've earned enough money and maybe they've retired early yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, 2021, I think it was 2021, we had 3,600 illustrators doing a survey, so it's quite for an independent, independent survey. That's quite a lot. Yeah, I don't know when you're watching tv, um, and you see um, like this makeup was tested on, um, written a small text on tested, got on 20 people and 71 said this. And that's what they're using a big l'oreal campaign. So it's where they've just sent someone out on the street with the clipboard and, uh, they've nabbed people saying, can you do the survey? And they've collected 20 people. That's it right, big advertising campaign.
Speaker 1:Here we come yeah, you're so right. So what are your goals for the future? Is there anything you're aiming for? Is there anything? Where? Is there anything you can talk about that you're aiming for? Is there anything that you really want to achieve in the next few years? Um?
Speaker 2:I think we just need to push growth, uh, increase the size of the community, and I think adding more assets to what we offer would be a good idea um, well, I'm doing this podcast with you now, but I've I've been talking with one of my colleagues for months about us doing a general um monthly or every other month podcast where we just talk about general creative news, um different equipment that we're both using, like what's going on with new monitors or Wacom pads, the Apple Pencil stuff that illustrators use, talk about contracts, talk about pricing. So podcasts would be a good direction. Maybe revitalising our YouTube channel for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:We haven't posted anything on in about two years. I've been doing personal stuff to try and get myself more comfortable on camera and get myself talking more naturally instead of sounding really, really awkward when I say things. But apart from that, I've got the new contract template which I've been working on that I'm hoping to sell to people. What else is there? We've got the illustrators survey, which I've got a new version of that coming out soon. More blog posts hiring more illustrators ourselves.
Speaker 1:So I will ask you one other question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go on.
Speaker 1:What inspires you? I love hearing people's responses about this.
Speaker 2:Well, it's going to be so cliche. It's just artwork and art. I love illustration. I love looking at illustrators' artwork. Going back to the start of our conversation with the Little Chimp Society, one of the reasons that I started it to a degree was ease of use for me. It just allowed me to go to one central place and see all of the different um artwork that all the different people I admired were producing because, as I said before, it was before facebook, it was before twitter and um, I was subscribing to maybe 60 70 rss feeds. I'm assuming you know what an RSS feed is.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'll probably just fill the listeners in RSS feed is. So on my podcast host I have an RSS feed which then logs into it, then sends everything out into Spotify, apple music. Without the RSS feed the podcast would not be on any platforms.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of like a, a midway point, I guess, between me and the big guns yeah, there used to be several different applications that you could use for subscribing to different rss feeds and most websites. There'd be a little icon that showed where you could click on it and it'd bring up their rss feed.
Speaker 2:So for blogs like, uh, wordpress and stuff, they still.
Speaker 2:You can still subscribe to rss feed if you can find an application to do it. Um, I actually use one called net newswire, which is an open source one which is still going, which actually works quite well. So so it's's still possible to do that stuff, but it was a lot of work keeping track of things and people didn't always update their blogs, but when there's a chance, they could use a centralized blog. In the same way, people use social media, they have a tendency to post their newer stuff and keep it going. So, creating a blog which I ran, I was able to customize it to stuff and keep it going. So, creating a blog which I ran, I was able to customize it to however I want it, even though it was accessible to other people, and then have all these amazing illustrators all posting their work in one place which I could just check each morning, and, and, and for me as well, I got to see it before anyone else because I had to go in and edit things and approve stuff.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, yeah but I it's I literally do what I do, uh, because of my love of illustration. It's, yeah, it's what I really love doing going going to exhibitions, when I can as well, looking at different stuff, uh, buying stuff from illustrators, buying, buying prints, buying stuff they produce, trying to get hold of original artwork. It's yeah, I have to be careful I don't spend too much money on that stuff. It's easily done.
