Instagram Is Not Your Portfolio (PHEW!)

This week we’re wrapped up in some blankets havin' a proper sofa-chat about Instagram.

Specificallyyyy:
Should your Instagram be your portfolio?

What's the difference between a snazzy website folio and the mad addictive world of social media? 

We also get into showing your human face, illustrators following illustrators, AI-era credibility, and why you absolutely do not owe the algorithm/tech bros your nervous system.

Rough timestamps for our timestamp-fans:

 00:00 – Blankets
 01:00 – Instagram as a folio: should it be?
 03:00 – The golden algorithm years (remember those?)
 05:00 – You don’t own Instagram
 06:30 – Portfolio pressure vs social sharing
 08:00 – The 360° artist: personality, process + presence
 10:00 – AI, visibility + being human
 12:00 – Showing your face. Do it!
 14:00 – Content creator burnout (no fanks)
 16:00 – “Held hostage by consistency” rebellion
 18:00 – Who is Instagram actually for?
 20:00 – Community vs clients
 22:00 – Annuals, competitions + the old-school ways
 24:00 – Bologna Book Fair chat
 26:00 – Books as permanent portfolios
 28:00 – Sales pages vs old-school static folios
 30:00 – Final takeaway: use Instagram, don’t let it use you

Come and say hello!

✏️ @thegoodshipillustration
🌏 www.thegoodshipillustration.com

p.s. We love answering your illustration questions. Click here to submit your question for The Good Ship Illustration Podcast 🎙

Transcript

0:25  
You welcome. We're all wrapped in blankets. It's a proper winter podcasty session, isn't it? Curtains are closed. We're on the sofa with the blankets around us. We thought we'd talk about Instagram today.

0:37  
There's a bit about the difference between having a folio on your website or treating your Instagram account like a folio. Yeah? What interesting, isn't it? Yeah? Because I was thinking it's there are a lot of illustrators who have come up on Instagram and have a career because of Instagram. And so there are a lot of illustrators without a website folio.

1:01  
Weren't they illustrators? Who was that? Who were there when Instagram was good, good old days, stuff. They grew a career, probably, what? Eight years ago, when you could do that? Yeah, algorithm

1:12  
used to be so different and everything. I

1:15  
prefer to have an Instagram to be social. Do you know I was gonna say there low key social, because my daughter says low key all the time, does become part of my far too old to say that. Are you down with the trumpets to stop myself, yeah. So Instagram is just social, fun. Hello to people. Nice community. Walk to see, share behind the scenes stuff, but my folio is way more curated than that. Imagine trying to make a folio on Instagram, but Instagram at the same time want you to post almost every day, and you're imagining, well, you couldn't keep the

1:57  
work quality. It would be impossible, wouldn't if you think everything had to be folio ready, which I thought, that's how I felt about it when I first started doing it, and you were a great help, because you were like, No, it's just you're padding out other parts of your personality, showing where your ideas come from. It's not meant to be portfolio worthy pieces for each one, plus it's also risky and dangerous, because you don't own Instagram, so if you're relying on that as your portfolio, it's probably good to start with when you know you're going to do a website, and it's a just for now, three month alternative while you get your website done. But you've got to move over to something that you actually own and not rely on Instagram.

2:34  
Just before this podcast, Tanya showed us a cool website called capital virtue, and it had different it was right one, isn't it?

2:41  
Yeah, capital virtual. It's part of the Jackie winters agency, and it's one of their new ideas. It's so cool.

2:47  
It's so cool because each artist's got, like, a full page, and you scroll down and there's different bits of videos have been in, how many followers they've got their work, obviously, things they've been interviewed on, like, it's nice that, but it was so cool to see like the 360 of the artists, because you saw their face, you heard them talking, and you saw their work, and you saw like movement. And I think that's more if you want to use Instagram in a way that's, like, sustainable and useful, thinking of it in that way, like a 360 look at everything, not just here's my work, here's my work, here's my work.

3:16  
Yeah, I think if you try and make it, if you think of it as a folio, it's really high pressure. You'd have to be creating work that was equally good standard all the time. Instagram's definitely for an all round picture of you as a person, your rough drawings, behind the scenes, personality. It's like a chat, isn't it's more of a chat,

3:37  
yeah, and you don't want to put too much personal stuff on it's finding that balance, isn't it? Like you said before, publishers or art directors don't want to plough through loads of pictures of landscape or your dog or the food that you're eating, but you can interleave a little bit of that in between, especially if, for example, your work is landscape based, then you would be showing landscape imagery. So it's good to do backstories to what your key themes are in your work, or your key pillars, or what your personality is like. Is it humorous? Is your work meant to be funny? Therefore, what do you find funny? You're giving Yeah, backstory that makes you a more present and larger person on Instagram, because we were also saying when we talked about AI last week is that people are now beginning to use illustrators with a kind of known status or profile so that they're not it's easy for companies to prove that the artist they've used is not an AI artist. They are someone, and that someone comes about by building up who you are online so you can be pointed to. We've managed to grab this person for our campaign, and I think that's why Jackie Winters is pushing the capital virtues thing showing someone in 360 like, what's their favourite TV programme, and lots of other little kind of ephemeral things that surround the main personality. Yeah, and

