Interview with Josh Eacret
The first interview for DC that we do is with Josh Eacret, an illustrator and graphic designer. You know him from the forums as jecrt. He is always nice to young designers and provides helpful feedback to works they submit. Josh is does a lot of interesting stuff in different areas from illustrations for children to t-shirt and graphic design. He is so busy working for his clients (including Threadless - check his t-shirt in their permanent catalogue) that he doesn't even bother to create his website, however he uploads some of his work to his flickr page. Today he is answering my questions and questions submitted by the users of DesignContest.net
Josh, tell us about your background, education, how you came to graphic design and illustration?
I've always been involved in art growing up. I took any and all classes I could in highschool and then went on to college to major in art. I started out in art education - thinking that was the only way I be able to be an artist with a steady paycheck, but then fell in love with graphic design. I finished with a Bachelor's in Fine Art with a focus in design. I worked as an in-house designer at several different agencies, but didn't really care for agency work. I found an in-house design position as a junior designer and eventually made my way to senior art director. I moved out of state, but continued working via the internet. (which helped me realize how EASY it is to telecommute). I picked up some freelance illustration work just to help out a friend and a few months later was hired as a fulltime illustrator. I worked with a lot of freelancers at that position and kind of learned how "things were done" My family had to move, so I decided to start freelancing as a fulltime career. That's where I'm at today!
What about your present situation? Do you find it comfortable to be a freelance illustrator?
I currently split my work between 20% design & 80% illustration. I'd really prefer to be doing 100% illustration - but the design work is an easy paycheck, so I keep taking the jobs. I was doing MOSTLY art for kids' products - basically pages and pages of different art styles that are then applied to collections for everything from stickers to stationery to coloring books. I was starting to get burnt out on cutesy art, and started looking into rock posters/tshirts just for some creative expression. Over the last year I've built up some great apparel clients (some by luck, others through networking) and feel comfortable charging a fair amount for tshirt art. According to my 1099s, my business has grown quite a bit - which has afforded me the ability to turn down jobs that aren't as fun. The great thing about tshirt art is that most apparel companies have a look - and as long as you match the look they give you freedom as to what you want to do for content. The trick is to match up what you want to draw with the right style and then to match that style with the right company. In that sense, being a freelance artist has given me a lot of freedom. It's also nice because, as a freelancer, I can "sniff out the money" - so I haven't really been affected too much by the economy.
Any special tips on how you organize your work?
I make A LOT of lists. First by deadlines, then by necessity (for instance, what I can get extensions on versus things that have "drop dead" dates for deadlines) It's been a LOT harder now that I've discovered design contest sites! I have a few notebooks that I keep in places where I tend to get ideas - I have one by my bed, one downstairs by my computer and another that I usually keep in the car. I also draw a lot during church...I've had quite a few ideas as a result of that. (including the zombie peewee herman shirt) A lot of ideas come from stuff I was into when I was a kid or situations that I think would be really funny.
I know you did some very successful t-shirt illustrations. What can you advise young designers who want to repeat your success?
Find the field that you want to get into, create samples applicable to that field and just start writing emails. I started pursuing tshirts after winning on threadless.com. I liked the idea of regular people wearing my art around. That was WAY more fulfilling than seeing some package design in Whole Foods. After some success at contest sites, I had built up good-sized portfolio of a lot of unsold designs. I started emailing apparel companies, record labels or anyone else that sold stuff with art on it that I liked. I'd start by asking if they had time to look at a .pdf - most of them say yes. Then I sent them 5 - 10 pieces and told them I had stuff available for purchase or could work on an idea they had. It was actually really easy to get replies. After being printed a few times, apparel companies started recognizing my work. Over the last 8 months or so I've had pretty stable work for tshirts art. I was also really interested in making posters - I love music, so I just started emailing record labels, venues and promoters of bands that I liked. I used my shirt art for portfolio work and have started doing A LOT of posters as well. NOTE - If you want to make any money at all - I'd suggest looking elsewhere. Gig posters don't pay much at all. I just do it for the love. (I also typically set up agreements where the art is only licensed for the life of the poster which means that I retain ownership. This way, I can recycle art for other things)
Do you plan to explore other possibilities in life, or illustration is what you are going to do for the rest of your life?
I'd really like to continue with illustration - I have started working with some record labels recently - it'd be nice to break in the merch side of the music industry. I have some screen printing equipment ready to be used in my basement - if I can get to a point where I have more time, I'd like to start screening shirts to sell. (maybe once my kids start school?) My ULTIMATE goal is to start my own coffee house...but I'm content with tshirt illustration for now.
what is your typical approach to creating a t-shirt design?
I have my ideas in a sketchbook - but I do most of my working sketches on screen. I ALWAYS work in Illustrator because I like flexibility that working in vector allows. I occasionally do parts of a piece in Photoshop, but then I vector it in Illustrator (example - I add shadows/highlights by hand in photoshop and then convert to halftones, import to Illustrator and vector)
A lot of my sketchbooks are filled with notes, rather than actual sketches (except for the church one) I will usually collect a TON of images for reference. For example, I was asked to do a shirt that featured birds - so I pulled about 70 or so images of different birds I liked in various poses. I also keep a digital morgue of images, so I look through there, too. I start by doing a bunch of rough sketches. I pick the ones I like and place them on a new layer. Then I do some refined sketches based on the rough sketches I laid out. That's when I get the layout nailed down. Then I make another new layer and start the actual line work. Once that's done, I add color (I usually do several different palettes and try to keep the colors down as much as possible - in tshirts, each color is a new screen. each screen is more money) For a shirt I recently did for 410BC, I ended up with 18 final color versions. I have a few different designer friends with very different tastes that I send my work out to. I usually take the common "likes" into consideration and make 3 final variations to send for review. I think that's a good way to please the most people (which is key in sales)
There are still a lot of things Josh could tell about his work and career, so feel free to post your questions in this thread on the forums.
