Hello kiddies. Besides work and life, there’s not much happening these days here, so I thought I’d mention that I added some new work to my portfolio.
If you’ve noticed that my last post was over four months ago, that’s just because I’m not blogging that much anymore. Frankly, I don’t feel I have much to say (though I am pretty chatty on Twitter, but it’s a different platform). Besides, there are some really fabulous design and illustration blogs out there that are posting far more and better content than I ever could. I’m not abandoning my blog, just keeping things simple, and posting when it’s important.
For more ephemeral posts, check out my Tumblr blog. It’s really just a repository for interesting things I find online. It’s what all the cool kids are doing these days. Wordy posts, if any, will still be here. Besides that, I’m still blogging over on Drawn! too. Jeez, this sounds more complicated than it actually is. Or maybe it really is that complicated. “Explaining my blogging habits.” No wonder I’m behind on my work. Stupid internet!
I do hope to announce something big and exciting in a few months. I just have to finish building it first. I’m hoping I can announce something definite by the end of March, and have it running live by the end of June or so.
]]>This is a snapshot of all my old t-shirt designs.
In a few months, the artists of the Jupiter Project and I (plus a few non-JP artists if we’re lucky!) will be having another art show here in Vancouver. I’m planning some new t-shirt designs, but I’d like your feedback. What kind of designs do you like to see on a t-shirt?
]]>How often do you get the green light to put a baby bottle nipple on a bottle of vodka, and place it in Mama’s hands? And draw her drunk? While she’s neglecting her own kid? Not often, I can tell you that. But it’s devilishly fun to draw it!
Look for my work in this and future issues of Today’s Parent magazine. They’ve been wonderful to work with and always feature lots of fantastic illustrators in each issue.
]]>Yesterday, Vancouver actress Julia Benson (née Anderson, who plays Vanessa James on Stargate Universe) approached me about building her a website. When I asked her what she imagined her website’s primary goal would be, she replied she simply wanted a way to connect with her fans and send them news about her projects.
I asked if she uses Facebook or Twitter, and she said yes. Does she have a Fan Page there? Yes again. I suggested she should focus on that instead of building a whole new site. It’s free; it’s ready right now; she’s already an administrator on it so she can control its content; Facebook already got a huge captive audience built into it; fans of the show can find her instantly; and she can communicate with them instantly, directly, and on a relatively personal level. “Done!” I said. And that’s how I save her $4000 (and consequently earned myself zero dollars, but that’s OK.)
Say what you will about sites like Facebook or Twitter (I use both, but could live without either; I did, just two years ago), they have become very powerful forces online and perfect ways to connect with an audience. You don’t need to use either of them at all, but if you find you can use them without getting overwhelmed or bored or annoyed by them, then do so, and use them fully to your advantage.
Why reinvent the wheel?
]]>If you view my site in an RSS reader, you’ll have noticed the past few months that several posts keep popping up multiple times. I use Feedburner to generate some kinda fancy enhanced RSS feed for your browsing pleasure, but everything is pointing to it being the culprit in all this, so I’m giving it the boot. I’ll be deleting that feed soon, so please replace it in your reader with this one:
http://www.luclatulippe.com/index.php/site/rss_2.0/
Also, I’m not even here right now; I post-dated this just because I can. Because it makes me feel like I have robots back home doing my bidding. Boo-ha-ha-ha-ha-haa!
That is all.
]]>Here’s a smart article by Simon Collision, the Creative Director of Erskine Design, on the subject of the recent redesign of their own website.
What rang loudest for me was when they mentioned treating this internal project as though it were a client project. It’s precisely the sort of advice I would give to a designer or illustrator, and it’s precisely the advice I’ve ignored while redoing my own site. And by “redoing” I mean “it’s been about a year and I’m still at it because I keep letting other projects and stuff get in the way.” Nice.
Simon writes:
Internal projects drift—we all know it. Client deadlines take precedence, so we ran this as a client project. We designated a proven project manager, a design lead, development assistants, and someone who ensured we covered the legal angle. We ran everything in Basecamp and Backpack. The project was on the agenda for our weekly meetings. The core team reported to the whole team, and took the flack for project slippage.
Go read it. I have work to do.
]]>Happy Gay Pride wherever you are! My new site design is up and the final bits should all be loaded up later this week (including fixing how crappy this looks in RSS readers!).
]]>Designer Tim Van Damme shares some sound advice, albeit on the heels of a very sour experience with a bad client. Read about it here.
