I hope this finds you well, here in New York the sky is gray and the air is crisp, and I’m okay with it.
If you’ve been near the creative industry even for a split second (and with this newsletter), you’re familiar with this evergreen question: How to find my style? Yet, after years of working as an illustrator with a fairly recognizable style, all I was craving was freshness, risk, experimentation, surprise… In other words, I wanted to lose my style. The cycle of client assignments and compromise had somehow stiffened the way my work looks (for as many commercial artists, I am a pleaser), and I sensed that my style was more of a cage made by others’ expectations rather than my own interests and inclinations.
So I’m asking you, how do you keep things fresh in your practice? how do you find space and time to surprise yourself and explore? is it even important or is style a comfortable slipper you slide on without thinking much about it now? Do you secretly wish your work looked completely different? What radical departure from your style lays in the deepest pages of your sketchbook?
While on Instagram we can all perform loving having a strong, unique style that gets us work, here in the quieter corner of your emails, I’m asking to shed the veneer of style off, I’m asking you, how do you lose your style?
For me, the quickest way I departed from my old habits was to not have to make money off illustration. This is not an advice I'm giving obviously, but not have to curate an instagram grid to attract clients, compromise on assignments, or reproduce the things clients liked in my previous work, were all key elements that freed me up so much.
And this is a long process, I've off the full time illustration train for a year and a half now, and I'm just starting to give myself permission to do things "that don't look like me". All of this to say, realizing how much of my style had been forged the flames of client work was a very cathartic experience in redefining what I'm interested in visually!
I play with mediums so different that the question of maintaining a style doesn’t apply. Carving wooden figures, building furniture, sewing…even when I am oil painting on weekends I can’t maintain the same metrics that might define my style for commercial work.
oooh yessss, that makes me think how doing something we're less skilled at is a good way to do that, to not rely on the same muscle memory used for drawing. also building furniture is hot ❤️
Sounds corny to list these all out 😅Working without a specific goal or finished product in mind- ie sketching, life drawing. Trying new mediums like Karlotta said even just different types of pens pencils brushes. Trying to maintain curiosity and look for inspiration for many sources. Imposing constraints.
I’ve always found the idea of style a bit limiting and I admired illustrators that have a wide range of styles, but I’ve learned through my freelancing practice that clients get confused with my flexibility. I think working on books, you can play more freely with losing your style, at least that’s what I’ve done in some books changing techniques or experimenting when working on short stories for zines and self-published projects. I like focusing more on a visual language, that changes based on the tools or the limits I give myself. I normally practice in my sketchbook or when I’m asked to make a piece for an initiated project, sometimes clients see these experiments and hire me to do the same.
I think personal style is how you view the world. Whatever they hand to you, you just turn it into how you see the world. Like a filter of your own. It is about make it your own. Even if you work with a medium you are not familiar with, in time it will show, that is you, a part of you will show up in it. Sometimes I feel like it is like leaving a mark of your own on things you touched when you work with other mediums. And it definitely helps taking your own work further. Helping you being more playful with what you can do. Things you never thought of maybe or tried before. So that is good.
Such a good question! I like to lean into trying new things and getting out of comfort zone in my personal work, where I have room to play. Then I'll bring those explorations into client work in small doses and over time I've definitely seen my style shift and evolve. Other times when I feel a bit more confident, I like to think of client work as a paid opportunity to try something new in an illustration (as long as it's not too far away from what the AD expects from my body of work)!
I mostly experiment in my personal work (zines, series, prints, exhibitions etc.) and try to evolve my artistic language and style. I have the most fun when I try to incorporate something new rather than reinvent myself completely. Just step by step over a long period of time. I see it more like a language where I learn new vocabularies, disrupting the grammar or trying to talk but the language is still recognizable. But it's also time consuming and becomes harder to do once you are more embeded in the business. Trying to be lighter on myself lately and accept that it's okay to not do a lot of experiments for a whole year. It comes in waves and needs the right moment, circumstances and inspiration but at the same time you need to make space for it so that it can happen in the first place.
Aaah… You've explained it very well... I think we all feel this way to a greater or lesser extent. I think we evolve quickly out of pure necessity and practice and by the time we have a 'style' that identifies us and that can have a space out there, we have almost lost interest in it. Getting out of that spiral is complicated.
In my case, I have always found that opportunity in small personal experiments or self-projects in which I choose the goals and constraints. Sometimes I find a way to incorporate some of the results into my commercial work, many times trying to get closer to those uncomplicated, fresh, strong and pure initial sketches, as Marie-Eve said. But the greatest turning points for me have always been radically changing tools, media... Abandoning very flat, geometric vector work to draw more naturally/organically, for example. Or experimenting with a less symbolic and more figurative general approach (or vice versa).
I draw everyday in a sketchbook, trying new things, just for fun. For the work (books) i try to be the nearest possible of the sketch, to keep the lose of the sketch.
I can draw the same image many times, before i find the one i want.
