Digital Scribing: How to Hire a Virtual Live Illustrator 101
Hybrid event ideas - Boost creativity and innovative thinking with live illustration.
How do you hire a live illustrator?
First, let’s take a step back and ask ourselves why we’d want to hire a live illustrator in the first place. Is there any point in having somebody draw pictures at our event? Do we really NEED a graphic recorder to note down all the topics being discussed at my workshop?
Behold.
5 Reasons Why Live Illustration is Amazing
Communicate with your target audience quickly. Smash through language barriers, connect with people, and create a lasting, memorable impression. There’s never been a better time for talking in pictures! Humans are sociable, creative creatures at heart.
Be environmentally conscious. Live illustration and graphic recording virtually is an eco-friendly way to create quality content. No travel, no art supplies (except an iPad). No costly props or plastic. The stuff sustainable PR dreams are made of. All good stuff.
Create memorable events. Have you ever been stopped in your tracks in the street by a performer? Live illustration is no different. Capture a new audience, boost brand awareness, and create memories for your customers. It’s almost impossible to ignore an artist creating something while you watch. You want to take photos, share online... easy peasy PR.
Build up a solid know-like-trust factor for your brand or workshop. This is incredibly important if you want to engage loyal customers/attendees/fans. A live illustration event can give your clients the feeling of being special, thoroughly well looked after, and valued. VIP product customisation has a premium feel and is an excellent way to give back to those dedicated customers. The word of mouth from social media shares after the event is just a bonus.
Lasting impact. Make your live illustration work harder and get more bang for your buck. Live Illustration creation is wonderful in the moment, and that can continue! A time lapse film of the creation of your live illustration taking shape, for instance, can double up as wonderful social media content. Graphic recording is easily repurposed for advertising.
*Make sure illustration usage is agreed in your contract/licence before the work starts, and you’re good to go.
I love this stuff, and of course I’m totally biased however it has been proven that communicating visually improves learning by 400%.
“When words and visual elements are closely entwined, we create something new and we augment our communal intelligence ... visual language has the potential for increasing ‘human bandwidth'—the capacity to take in, comprehend, and more efficiently synthesise large amounts of new information.”
Yes Robert Horn, You Absolute Legend.
Now that it’s super clear that visual communication and live illustration are the best things ever for you, your business and your customers, let’s move on to the big ol’ job of hiring a live event illustrator.
I’ll take you step-by-step through the process. If you’d like a printer-friendly version of all this, pop your email in below to get your copy.
A free guide. Download it below. Checklists, example of scribing, and ways to make the most of your hybrid, in-person and virtual events.
You might still have a few questions, so here’s a more in-depth look at each step.
Hiring a Live Illustrator
RESEARCH PHASE:
Figure out what you want, and find the perfect illustrator for the job
Decide on your illustration objectives
Getting clear on your desired outcomes will help you enormously in your search for the perfect live illustrator. Going shopping without a list is a disaster and you know you’ll come home with loads of crisps and chocolate and no useful food to cook into meals. Let’s get clear on what you’d like to achieve.
What do you want to get out of your event?
What would you like your customers or attendees to go home and rave about to their friends?
What would be the dream outcome of your live-illustrated event?
Here are some objective ideas to get you started:
Communicate company values
Murals, graphic recording and window painting are perfect for this.
Get your visual learners interested
Over 60% of us are visual learners.
Graphic recording works brilliantly for helping people to learn and absorb information more easily. A scribe is the perfect addition to a workshop or conference. Visual notes that graphic scribes create can boost learning in a serious way. There have been multiple studies on this. See Robert Horn quote earlier.
Would Robert Horn lie to us?
No. No he would not.
Live scribing for Penguin Randomhouse’s Global Editorial conference, 2021. Their first completely virtual 2-week event.
Generate some exciting, shareable, creative content
In the past my live illustration work has been repurposed in leaflets and brochures, used as graphics/buttons on a website and turned into video ad content on social media. Make sure you have a licensing agreement from your illustrator before you use their illustrations for anything extra, to keep everyone happy and avoid legal issues. If you have the go-ahead, there are SO MANY THINGS you can use those illustrations for.
Hiring a Live Illustrator
OK! Now it gets exciting
Finding the perfect live illustrator for you
Let’s head to Google and start searching. If you’ve decided that a giant window painting is the best option for you, try searching “window painting live illustrator [insert your city]’ and see what comes up. You could also search hashtags on Instagram/Twitter such as #liveillustration #windowpainting #graphicrecording
Things to look for:
Examples of their previous work
Proven track record
A visual style that suits your campaign/audience/workshop/event
Contact information
Confirm your illustrator’s availability and fee
Email or call your illustrator and make sure they’re available on the day and time that you need them. Live Illustrators are in high demand and are often booked months in advance.