]]>A few months ago, I was twittering with Chris Coyier of CSS-Tricks and he asked if I could make him a little Twitter bird which he could use on his blog to link to his Twitter account (up till this point he’d been borrowing the Twitterrific icon). I said yes, because I thought it would be fun. Next thing I knew, I went a little overboard and designed a whole flock of them. Twenty-four to be exact (click here to see the full collection). There are six different styles, each done in four different colours: Twitter blue, Cardinal Red, Robin Black, and Canary Yellow. Now here they all are, free, for your downloading pleasure. (I’m releasing them under this Creative Commons license.)
The ZIP file below contains four five files:
Download: Latulippe_Twitter_Birds_archive.zip
You can edit them to your heart’s content, just send a friendly linky-link back to my site to spread the word (preferably to this post’s URL). When redistributing, whether you modify them or not, all I ask is the following:
Essentially, this means they’re for personal use, not commercial use.
Whatever you end up doing with them, please post a link to it below in the comments; I’d really love to see them in action, as well as see what sweet new bird you turned them into.
]]>Author Liz Gilbert at the recent TED Conference, giving a lovely talk about how we perceive artists’ inspiration. I hope most of you enjoy it as much as I did.
via John Hogman’s blog.
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If you know me, you know I think one of the biggest rip-offs in our field is that of paid online portfolios. You may have read my past posts about theispot. Well, here comes another.
Let me share an email I just wrote to the people who run Folioplanet. It’s in response to a promotional mailing they sent out to illustrators listed on their site (I have a free “link listing” there, not a portfolio), offering a test drive of their $449/year portfolio service. The offer is $99 for 3 months, with an option to pay $100/quarter after that if you like it. Thus, $399 at the end of the year. Considering they’re in the business of selling basically nothing, the 9% savings means nothing too.
Here’s what I had to say.
FolioPlanet people:
Shame on you. Your message below just makes me furious.
The first time I can remember ever receiving an email from you guys, and it’s to ask me to spend $400 during the worst recession we’ve had in over a hundred years?? Seriously? THIS is your plan for weathering the economic storm ahead?? Asking dirt-poor illustratorswho barely worked last year and can’t make their rentto cough up $400 so you guys can stay afloat?
That’s like me taking money away from a pan-handler so I can go buy myself a Frappucino, because I can’t quite afford it myself right now but that handful of loose change is just what I need! I believe the expression is “What the fuck?”
Your current business model may have been “cutting edge” 15 years ago, but you’ve done squat to keep current so you’re already an internet dinosaur. Your website uses antiquated, unvalidated HTML code, offers no RSS feeds, leverages absolutely nothing in terms of advanced web technologies, nothing to even give me the impression you WANT this business to work for us, and yet you have the nerve to come to us NOW asking money!? Again: “What the fuck?”
Your single revenue stream is a closed loop, wherein YOU are the only winner. You sell an annual invisible promise to illustrators of “maybe getting some work.” These illustrators—your only customers—then sit around waiting for magical jobs, which may or may not ever come. Usually, they don’t. The following year, they decide to buy another invisible promise. Rinse, lather, repeat. We lose, you win. WE PAY TO KEEP YOU GUYS IN BUSINESS, SO THAT YOU CAN CONTINUE SELLING US ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Do you even make efforts to attract art buyers to the site? None of my clients even know you exist. Do you do anything at all to make their experience on your site meaningful? Enjoyable? Profitable?
Others have already figured out how to do what you’re doing, but better, and for free. They leverage revenue generated by targeted ads to cover their operating costs and offer free portfolios with amazing upload tools. Most also integrate job listings, which also generates revenue, again helping defer the costs of free portfolios. They make the effort to bring all the right people together—creators, buyers, and advertisers—and gives all of them a good reason to participate.
- http://krop.com/creativedatabase/ *
- http://behance.net/
- http://coroflot.com/Please feel free to delete my listing from site. I would do it myself, but you don’t offer even that simplest of capabilities from your web panel.
Good luck this year.
Luc Latulippe
I know I’m being harsh, but I think they opened themselves up to critical public scrutiny the moment they sent this email. Consider the whole situation:
As always, I welcome your comments, arguments, and rebuttals.
* I’ve since signed up with Krop, Coroflot, and Behance out of curiosity (see the links in the footer, under “Here Too”). I’ll reserve judgement for now till things develop there.
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