Speaker 1:It's definitely. You can definitely feel the passion you've got for the illustrator community and, like, I can definitely feel it from you and I think it's so lovely the things you're doing for the community and I'm so excited to see where your business goes and see where you are in five years, because I think you're going to look back and be like, oh shit, I've been going 25 years.
Speaker 2:oh my god, yeah yeah, oh um, I you were talking about what inspires you. I was having a look at some of your stuff earlier and do you buy all your props because it's stuff you love.
Speaker 1:Yes, so I.
Speaker 2:Because the glassware was really interesting.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you. Yes, so some of the glassware actually we've inherited from my husband's late grandparents. Some of that is vintage, some of it's really old, really old. Some of it I found from local charity shops. I think, without sounding too morbid, somebody had a house clearance and there was loads of stuff in the local charity shop that got quite cheap. I've also, much like you, I've commissioned potters to make me stuff. I have some platters made by local artists in Home Firth I just love.
Speaker 1:Really, do you know what? This is going to sound so weird? There's some things that in my house I love weird trinkets, right, we've got weird vases. We've got weird prints. Much like you, I like to go to art markets and find nice prints and artwork and things, but when it comes to my work, I see it with a different eye, like a commercial eye almost, but I still find beauty in these things that can be used for a commercial use. I one day would love to have my own prop shop, but I think I need six figures to just start it up because I need to go and source all this stuff.
Speaker 2:Not to mention storage.
Speaker 1:Yes, and coming onto storage at the moment, I've got so in this room. Actually, I'm in the top room of our house and there's a tiny en suite, and we've never used the shower because it's full of shelves, full of my props.
Speaker 1:So if anyone thinks it's glamorous being a stylist. It really isn't, but yeah, I think it's. It's holding on to these heirlooms as well. And it's such a joy to go on a shoot, which actually I did the other week, and I took all of my glassware with me and it was all. 90% of it was my late, my husband's late grandparents glassware and I think that's so nice that it's getting a different use to what they would expect. It's not sat in the cupboard, getting broken, you know, or the nieces and nephews coming around opening my cupboards and they're getting slung everywhere or anything like that, but it's got this nice different use and I think I love that. I love the fact that these glasses might not they might still be here when I'm not and I think there's just a nice kind of juicy kind of story to them yeah, my other half loves vintage stuff.
Speaker 2:Um morgan, um, they, um, oh what's? I can't remember the correct name for it, but you know the kind of the radioactive glass oh yeah the green, and then you get some of the purple and all red ones we've. We've got a few items like that which they, they absolutely adore, yeah they might love pear mill in stockport.
Speaker 1:So if you feel like a day out is a little bit far, there's a stall in there. It is a vintage. There's lots of different stalls in there. It's in an old mill. There's a lovely cake and coffee shop at the end and, um, there's a stall holder that has some of the nuclear glass, if you will I don't know what, um, but they have loads.
Speaker 1:So I mean, if you've got some spare cash, maybe go for a day trip, but, um, pear mill is one of my favorite places to go and I can be absorbed all day and I come out, I'm going to confess, often with something and it's dangerous to take the van. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we search. Obviously there's eBay and stuff, but we mostly charity shops when we get the chance.
Speaker 1:So we were in a Sue rider earlier yeah and my other half picked up um an old knitting pattern book for vintage dolls it's all that kind of little stuff and yeah, I love like there's quite a lot of charity shops here in home firth and I haven't been actually for a while and there's so many good things, especially if there's been a house clearance or you know. I found a really cute serrated knife that's specifically for cutting tomatoes, which looks amazing and it was like three quid, like yeah bad never know if I'm gonna use it, but I like it, so yeah and you can put it down as a business.
Speaker 2:it if you really need to, exactly.
Speaker 1:And this is why we're building a shed, so it can be half tours, half props and anyone who comes to Burglar it'll be really confused. Well, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast and thank you so much for telling me all about your journey and about your lovely business and everything else. I've just really enjoyed our chat today. Thank you for having me.
