The Career Detective: An Interview with Illustrator Mike Force

Mike Force is a talented, prolific illustrator and designer. We’ve been friends for 20 years now, and collaborated on a number of projects, including my 2004 book Welcome to the Land of Cannibalistic Horses. Over the decades, Force has continually proven himself as a creative thinker, entrepreneur, and futurist. He sees things just a bit differently: @So.Wreckless

We both went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, but had previously met and become friends in Seattle, in the University District. Back then we would sit in coffee shops and discuss things, all kinds of topics, sharing our thoughts and ideas with each other and cafe folks.

Recently, I gave him a call to chat about the nature of “career” for creatives in today’s modern world…

You once said to me you have to be a detective for your own career… what exactly does that mean? How does one “solve” one’s own career?

People don’t like the sound of ‘networking’ because it feels nerve-wracking and self-serving. Think about your life as an investigation. You can set up coffee dates or attend industry events with a set of general questions the way a detective would. Look for clues. If the goal is to gather wisdom, insight, and clues about your future, it takes the pressure off. Solving the mystery of your next job is often the byproduct of putting yourself out there with specifics about your skills. If you accurately describe three things you’re best at and dozens of people know you’re actively looking for work, they’ll come back to you a few months later with work or a recommendation.

In any mystery what usually happens at the end? There’s always an unexpected twist. Sometimes we end up doing work that’s only vaguely related to our core skills, sometimes the solution is surprising.

It seems that social media has become the most effective marketing tool for artists and designers… publishing and promoting their work on Instagram has certainly killed the business card, but has it also replaced the need to be published in magazines or otherwise?

I do a lot for The Stranger and I’ve noticed that over the years, being published by any magazine or newspaper is less and less crucial to an artist being discovered. Publications often don’t pay well (they’re disappearing too) and so, instead, being featured becomes about prestige for the artists. I follow a lot of illustrators and painters who have 100k more followers than some major publications so their bigger concern is how to make a living. Usually offers will come in from social media, rather than someone seeing work in a publication. So the more offers that come in, the more an artist can charge.

Thinking about the differences in the publishing world and art world, from the perspective of an illustrator, what changes have we seen over the last 10 years and what changes do you anticipate over the next 10 years?

Art galleries are disappearing in a lot of places. The new model seems to be pop-up galleries and temporary shows. It’s easier to do brief shows in your apartment and build of a roster of buyers simply by repping artists on Instagram. We’ve seen a lot of private-public partnerships with the owners of empty storefronts lending out those spaces to artists for free. Cities should continue down this path. If an artist or group wants to do installations in your city, Mayors and city councils should make it as easy and rent-free as possible because it’s free economic development for neighborhoods.

In the future, we should see more Airbnb art projects. Artists should continue to team up with hotels, like The Ace. Artists are less hesitant to team up with brands like Nike, Dropbox, Google and Warby Parker.

Illustration is becoming more animated and that will accelerate. Illustration will be more technical, programmed, and interactive. Digital illustration is basically indistinguishable from hand-done work, and I need to catch up in all these areas.

I see a lot of talented writers supplementing their meager editorial work income with marketing, product copy, B2B, just about anything because it seems that writers just can’t support themselves editorially. Even staff writer positions are shrinking, replaced by freelance positions without reliable, sustainable work. That said, is there room for professional, editorial illustrators today?

Any work that is primarily opinion or editorial will command less and less money. Work that people pay for tends to be time-consuming or research-based. Almost everything in business is that way. If it’s easily replicated, the work won’t earn money.

In my own career, I’ve branched out into infographics, video editing, and visual design because it’s time-consuming and somewhat technical. The creative stuff I do often pays very little to nothing. So I think the important thing to figure out is what percentage of your week can be “boring-pay-the-bills” work and what percentage you want to be “creative”. I think there’s a psychological trauma when hard work isn’t rewarded financially. It’s important to not limit yourself to only one type of work because as David Lynch says, being poor is detrimental to creativity. But sometimes an artist hits their stride and they can really make a living being who they are. It just might take 10 or so years of build-up.

At a mid-stage career position, how do you stay positive, keep the hustle going? Also, perhaps separately, how do you keep the lights on?

Some people make the mistake assuming creative work pays well. It’s important to realize that people’s careers often involve boring, unseen work. Then that money can fund a certain amount of fun work.

I’ve kept the lights on by learning about niches in the visual design world that I didn’t know about and learning more and more about the corporate world. I’ve learned about investing and a small amount of day-trading.

Robert Kiyosaki says that the four main ways to make money are as an employee, a contractor, a business owner, and an investor. So if you can get a mix of those you’re going to be in a good spot (I’ve done all four at various times to varying degrees of success and failure.) You start to realize that capitalism really works if you save up a bunch and are able to take advantage of exponential growth, but if you don’t have any savings or 401k, you get left behind, which blows.

But if you can generate enough cash working like 30 hours a week, then you get to have 10 or 20 hours to create amazing stuff without a boss looking over your shoulder, and I think that’s the best kind of work. It can explode your career into a whole new realm. Getting paid to be creative in the early stages of a career is often painful because compromises are usually required. If you have enough leverage you can negotiate to get your vision approved.

Read any good books lately?

Yes. Here are a few books that changed my life:

The Happiness Advantage, success in your career is often the result of a well balanced social life

The E-Myth, learning how to delegate and focus on creativity, for small business owners

Creating a Life Worth Living, creating a new career through daily practice

Rich Dad Poor Dad, why real-world experiential knowledge is more lucrative than academic knowledge

Catching the Big Fish (especially audio), how creativity, meditation, and the subconscious work together

Give and Take, Why generosity is the most important trait that leads to success

To see more work by Mike Force visit Autotone.net and @So.Wreckless

Originally published at creativecurrently.com on January 24, 2018.