4:58  
there's so much power in. Showing your human face isn't there, because I think if you have a totally faceless account, it makes it you can do it, but it's so much harder for people to get to know you and like you and trust you. And from your cutthroat business brain, like in the business in illustration Business Club, we're always talking about the power of showing your face on your about page. And don't be scared to have actual photos of you doing the work. I think if you do that on Instagram, it makes, firstly, because it's the algorithm is trained like a faces on it, it's going to be more interesting. People are interested in seeing you. And then also, I was going to say being a content creator is like an actual completely separate job, so not getting too tied up and feeling like you have to create stuff every single day and post loads of things, and because that would be completely exhausting, you don't you can use Instagram in a way that's, show some your work, show some your face, but don't feel like, oh my god, I have to post today because it's been,

5:51  
Oh, I hate that. That horrible commitment and responsibility of you have to be consistent, even if it's once a week, once every two weeks. It just makes me feel fully rebellious. Look at that. I'm not doing that, so I think I'm the test pilot for doing nothing for eight months and then posting a flurry of 10 posts in a week, then disappearing and wandering off for three months, then coming back and it seems to be okay. It's not a complete disaster. I just don't want to be held hostage to that stupid rule of the only way this is going to work is if you commit to me, I don't want

6:25  
and you don't need to be held hostage to it because you've got a portfolio on your website that looks incredible. So people can come across you on Instagram, agents, publishers, clients, can find you and then go and look at your website. Whereas, if Instagram is all you've got, you need that to be a bit of a folio as well. So I think it's good to have both one to bring eyes in and then point them at the curated version of you, what they would get if they commissioned you.

6:52  
Yeah, I'm probably a bit bad at that. I don't actually share my work on Instagram really ever, and if I do, it's like, who? Here's my work. But then I get embarrassed if I talk to a client and they're like, oh, yeah, so your Instagramer. And I'm like, that's not the right Instagram account, as opposed to be on the one where I only but the one where I only post work. Firstly, I hardly ever use it, and secondly, it's got hardly

7:13  
any followers. I didn't know you had an Instagram post work. I had no idea about this secret.

7:18  
I've got a Finster. It's basically, it's like a portfolio. And the reason I did it like that was I used to have it linked at the bottom of my website, and it would be updated with new work. I didn't update it some, at least did anyways, but the but I got rid of it because I felt like it was distracting people. And I was like, my website is my portfolio. It's got loads of examples on so why am I sending people to Instagram where I know for a fact they're gonna get sucked into the abyss and be like, watching reels, and then come to an hour later, be like, what was I doing? That's what I would do.

7:49  
That's, isn't that interesting? The totally different angles we come from. You've been your illustration Instagram and kept with your personality and interactive into Instagram. And I always wonder, like, how do you do it? I can't talk to Instagram on camera with my face. I'm just, how did you build up to the confidence?

8:07  
I think I just really enjoy it. It's silly. Like, when I was little, I used to do fake radio programmes and write newspapers and things. I feel like all those childhood things that I really enjoy doing. It's Instagram, and it's free, and then and people like it and say nice things usually, they don't always say nice things, but it's just good fun.

8:23  
It's so brave as well. Because, like, we always talk about getting feedback is really tough. I think Instagram, talking on Instagram, feels like front line stuff. If anyone's going to have a pop at you, it'll be there. It's almost more scary, but it doesn't stop you.

8:39  
Maybe live illustration is quite scary. I like doing things if they're scary, otherwise, it's boring. If nobody's gonna see it, what's the point? But if the risk of something happening, I'm like, oh, okay, then let's do it. But I feel like it's very different in my brain, like doing stuff on Instagram, thinking about who your audience is. Like for me on Instagram, I feel like it's, I'm talking to other illustrators. I'm not talking to clients. So it feels like a very it's for good ship. It's for just making friends with other illustrators, because working alone a lot of the time, and I think that's where people get confused as well. And I remember years ago, Holly Exley, the watercolour illustrator, being, I think, was on Twitter. She was really annoyed that only illustrators were following her, and she was like, I want clients to follow me. And I don't know what the answer to that is, but I think maybe that's worth thinking about.

