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Living Freelance

Victoria Scott

Illustrator

Could you give a brief overview of what your various working roles are?

I spend at least 50% of my illustration time researching and contacting new and existing clients or opportunities, emailing my mailing list, maintaining my websites and blog (www.vickysworld.co.uk) and keeping an eye on payments, receipts and my tax return. The other 50%, perhaps even less is spent actually producing work for freelance assignments, my own personal work and getting my work ready for exhibitions and craft fairs. I also work three days a week in online marketing to support myself financially.

How secure are you, or do you feel, in the way you work?

I feel secure enough at the moment because I have a part time job and I have one or two regular-ish clients. But with freelance work things can change so quickly- three galleries I've been with have shut in the past few months and one of these used to bring in several £100 a year, although I know that at some stage I will go on to find a replacement gallery.

If you juggle more than one role, what is it like?

It was a nightmare when I used to work almost full time as I had no time to relax, but now I feel I can call illustration my job (or at least one of them). I enjoy having some company and of course a regular income. The downside is that sometimes all I want to do is finish off a particular illustration and I have to be in an office.

What was the first freelance job you got?

It was designing Christmas cards for Paperchase. I felt incredibly lucky and very positive about my future illustration career after that.

When you first started out, what was the first step you took? Was it deliberately thought out?

I looked around at the other illustration work out in the areas I wanted to work in (editorial and greeting cards) and at the same time almost completely redid my portfolio as there wasn't enough work I felt I could use practically. I also got a part time job in a gallery, which in retrospect gave me time to have ideas and see commercial artwork (as well as realise I didn't want to work in a gallery). It was planned out, as I knew the kind of work I wanted to produce and I realised I had to make a few changes to my portfolio so I could get it.

How do you deal with the practicalities- how did you find out what to do about things like tax…?

I found out a little in one of the last seminars of my course, but I think we were already too stressed to think about this as well. I ended up relying on members of my family who had filled in tax returns before.

If you had to pick out one good bit and one bad bit of what you do, what would they be?

Complete creative control, especially on good assignments and personal work. There aren't many jobs where you can sit down at your desk and think today I could do anything. On the bad side, although I like a variety of work I hate cold calling/emailing and find it really demoralising spending several hours on the phone or emailing and getting almost nothing from it.

Would you have any advice for someone considering working freelance or embarking on a “portfolio” career?

Go into it with your eyes open, read up on what its going to be like financially, emotionally, socially, and don't expect to get rich (or even paid at all) overnight. It’s probably best also to have a part time job to start with as I know virtually no creatives who live on freelance incomes alone.