But i still always prefer the drawing, without sketch, like when i do colors research. Didn't find yet how to reproduce that energy and vivacity for finals images (because the perfectionnist and the "the drawing will be seen" is alway there)
Every artist i read or talk too research how to lose their drawing. Maybe it's an artis thing, to always keep us better ? :) (like the imposteur syndrom)
(sorry, i'm french speaking, i've tried my best aha)
For me, the quickest way I departed from my old habits was to not have to make money off illustration. This is not an advice I'm giving obviously, but not have to curate an instagram grid to attract clients, compromise on assignments, or reproduce the things clients liked in my previous work, were all key elements that freed me up so much.
And this is a long process, I've off the full time illustration train for a year and a half now, and I'm just starting to give myself permission to do things "that don't look like me". All of this to say, realizing how much of my style had been forged the flames of client work was a very cathartic experience in redefining what I'm interested in visually!
I play with mediums so different that the question of maintaining a style doesn’t apply. Carving wooden figures, building furniture, sewing…even when I am oil painting on weekends I can’t maintain the same metrics that might define my style for commercial work.
oooh yessss, that makes me think how doing something we're less skilled at is a good way to do that, to not rely on the same muscle memory used for drawing. also building furniture is hot ❤️
Sounds corny to list these all out 😅Working without a specific goal or finished product in mind- ie sketching, life drawing. Trying new mediums like Karlotta said even just different types of pens pencils brushes. Trying to maintain curiosity and look for inspiration for many sources. Imposing constraints.
yeah for me looking at other sources of inspiration is a big one, theatre, opera, sculptures, etc. has been so great to learn new things!
Having an infinite pool of self-doubt works for me.
haha yesss that’ll do it
I’ve always found the idea of style a bit limiting and I admired illustrators that have a wide range of styles, but I’ve learned through my freelancing practice that clients get confused with my flexibility. I think working on books, you can play more freely with losing your style, at least that’s what I’ve done in some books changing techniques or experimenting when working on short stories for zines and self-published projects. I like focusing more on a visual language, that changes based on the tools or the limits I give myself. I normally practice in my sketchbook or when I’m asked to make a piece for an initiated project, sometimes clients see these experiments and hire me to do the same.
I think personal style is how you view the world. Whatever they hand to you, you just turn it into how you see the world. Like a filter of your own. It is about make it your own. Even if you work with a medium you are not familiar with, in time it will show, that is you, a part of you will show up in it. Sometimes I feel like it is like leaving a mark of your own on things you touched when you work with other mediums. And it definitely helps taking your own work further. Helping you being more playful with what you can do. Things you never thought of maybe or tried before. So that is good.
Such a good question! I like to lean into trying new things and getting out of comfort zone in my personal work, where I have room to play. Then I'll bring those explorations into client work in small doses and over time I've definitely seen my style shift and evolve. Other times when I feel a bit more confident, I like to think of client work as a paid opportunity to try something new in an illustration (as long as it's not too far away from what the AD expects from my body of work)!
I mostly experiment in my personal work (zines, series, prints, exhibitions etc.) and try to evolve my artistic language and style. I have the most fun when I try to incorporate something new rather than reinvent myself completely. Just step by step over a long period of time. I see it more like a language where I learn new vocabularies, disrupting the grammar or trying to talk but the language is still recognizable. But it's also time consuming and becomes harder to do once you are more embeded in the business. Trying to be lighter on myself lately and accept that it's okay to not do a lot of experiments for a whole year. It comes in waves and needs the right moment, circumstances and inspiration but at the same time you need to make space for it so that it can happen in the first place.
Aaah… You've explained it very well... I think we all feel this way to a greater or lesser extent. I think we evolve quickly out of pure necessity and practice and by the time we have a 'style' that identifies us and that can have a space out there, we have almost lost interest in it. Getting out of that spiral is complicated.
In my case, I have always found that opportunity in small personal experiments or self-projects in which I choose the goals and constraints. Sometimes I find a way to incorporate some of the results into my commercial work, many times trying to get closer to those uncomplicated, fresh, strong and pure initial sketches, as Marie-Eve said. But the greatest turning points for me have always been radically changing tools, media... Abandoning very flat, geometric vector work to draw more naturally/organically, for example. Or experimenting with a less symbolic and more figurative general approach (or vice versa).
I draw everyday in a sketchbook, trying new things, just for fun. For the work (books) i try to be the nearest possible of the sketch, to keep the lose of the sketch.
I can draw the same image many times, before i find the one i want.
But i still always prefer the drawing, without sketch, like when i do colors research. Didn't find yet how to reproduce that energy and vivacity for finals images (because the perfectionnist and the "the drawing will be seen" is alway there)
Every artist i read or talk too research how to lose their drawing. Maybe it's an artis thing, to always keep us better ? :) (like the imposteur syndrom)
(sorry, i'm french speaking, i've tried my best aha)
Recently, i've tried a whole book page, in a way of "colour research"
(without sketch under and with just improvising with the medium, fastly)
That was really fun and freeing.
But i'm not sure i'll be able to do it in all the book ... I'll try things in april, when i'll go work again on that book