9:26  
Think that is worth thinking about, because, as an illustrator, most of the people who follow you will be illustrators, but that's of really big value as well. Because if you want to start a sub stack and put and have a pay wall and some of the stuff, you're going to make another stream of income through substack or your online shop. It's great that most of the people following you are illustrators. If you can get those people from your Instagram account onto a mailing list and then you have your online shop, brilliant illustrators. Love other illustrators work. It's really good. And you'll never get if you're hoping for clients, there will be clients looking their. But they're a tiny proportion compared to the number of illustrators on Instagram. So if you're only putting out there for clients, you'd have very few followers. That was

10:09  
the whole thing about social media in the beginning. There wasn't it when it first started. I feel like a dinosaur saying this when people were like, Yeah, you just you go online and become the go to person, involve yourself in discussions, and maybe you'll be asked to be a judge on some panel or to quote something in a newspaper article. I'd be like, why would you want to do that? Just show me the clients. Where are the clients? And then the idea that social media became a community of your peers, I think that was quite hard for my generation to get their heads around, because it was always I am only interested in speaking to clients and getting work, but it's a much more circuitous way of using social media and getting work now, because other illustrators are effectively your champions. They're people who sort of cheer you on. They might recommend you for things or just by virtue of following you. They boost your visibility so much more because they like your work, and that gives art directors confidence that you're followed by a lot of other illustrators, or you have a big following. It's not going to be like 20,000 art directors. 80% of that has got to be bystanders or other illustrators. So it's a much more organic way of building your profile. And that never existed in the I don't think it existed in the 80s, pre internet. I don't know whether other illustrators bigged up other illustrators, it was just every man for themselves.

11:31  
Yeah, I think it was every man for themselves, definitely. So that sharing is a different culture. You wouldn't have an online shop. I graduated from art school in 94 the idea of having an online being online, I remember sending emails, yeah, now and again as a big deal fire up the computer, exactly, yeah. So just the way the illustrators make a living now has completely changed.

11:57  
If you wanted to sell your work, you had the gatekeeper of a gallery, yeah, to say yay or nay, and they were, there were very few pickings for illustrators, because the big fine art illustration divide still existed, and it was really clear cut, wasn't it? You can't come in here. You're not a painter. Are you a designer or Illustrator? Over to the other corner for you that you'd show in competitions like Aoi competitions. If that became a travelling show, you might sell work there, but illustrators didn't sell work as a rule. So that's a huge change.

12:31  
I wonder how you would get an audience of just maybe LinkedIn is more like that, isn't it, where you're speaking to clients, an audience of clients. But even then, on LinkedIn, it's other illustrators, like when I see people on LinkedIn, sometimes I just like, who's like this? And it's like a list of 20 illustrators on other people's posts. Yeah, just as I thought, an audience

12:50  
of other illustrators is really valuable, though, even from a publisher's point of view, because if you have a really big following on Instagram, it's a huge help to get published. It's not necessary. You don't have to have a few huge following to get public, but to get published, but it's another tick in the box towards you being a good bet. Yeah, with an audience, and it's just,

13:11  
it's a matter of just showing up and repeating, isn't it, without on a level that you can personally manage without burning out. I think that enigma of Enigma, the phenomena of so many illustrators who've done what they've been told to do in order to get the profile, to get themselves work, and then just collapsed and then disappeared off Instagram for six months. Come back, and they've still got a nervous tic. Try again, but it's been really tough on illustrators. If you haven't got the energy, the time span, the skills, the mental wherewithal to keep putting yourself out there. I wonder what will supersede it, what could come next?

13:47  
Do you think you can still have a good portfolio? If you don't have social media,

13:51  
you can certainly have a good portfolio whether anyone will find it. Yeah, that's it. You need people to be able to find it.

13:58  
Yeah, that's what social media is it's like a way in feed people to your folio. Yeah, they find you. They stumble upon you. They get to know you, they look at your work, and because they know you, they're more likely to work with you.

14:09  
I don't really have what you would consider a folio on my website. You don't need one.

14:16  
It's different stages of career, isn't it? How you use social media is dependent on what you want and what stage of your career you're at. I just think for younger illustrators and graduate illustrators, they've been born into this boiling soup. They know no other we had annuals, didn't we, yeah, that was the out.

14:35  
Oh, they were grim, though, weren't they? You had to pay to be in them, and then your work would be in it, and all the colours would look wrong, and you were beside another illustrator whose work you hated and make yours look bad.

14:47  
Yeah, they were so bad all the airbrush artists who just didn't seem to have anything to do with the group of illustrators we were coming from.

14:55  
At least you can curate how your work is seen on Instagram, because your Choose. And what piece of work to put beside another, yeah, or even control of it and the people looking at it, you can get them on an email list. It's yours.