Clearly communicate what, where and when you’d like them to live illustrate.
Live Illustration is a specialist skill and you can expect to pay anything from £200-£3500 for live scribing at virtual events. You get what you pay for! Prices vary depending on level of experience, reliability and proven track record. Your planned usage of the illustrations - eg. If you plan to turn it into a giant wall decal, print them in a brochure or a poster - will also impact the price. Your illustrator may have a day rate and charge a certain amount regardless of how many hours you’ll need them for. It differs from artist to artist, and job to job so send that email and find out.
Live scribing for a Starbucks team future mission planning session
Hiring a live illustrator doesn’t have to be overwhelming.
Hiring a Live Illustrator
BUSINESS TIME:
Admin, contracts and agreements and ideas
Sign a contract
Your company might have its own contracts, otherwise all illustrators should have an acceptance of commission form, or some other kind of agreement. Once this is signed, you are all confirmed and ready to work together. Absolutely make sure you have a contract in place and that everything is written down. If everybody knows what is expected of them, there’s a much better chance of a happy working relationship for everybody involved.
For illustrators: The AOI have wonderful contract templates.
Pay booking fee
To confirm all bookings with brand new clients, I require 50% to book, and the final 50% on delivery of artwork on the day of the virtual event. This is not the case for all illustrators, but it’s good industry practice and it builds mutual trust and respect.
Advertise your event
The earlier you start advertising, the better. Of course, this doesn’t apply to private events or workshops, but if you’d like more attendees, consider advertising online and locally.
Hiring an ads specialist is highly recommended if you want to achieve maximum reach.
If you’d like your illustrator to create some artwork to help advertise in the run-up to the event, you will usually be charged extra for this.
Agree rough designs
For window paintings, wall murals and sometimes portraits, it can be reassuring to confirm designs before the event. You know what you’re getting, and the artist knows what they are doing.
Win win.
These jobs often have a fast turnaround but a rough design plan can be created in a day or two, depending on the illustrator’s schedule.
For Virtual Events, it’s great to have a brefing meeting (or email) before the event so everybody knows exactly what’s happening.
Hiring a Live Illustrator
ON THE DAY: It’s show time
Does your illustrator have everything they need?
It’s great to have a back-channel for communication. Whatsapp is great, or you might use Slack, or the private chat function in video conferencing software like Zoom (just make sure you don’t accidentally broadcast illustrator-only messages to the whole event.)
Regular Breaks
This will benefit everyone, not just the illustrator! Zoom fatigue is real, and it’s good to have a break from screens to wander off to the kitchen and make a fresh cup of tea every 45mins-1hour.
Logos, Colours, Branding Guidelines
These all help to make your live illustration sit nicely alongside your existing content. We send out an info-collector form before the event to gather all of this important stuff in one place. (Without sending a zillion emails back and forth.)
A Meeting Joining LInk
Sounds silly, but it’s hard to have a live illustrator if they haven’t got a link to the event. AAAGH, haha. Don’t worry, it’s on the checklist.
Hiring a Live Illustrator
It’s party time
AFTER THE EVENT:
Yaaaaas, you did it! However, let’s take a quick break from basking in those social media interactions, raving fans and boosted sales - your work isn’t over yet.
Share your illustrations with event attendees.
This is the fun bit! Some illustrators take a while to get the final artwork to you, but I aim to senf it over within 15-30 minutes after the end of the event.
SPEEDY.
Recently I’ve been experimenting with GIFs too. Let me know if you’d like to have a GIF of your live illustration too! They’re so easy to share in an email, and on Twitter they play automagically.
Give feedback & say thanks!
It’s so easy to forget the little things in the aftermath of a huge event. Take time to thank your illustrator, and let them give you any feedback. It’s also a great time to let the artist know what worked well, why you liked working with them, and any other information that could be useful for future jobs.
Want to read my reviews? They’re here! Reviews make the world go round, and they help build trust. Make sure your illustrator has a proven track record.
Don’t be scared to ask them for references!
Pay remaining fee
Easily overlooked. Pay your illustrators on time!
Every time you pay an illustrator in a timely fashion, a fairy grows its wings.
I’m keeping this paragraph short but sweet, however, do not underestimate the importance of paying promptly. It makes everybody feel that much better.
I’m a Live Illustrator!
(That’s handy, eh?) If you’d like to see my latest work and learn more about the process, come and have a peek at my Live Illustration page.
My books are currently open for taking scribing, live illustration and graphic recording and I’d love to know if this guide helped you. If you have any questions or anything, you can email me here.
Check out more of my live illustration work here, and my graphic recording here.
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Speak soon,
-Katie