By Scott Hull

At Scott Hull Associates we want to help you teach your customer how to get more out of your communications by bringing in outside help.

Most companies generate a steady stream of print communications, websites, packaging, trade show exhibits, ads, manuals, presentations, etc. When you add to the list, new emerging opportunities through social media, operational processes, brand training, decision making, business strategy, and thought leadership– you begin to appreciate why most companies feel the need to cut costs by managing all of this in-house.
Before you or your customer think about building an in-house creative program, you need to address the problem that has plagued internal departments since the days of “Mad Men”.

As soon as a designer is hired, the perceived value of their talents depreciates faster than a new car in a showroom. Within months the new in-house group will be inundated with low-level tasks and excluded from high-level conversations.

The cure for vanishing value when going internal is going outside for a new creative perspective. This will give you and your company a breath of fresh air and an organic outlook from a visual specialist who has the skills to create something that does the job, but in a more unique way.

Drawing from my years of experience, I can offer the following 3 tips for working with visual specialists.

1 Hire a visual specialist early in the project’s conception, to work together with you as a single team. This way you will reverse the 20th century business model that has become a training ground for non-collaboration.

2 More of a benefit than a tip, hiring a visual specialist can promote innovation while lowering costs. It can be scaled up or down at a moment’s notice. Hiring a high performance artist can turn a confused and vaguely represented organization into a coherent leading entity, thereby raising long-term value.

3 Since the outside is where you find the best-of-breed visual specialists, many visual building skills needed to execute brand related projects should more often than not, be outsourced. But brand and design management should never be outsourced. Your brand needs to remain strong and consistent through various strategy shifts.

After all, there are only two choices. Win by being more ordinary, generic and cheaper. Or win by being faster, more remarkable, and more human.

Curtis Parker worked with Jeff Stammen, art director at Christopher Chadbourne & Associates, and created 4 murals for the Tampa Bay History Center. Curtis admits, “Personally, my favorite piece was the Tampa Bay’s Cigar factory illustration”. Apparently, the folks at the Society of Illustrators felt the same way.

Curtis was awarded the silver medal. The creative process went very smoothly, with all the clients and committees involved unanimously agreeing that Curtis’s visual solution perfectly captured the history of Tampa Bay’s Cigar Industry. Jeff Stammen asked the Center’s curators not to change a thing. He also told the client at the museum that, “They were getting more than expected.”

Curtis says, “I have to hand it to the client and the art director for giving me such creative freedom. I enjoyed working with them and the easy working relationship made the project fun.”

Curtis describes finding out about his award, “When Anelle Miller from Society of Illustrators called me, I assured her that my entry check was good. She laughed and told me that seven of my pieces were accepted in the Illustrator’s 52 show and that the mural had won a silver medal. I was blown away. I feel really honored and very lucky.”

Art director Kristen Vasgaard selected Scott Hull Associates Clint Hansen to do a collection of classically inspired portraits for a new young adult book series for her publishing house Thomas Nelson. She chose Clint because of his experience within museum display and collegiate hall-of-fame’s.

The collection of 67 prints, which are targeted towards readers age 25-65, features historical figures in the science, art and literary community. Spanning centuries of artists, Clint’s goal was to bridge the differences between the people on the very diverse timeline. Clint used a variety of resources and references, often of very poor quality, to maintain a consistent feel and create a series of engaging historical portraits.

The biggest challenge to this series was creating a consistent style of illustration when the source imagery was so varied. For some illustrations they had actual photographs to reference, because the characters lived recently. However, some people did not even have formal portraits to reference and we had to rely on other illustrations or iconography that was centuries old.

Kristen glows over Clint’s results, “The overall effect is detailed looking and polished. The final product exceeded our expectations. Clint’s custom illustrations unify the series and add a sophistication and uniqueness that we would not have achieved without them. Clint is great about meeting deadlines and is very easy to work with. He willingly makes any revisions or changes and has a great attitude.”