15:08  
Even on a sub stacks. I was on your sub stack this morning, and it looks so nice on the page. Thank you, just because all the illustrations and the colours and everything that you can't do that, if it's like on Instagram, in the feed, it's all flying past, isn't it? But affiliate substack is slower, and it was nice. It was nice

15:23  
to see No. Thank you very much. I think I don't have a folio on my website because it's back to that thing with three of us being different types of illustrators, once I've got a client that's it married to them forever, so I don't need a folio to bring in new clients. Also, my books are my folio. They're in the world. So if a publisher is thinking of working with me, they already know my books. They're in the world. So I don't really need it, whereas you guys, you have new clients frequently. So a folio is vital.

15:56  
And even then, my folio is a sales page as well, because it's like a bit of work, a bit of persuading, a bit of work, a bit of persuading. Rather than, like when I started out, my portfolio was a page like, yeah, is my portfolio. And then that

16:08  
was it. The idea of having your work out in the world as books like permanent portfolios, mini portfolios scattered around bookshops, business.

16:16  
Lovely idea. Tanya, it is not always lovely books that I wish I hadn't done now,

16:22  
and they are out there in the world. Are they still there? The ones, the early ones that you don't like?

16:27  
No, actually, the good thing is that they go out of print after a while. No, the ones that the ones I love, are the ones that stay. I've had times where I've had I'll sign up with a publisher. The art director will left. Leave another will come. Once I had five art directors, so you can imagine the state of this book. Oh, no, I just had to pretend that book didn't exist. Luckily, it went out of print quite quickly, but it was in the world on bookshelves with my name on it. You feel like it needs a post. It stuck to every copy. Good, sorry. Directors. Wasn't my fault.

17:08  
Yeah, that's the downside, isn't it? Because at least if you do a bad magazine illustration and you're cringing for a month, it's over after a month, and not many people except the dentist have got copies of that anymore. I think competitions are taking over annuals, where annuals used to be okay, you can't guarantee you'll be in it, but you couldn't always guarantee you'd be in an annual a it cost too much, and if your work was really rubbish, they might probably refuse you. But world illustration award seems to be getting bigger and more global, and that's the closest to being out there as another way of selling yourself directly to whoever your client is going to be, because you pay to enter that one, don't you? There's a fee, yeah, there's a fee is, I think it's reasonable. It's mid range, yeah, and that all this, actually, when this comes out, the submissions, the deadline was extended by a week, but I think it will be finished by the time this comes out,

18:02  
I see lots of good shippers entering their work, yeah.

18:05  
And lots of them have got into depict us, and lots of different pitch book competitions, haven't they, there's always a good showing the Bologna exhibition.

18:13  
There's quite a few good shippers in the depicters bologna stand this year, which is exciting. And we have a stand up bologna this year too. Yeah, if you're coming drop by and see us, we've got sweets. We should explain what bologna Book Fair is. Yeah, it's a big international book fair where all of the publishers turn up with their books and sell to each other in foreign editions.

18:34  
Actually, that's where I've seen your portfolio, because your agent had a portfolio that she was showing people. It's like, here's the Hello, really? Yeah, at Bologna, yeah. But I think it was just your books, really. It was like, here's the books,

18:46  
April the 13th to the 17th, something like that. If you haven't got a flight book, it down, because it's super busy, isn't it? But if you can get to Italy, even if you can stay in Pisa or Milan or Vienna, you can come for the day on the train. I've been

19:01  
added to a whatsapp chat of good shippers going to Bologna and apparently at midday on Monday, podcast, we're gonna meet at the stand, at our stand, at our stand. Yeah, going

19:19  
back to our Instagram, what's that? What's our take on it? Our takeaway is, don't rely on it completely.

19:26  
Know what you're trying to achieve. I think that's where it gets really burnouty. If you just posting because you think you should, but you don't know why you're doing it.

19:33  
Yeah, without focus and just that pressure of A must post all the time, and then that's at the sacrifice of a really lovely curated folio that's not ideal quality. A nice curated folio of work that you like doesn't have to be too many pieces. Don't put in anything that you don't like, because the publishers will definitely look at that and say, Can we have more of that? And then as much Instagram as you can do? Without ruining your energy and burning out.

20:03  
Yeah, as a bit of an old Boomer, I've been introduced to edits. It's so exciting, isn't it good? It's so easy. Yeah, it's I have wanted so long to figure out how to string bits of film together and edit it and so forth. The kids tried to show me cap cut. I couldn't deal with it. But yeah, edits, is really good. So I think I might be trying to make some little film things soon. Yeah, and Katie will tell me how to talk to the world. Do you just pretend you're talking to your best friend?

20:30  
Yeah, on Instagram, yeah. Just let your face time and your mum or something.

20:34  
Okay, that's what I'm gonna do. See you next week. Bye. You everyone you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai