Curating your work, Part II, by Mike Ciccotello

Last time I wrote, we spoke about curating your work for a website. Now I’d like to share my experience of curating work for social media, specifically, I want to tell you about my Instagram experience. 

At the NJ SCBWI summer conference, I met two art directors, Maria Middleton, Random House, and David Dewitt, Little Bee. Both art directors said they have searched for new talent on Instagram. If you are an illustrator looking for work, that little bit of information should make you think about having an Instagram account.

Here's a preview of my Instagram feed.

If you are an Instagram user, you know that you can search users, tags, popular stuff, not so popular stuff, it’s endless. You can view new images people have posted when you click your home button, or you can swipe right and view what people you follow are liking. It’s visual. It’s cool. And like most social media, it can eat hours of your day if you’re not careful.

The thing that sets Instagram apart, in my opinion, is Instagram offers a unique visual experience, The 9 Image Grid. When you view a users feed, within the Instagram app on a smartphone, you can see 9 square images, 3 across and 3 down. Typically, a user will post one image per square that doesn’t necessarily relate to the other images. A dinner plate, an adorable dog, pictures of kids… you get the point.

Now, what if we played with that space? What if we pushed the boundaries? Instagram is always 3 images across with a portrait orientation. So, what if you take a 3x1, long horizontal image, cropped it to 3 squares, and post each square image separately? What if we took it a step further and cut up a 3x2 image or a 3x3 image? I once posted a 12x3 image… that’s 36 square images. 

You can view my Instagram here. (@ciccotello)

I have seen photographers use this technique and thought it might be interesting to try. I wanted the whole feed to flow from one group to the next. 

I have been influenced by this idea of an “infinite canvas” many years ago when I met Scott McCloud at NY ComicCon.  Years after that conversation, I saw this amazing comic by XKCD, titled, Click and Drag.

I understand Instagram doesn’t scroll left or right, and every feed has a starting point. But being able to infinitely add imagery is pretty cool. I tried it out and kept up with it for a while. I posted Monday through Friday, at least 3 images a day. I had to take a little break due to deadlines etc., but I’ll be back to posting just in time for INKtober.

Once you start posting in a format like this, you need to always post in 3’s, to keep everything in order. If you only post one image, it throws the feed out of wack and the images won’t line up until you post a third image. 

I didn't invent this, I just put my own spin on it. Look at Dave Pilkey's Instagram feed. He’s shifted away from it a bit, but if you scroll down his feed, you can see ways he has played with the space. 

Consider the images you post and what they look like as a group, rather than an individual piece. Each post could be an individual piece, but maybe there's an overall color pattern you could follow, or textural element. How would you use this space to curate your day-to-day art gallery?

ROAR!

YAHOO!

TIPS: 

• Plan your grid of images ahead of time. 
• Look into tools like Tail Wind or Instagrid. 
• Use photoshop with a grid overlay to see what goes where.
• Post the last image first and keep working backwards.
• Always post three images at a time.

If you have questions, please feel free to comment.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Instagram ( @ciccotello) to see my upcoming INKtober posts and how everything evolves. I’ll be speaking at Johnson & Johnson Corporate HQ next week talking about my current show, Wishes and Daydreams. If you or someone you know works for Johnson & Johnson, stop by the show and send me a message. I’d love to hear from you.

Represented by Rachel Orr

For more info contact 

rko(a)prospectagency.com

Prospect Agency Portfolio

Facebook:  The Art of Mike Ciccotello 

Twitter: @ciccotello 

Instagram: @ciccotello 

Curating your work, Part I, by Mike Ciccotello

So, you put together a beautiful illustration portfolio and attended a conference for children's literature. You had your work reviewed by art directors, and editors. Sure there are some tweaks to be made, but that’s no problem. It’s all part of the journey. Not only have you created a portfolio, but you've made promotional images regularly, participated in online challenges, and daily warmup sketches. Congratulations! Good for you. This is fantastic and you should be proud of the work you are doing. All of this is moving you forward.

Now, how do you present that to the world? Website? Social Media? 

Let's break this down in two parts. This post will focus on the website.

This past summer at the NJ SCBWI conference, I had the pleasure of attending, Building a Digital Portfolio, a workshop run by, Maria Middleton, art director, Random House. Her workshop spoke volumes with me. Curate our digital content. Treat your space like an art gallery. It’s not just about having a website, it’s about the whole experience. The examples she showed were clean, easily consumed, and simple to navigate. 

Shortly after the conference, I decided to revise the approach to my website and social media. If I want to work creating illustration for children’s literature, I should make sure that people know that. There was work to be done, but it was a lot of work. The only way it was going to happen was if I made the time to do it. I created a staged plan, starting with my website. 
Cleanup. Reorganize. Redesign.

Clean up your site. Don't hoard work that isn't relevant to what you want to do. 

Clean up.

The first thing I did was remove a whole bunch of old work from my site. There was too much. I was hoarding my old work. It had nothing to do with my children’s literature work… it had to go. This decision will be different for each person. I would recommend that if you choose to show the old, don’t let it out-weigh the new. 80% new and 20% old might be an easy way to think about it. Most importantly, just like a portfolio, only show your best work. Now I believe you have a little more lee way with a website, but still, it's an important note to keep in mind.

Come up with a simple way to organize your site.

Reorganize.

Once I removed all the unnecessary imagery, I needed to reduce the number of sections on the site. I used to have multiple menu items. Now, there are three top level options: Art, Store, and About. This is directly from Ms. Middleton’s workshop. Keep your menu simple. You can reference my site to follow along - ciccotello.com

This is how my menu breaks down

Art

- Color – Current color portfolio work

- Black & White – Current black & white portfolio work

- Pen & Ink – Inktober and other fun

- Coffee Cup Doodles – Daydreams caught on a coffee cup

- Painting – Some of my older work

Store – Links to my online store

About – Contains my headshot, bio, and contact form

A screenshot from my website.

Redesign.

Finally, I developed a look. I went with a white background, placed imagery on paper/canvas with a slight drop shadow. I designed a simple logo that sits below the menu. The type treatment is reinforced on my business card and postcards. The image of me is in the favicon for the site and all of my social media. 

Each section contains a small gallery. The Color as well as the Black & White galleries are both designed on a similar paper and drop shadow. The Pen and Ink gallery uses a sheet of sketchbook paper. The painting gallery uses canvas and the coffee cup doodles are actual photographs of each cup. Eventually, I will phase out the Coffee Cup Doodles and the Painting section, and replace them with my 10 minute sketches, making my site completely children's literature focused. 

Why does all of this matter?

If someone happens upon your site, you want to put your best foot forward, right? The day I finished my site, I texted an author friend and asked her to take a look. She texted back saying she liked it and tweeted the link. Later that night, I got an email from my agent. She was contacted by an editor that came across my site (which I believe was connected to my author friend) and really liked my work. The editor bookmarked my site and hopes the right project will come along for me. I hope so too.

I realize our art needs to shine the most, and it should. But by following these simple steps, you can give your visitors a clear idea of what it is you do, where to find what, and how to get in touch.

Next time I’ll talk about social media and more specifically, Instagram. 

Represented by Rachel Orr

For more info contact 

rko(a)prospectagency.com

Prospect Agency Portfolio

Facebook:  The Art of Mike Ciccotello 

Twitter: @ciccotello 

Instagram: @ciccotello