An interview with art director Shelley Frayer

Title of Project: Psyched for Surgery

Target audience: More magazine is geared towards celebrating women over 40.

What was the creative challenge? The challenge was to address the issue of trying to emotionally and mentally prepare for surgery. Our basic direction to Lorraine was to somehow create a tranquil scene within what would typically be considered a stringent and clinical environment

How did Lorraine resolve the challenge? She combined the yoga pose with a woman lying on a surgery table, thus transforming the table with visually calming and meditative elements. The patient looks at peace and in control, the subtlety of the surgical elements further supports the idea of suppressing your fears before surgery.

Describe the final outcome of the project: It looks great! I’m so glad we finally had the chance to work together, since I’ve been admiring Lorraine’s work for some time. She was the perfect choice for the assignment and she was an absolute pleasure to work with. I hope to work with her again soon.

An interview with art director Tim Gough

Title of Project: 2009 Holiday Gift Guide Cover

Target audience: Philadelphian urbanites in the 18-45 demographic.

What was the creative challenge? To create an eye-catching cover illustration to entice readers to explore Philly’s annual gift guide, without being holiday-specific. It needed to be colorful enough to draw our readers in from street level and have a broad appeal.

How did Meg resolve the challenge? She chose a winter-feel for the illustration, drawing a reindeer whose antlers were hung with presents and ornaments of all colors. The color scheme was purposefully chosen to not reflect the usual holiday style, which gave it a warm and welcoming feel.

Describe the final outcome of the project: Excellent, it was one of my favorite projects to have worked on. Besides being extremely professional, Meg was a great communicator, and always delivered sketches and finals on time.

German publication, Illustration Index, recently did a four-spread article on Scott Hull Associates illustrator, Penelope Dullaghan. The international book is fashioned after American based books like Type Idea Index, Design Essentials Index, and Color Index, series that are available here in the US.

Interviewed in English by Claudia Herling, then translated into German, Penelope talks about how she first became an illustrator, how she chooses color for different pieces, and some favorite projects worked on. Most of the illustrators featured in the book are living in Germany, so Penelope’s showcase was undeniably an honor.

Penelope has this to say about her international recognition, “I was very flattered that they included my work as an example of art created in the US. I picture all the German people reading this and scratching their heads wondering ‘Where in the world is Indiana, USA?’ ”

An interview with art director Josh Baker

Client: Metaleap Design/ Paste Magazine

Title of Project: New Records in Old Cabins; Listening to my Life: Night Rounds

Describe your target audience/client base: Influential independent music aficionados within the 18-35 year old demographic.

What creative/business goals did you have with this project? We sought to visually represent the environment that writer Jenna Sandgate lives in from a creative and fun perspective. We wanted to engage readers and lead them visually into the article in the magazine.

What was the creative challenge? To create a portrait of Jenna, who blogs at Cold Antler Farm, about her adventures of homesteading and farming in Vermont, as well as her love of music. The image was to accompany an opinion piece Jenna wrote for Paste. We wanted to be sure to have the writer’s likeness represented in the illustration. Meg did a fantastic job of placing her in a few different environments before we decided on the final direction.

How did Meg resolve the challenge? To quote from Meg herself, “I read through a large part of Jenna’s blog to understand her experiences and passions. From there I tried to capture her lively personality and the things she loves and surrounds herself with. I attempted to visually convey her lifestyle of being ‘alive with the sound of music’.”

Describe the final outcome of the project: The finished piece shows Jenna surrounded by the animals, plants, and music she shares time with on her farm. It does a great job of transporting the reader into her world, enveloped in music and companionship in an otherwise isolated environment. Meg went with a quirky flowing style to play up the musical element of the story.

Jenna herself was so pleased with the finished product that she posted the image to her personal blog and commented on how much she really enjoy the portrait, “I got to write a full page essay for the new issue of Paste, which I was beyond thrilled about. Also, they hired the illustrator Meg Hunt to do this picture of me for the piece and she managed to really capture Cold Antler Farms!”

Tell us specifically about your experience working with our artist: My experience with Meg is certainly one of the best I’ve had with any illustrator. She creates such great, lush, colorful artwork that really captures the feeling of whatever piece she is illustrating. She is super easy to work with and a great person to boot!

http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com
http://www.pastemagazine.com/

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Scott Hull Associates weird-o in residence, Grant Gilliland, was recently interviewed, photographed, and cajoled (it didn’t take that much) by the Sharpie Blog into making custom illustrated “Sharpie-art” you can personally order online for only $20! Sounds too good to be true, we know. But it’s not. This one-of-a-kind artist who describes himself as “1/2 cup of season, 1 Ren & Stimpy mix, 4 tsp of Surrealism, 1 page of The Maxx comic book, shredded, 2 small vinyl figures from Kid Robot, massaged in oil, 1 Sonic the Hedgehog cartridge (Sega Genesis) quartered and cut into large pieces, and 1 pot strong black coffee” is willing to do this just for you.

Click here to read the full (hilarious) interview with Grant the Gross Uncle!

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Penelope Dullaghan is a quite a busy lady. Between juggling motherhood, a successful and highly trafficked blog (illustrationfriday.com), a yoga obsession, and voraciously creating at all times, she is also a highly recognized and affluent illustrator with Scott Hull Associates. Working with clients that include, Target, Starbucks, United Airlines, the New York Times, LA Times Book Review, Harper Collins, O, The Oprah Magazine, Society of Illustrators, and the Baltimore Sun—she would in no way be considered a novice, despite her relatively young age.

Interviewed by Tiffany Meyer, the Communication Arts magazine article showcases a wide variety of Penelope’s work and gives an intimate glimpse into her charming personality, that is no doubt, a huge part of the reason for her success. “Penny is a delight to work with.” is something we have heard here at SHA more often than not, from very satisfied clients.

When CA chose her for a main feature in the Jan./Feb. issue, Penny was thrilled. She graciously says, “I’m just very grateful to be featured. It’s a huge honor and a milestone in my career. And I’m blessed to have it happen so young in my career as an illustrator.”

Penelope’s illustrations are her signature. You can spot them a mile away. Her sense of the organic is timeless, relevant, and beautiful. Her joyful personality resonates within the pieces she creates.

Part of her continuous artistic renewal is that Penelope takes nothing for granted. She has a very distinct mantra for her life and for her art, “My philosophy is that I’m fortunate to get to do art for a living, and that fortune favors those who bust their butts.”

So far, it’s working famously.

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Curtis Parker has illustrated the New Year cover issue for Barron’s Financial Forecast over the past eleven years. So naturally, the creative challenge each year is to make sure it stands apart from all the previous years’ covers.

Facing a readership of predominately stock market investors, art director Pamela Budz had the concept of the bear and bull sitting in the rubble of the past year’s economy and giving each other a rousing New Year’s toast. Curtis immediately took this idea and embellished it with the background of the city in ruins to communicate the idea of the economy is shambles. Contrasted with the decaying ‘financial city’ around them, the Bull and Bear, like the Barron’s reader, is surprisingly still optimistic, cheerful, even celebratory, for the future and its possibilities. Pamela has this to say about working with Curtis over the past decade, “I’ve worked with Curtis for many years. His illustration truly has a magical aura. It’s strong both conceptually and visually — with beautifully crafted lines, composition and color. It makes any project I’m working on look special. Additionally, he’s just the nicest guy who makes me believe that my ideas are wonderful.”

Curtis says, “I asked Pam a question regarding some aspect of the bear and bull behavior in the painting and there was a pause before she said, ‘How long have you been doing these?’ Meaning, ‘I should know by now.’ Of course that is part of the challenge– to keep it fresh and organic.” Obviously, through his decade of successful illustrating for the company, Curtis has no problem with that.

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