As an illustrator, I asked a local graphic designer, who just moved to Montreal recently, about any advice for me relating to the field and she suggested the book “How to be a graphic designer, without selling your soul” by Adrian Shaughnessy.
An excellent book, although it is geared towards graphic designers and their desire to run a studio and deal with clients. However, a few thoughts came across my mind and I thought I’d ask some of you here.
1) He mentions that communication is important and that making a pitch helps create a rapport and saleability of our work. How would a deaf designer or creative professional deal with that?
2) Should deaf creative professionals run a studio business with other hearing people, or are we better off freelancing alone in our home office? In other words, the author says that those who run a studio have a more open system of sharing resources, feedback and solving problems with pressure from clients as the only thing to deal with…while working alone has a huge benefit of doing your own thing but discipline is very difficult to maintain.
3) Should deaf creative professionals get an agent or rep for their work? Or should we go at it ourselves dealing with clientele at the risk of getting BS-ed by them? What happens if we cannot find a local rep or agent and are forced to do this ourselves?
Right now, I have one local art show next month to exhibit my illustrations and then another one next March in a popular nightclub. This way, I can market myself through the ‘underground’ and hope the use of word of mouth would be an effective viral campaign for me.
Although, I still continue to do my other freelance work and am almost done with the book cover illustration that’s been in the works for some time.
I emailed the author and got his response:
“Hi Adam
Thanks for your email. And thanks for your kind words about my book, I
really appreciate it.
Funnily enough, I once employed a deaf designer. I was asked by her
university to give her employment for a few weeks after she had graduated.
I interviewed her and found her to be a bright and engaging person. I sensed
she had plenty of inner strength. Her name was Sue.
Her work was ordinary; neither bad nor good, merely average. Nevertheless, I
was happy to take her on for a month. She lip read, and although her spoken
English was hard to understand at first, it soon became easy to grasp what
she was saying. There were no problems with her failing to understand what
was said to her.
At that time I also employed someone who had a profoundly deaf brother, and
I noticed that she was much better at dealing with Sue than the rest of us,
who were over cautious in our approach to her. As the only one of us with
experience of dealing with a deaf person, she dealt with Sue in an entirely
natural and unpatronising way.
So I think there is a lesson here: people have to learn to adjust to working
with deaf people, and I think many of us do it badly.
I wonder if it might help if you confronted this head on and said to
employers - look, I suppose you think it’s going to be difficult dealing
with me, but it’s not. I can be treated just like anyone else. I don’t need
special treatment.
This may sound simplistic - but I learned a lot by employing Sue. I learned
that people change when they have to deal with people with physical
disabilities - and they don’t need to.
My final thought is that if your work is good enough you will succeed. I’m
sure the barriers you encounter must be discouraging, but they are not
insurmountable. I also know one or two illustrators who conduct all their
business via email. I know this goes against my advice to build up good
communication with clients - but email can be an effective way of
communicating too.
I will continue to think about the issues your email raised, and if anything
else springs to mind, I’ll let you know.
I hope this helps.
Kind regards
Adrian”
Has anyone had those experiences?
