So You Want to Hire a Science Illustrator
You’re proud of the science communication you’ve written for your blog. You want to add visual excitement to an announcement about science outreach. You need to illustrate your findings for the paper that has taken years of your life to study and write-up. You know illustrations, photos and cartoons make your writing much more likely to be read on social media.
You want to hire a science illustrator, but are not sure where to start.
Here’s some things you should know.
Where to find science illustrators
- Symbiartic (The blog I am a part of on Scientific American has posted hundreds of artists, cartoonists, illustrators and photographers and their contact info)
- Guild of Natural Science Illustrators
- Association of Medical Illustrators
- SciArt Magazine
- Mad Art Lab
- Street Anatomy
- ART Evolved
- Southern Ontario Nature and Science Illustrators
- Art & Science Journal
- DeviantArt communities like BioScience and BioIllustration
- ScienceArt Community on G+
- #sciart hashtag on Twitter
- Science-Art.com
You want someone who knows what they’re doing.
How to pick one
Most illustrators have areas of expertise. It’s a good idea to look around at some portfolios or ask for recommendations in the community. For example, I tend to do oil and digital paintings about prehistoric life, humans, and microbes. I’m not the best person to ask to do a design-heavy infographic about sanitation hazards on kitchen appliances.
Think about your audience. If you’re describing the evolution of dinosaurs and birds to high school students, you may want something funny to keep their attention, rather than something cute like you would for grade school.
Be open to new styles. A lot of the best science illustration pushes boundaries in favor of artistic value to communicate effectively, rather than act as a stand-in for a photograph.
How to approach a science illustrator
Be excited about your blog post, paper, book draft or study. Be excited to find visuals to match what you poured into it.
Be prepared that their years of study, school, and practice honing their ability is going to cost money and take time — and for it to be worth it.
Don’t ask them to do work “for exposure”. Illustrators laugh about that, bitterly. For example, see David Thorne’s classic post Simon’s Free Pie Charts and the @forexposure_txt Twitter account which quotes real people asking for free work.
If you can’t pay, or can’t pay much, it’s best to ask about something the illustrator has already created. Many illustrators are okay with re-sharing their back catalogue work that may otherwise be gathering dust. Not all feel this way, as the back catalogue may be their bread and butter for licensing. But if you have a specific piece in mind, it may be worth asking if it’s available.
If you work for a charity or non-profit, you still have to pay a plumber to fix the broken taps or a service provider for your phone. So keep that in mind about illustration.
Money and contracts and stuff
This section might well be your main reason for reading this post. Spoiler alert: I am not posting how much illustrators charge.
Most illustrators have their own contracts or Agreements about money and usage. All professional ones will want to use one, even for minor jobs.
Contracts and Agreements are not created out of the aether. Illustrators have guides such as the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines and modify from there. You might want to get a copy if you are hiring often.
That Handbook I mention above has prices for a lot of scenarios, but not all. Want to hire someone to make a Twitter background reflecting your research into theoretical physics? The artist may decide how to charge based on a living wage and estimate of how long it will take to complete. $300 might sound steep, but if it takes them 20 hours to produce, that’s still only $15/hour.
Copyright always lies with the image creator by international law. Paying someone to make the image does not change this.
If you want to pay someone to relinquish all of their copyright, it can cost a lot, up to 500% of the original price. Ask yourself: do you need to? Is this for a website written only in English? A textbook in 3 languages in Asia? Illustrators prefer to retain copyright so they can re-license the image to other markets. At bare minimum, they will want to use it as a portfolio piece, to enter contests in their field and other forms of self-promotion.
If you are hiring an illustrator to create work for you from scratch, many will ask for a deposit, send sketches, and then reach a “kill-point” in the contract where if it is killed or substantially modified, payment will be expected anyway. Most charge for revisions past a certain point.
Don’t ask the authentic pen&ink illustrator you hired for that classic black and white look to “turn the head on that hominid by 30 degrees”. It’s not a 3D computer render.
It’s also useful to describe to the illustrator who the audience is, in terms of numbers and demographics. Potential audience goes a long way in making decisions about pricing.
Remember it’s worth it
You’re reading this using the greatest image and communication tool ever conceived, the internet. Images are the future of communication.
These tips aren’t pitfalls: most illustrators are excited and hungry for new challenges and projects. Don’t be shy.
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Illustrations by Glendon Mellow, top image has photo references by Morgan Jackson.]
Originally published at blogs.scientificamerican.com on July 27th 2013 by the author. Some edits made to the list of where to find people, and the images.
