How to give an illustrator great feedback (and get great feedback from your illustration clients)

Here’s a guide I made for my illustration clients all about…

How to give your illustrator feedback

(so that they get great illustrations and we have a nice time working together)

Cilck below to watch the video :)

Oh nooo, is it time to give an illustrator feedback? Or are you about to shrivel up and die after some...interesting client interactions? 😅 Fear not! Here it is! My ultimate guide to giving (and getting) great feedback for clients and their illustrators. 11 years of learning-stuff-the-hard-way, condensed into a PDF just for you.

Free Downloadable Checklist:

How to Give and Get Great Feedback!

It’s a bit jumbled… but here’s the transcript of the video 😅 proceed at your own peril.

Hi there! I created this guide initially I made it for my clients and I have a document that I send to clients but I'm sharing it here in case it's useful for you. Maybe you're a commissioner working with an illustrator, maybe you're an illustrator working with somebody new or you're setting up your boundaries and stuff .Yay good for you! I hope it's helpful. If you like more of this kind of thing I am one third of the Good Ship illustration and at the moment we're working on the business course. I've been an illustrator since 2012 so that's 11 years math and in that time I've learned a lot about like what is nice when you're receiving feedback from clients what makes it really tricky to work with people so yeah I've made this guide it's a like a downloadable thing but also I thought why not make a video as well okay so apologies in advance my notes are here and I haven't mastered remembering what I've written down but side effects of this guide are that you will have a lovely time working with your illustrator you'll get exactly what you want creatively anyway and your project will finish and you'll be really happy and probably stay friends with the illustrator and want to work with them again which is win-win all around first step in good feedback is like laying foundations before you even start working together before you begin you want to make sure that you have a contract these are all the things that are a massive pain and the bomb to change later on so you want to know about the dimensions like what do you want a landscape or bter where is it going to be used if you don't know the dimensions at least discuss where you're going to be sharing the illustrations afterwards it's really important to agree on the scope and what the scope is is basically I mean you probably already know this but just when's the deadline how many rounds of rision is there going to be what are you actually going to get at the end of this so if it's two illustrations that's agreed now and it means further down the line if you decide oh actually I want three then the illustrator can come back and say look that wasn't in the initial scope that we agreed but I can do that it'll just cost you x amount more yeah Al so worth talking about like the process so will there be a rough stage what happens if one of you wants to cancel the project that's usually listed out in the contract and yeah it might be that there's a fee if you cancel closer to the deadline or if you cancel we in advance then it's all right uh every contractor is different every illustrator is different but it's worth getting that all ironed out before you even begin and then you know where you are so during the project this is where the magic is happening you've given your illustrator a lovely clear brief you've got a contract in place and they're drawing pictures for you they're probably going to come back to you with where they're up to maybe a rough or something as an illustrator this really it's really it's hard but you said to somebody your work and then you hear nothing like not even that they got the work it's really hard to just be cool about it so if you're able to just say like oh thank you for sending that you don't have to say whether it's good or bad or whether you have any feedback at that stage just saying that you've received it is going to be a game Cher for illustrators it like makes you a little bit nervous when you send something you hear nothing you're like oh my God what did I do wrong I've like not Illustrated them the right thing they hate it they hate me they're going to cancel the project oh my God but if you say like cool thank you for sending this I'm going to think about this and I'll get back to you your bonus points if you say when you're going to get back to them trust the process so if you've agreed the deadline you know when you're expecting work you can rest easy that they are just getting on with it everything's fine side note for illustrators if you're not going to be able to make the deadline it's so helpful to just tell your commissioner whoever you're working with that you're not going to be able to make it and that way they get the opportunity to you know sort it out either maybe there might be some wiggle room with the deadline or they might be able to change the brief a little bit to make it less work heavy um it might also be that they can get somebody else to do the job and you can be quietly removed before we even get into the feedback thing here are a few things about last minute changes I know it happens you've got the brief sorted and then the CEO or whoever sticks their a in and they're like oh actually we need you know this color scheme or we've just rebranded and this is the new logo it's totally fine just let the illustrator know as soon as you possibly can and then it means that they can make the changes and sort it out and you don't have to apologize but you can you know just Express that you understand it's not ideal sometimes it's a little bit annoying it depends what the change is and it also depends on your attitude and how nice you are so yeah there's a lot to be said for just being polite about asking for changes the actual meaty bit of the video how to give an illustrator feedback I am going to look at my notes now yeah put how to give an illustrator feed feedback and get what you want without pissing them off or frazzling them out so they need take the next four weeks off yeah in high school I had this amazing teacher and you would you would like pace around the room and you'd do these hands and go feedback feedback so yeah feedback is very important thank you Dr Jones but the way that you deliver the feedback is going to make the difference between a lovely working relationship and a brilliant illustration that you're so happy with and a side illustrator and either no project because they've dropped out because you've been horrendous to work with or you know something that you're not totally happy with because they have hav't taking your feedback on board feedback is best served crisp organized and clear and concise it's totally understandable you might be working with a huge team lots of stakeholders everyone needs to give feedback that's totally cool but it's your responsibility as the commissioner to kind of go through that feedback make sure that different points aren't contradicting each other because it happens make sure people aren't just contributing feedback because they want to look useful it happens as well sometimes people just feel like like you know oh yeah I'll just say this like move this slightly that way does so yeah just making sure that the feedback makes sense and is reasonable what's the what I'm looking for like has a reason behind it yeah that's important no feedback is okay maybe you've seen the illustration and you're like yeah that's it but I've agreed to two rounds of revisions so one am I going to Let's revise something no no no no if it's fine you can leave it it's totally cool it just shows that you've hired a brilliant illustrator and it also is credit to your brief making skills you've communicated your brief amazingly the illustrator has got it in one you can all go and have a little relax and a holiday yeah we talked a little bit about this but it's just about Gathering it all in one so if you you are probably the person speaking to the illustrator keep it to one person don't start see seeing in random people adding email chains and stuff if you can keep yourself as the main point of contact that makes it way easier for illustrators to deal with if you've got two round of revisions you don't want to squander them by like adding things you need to put it all into one email or PDF or marked illustration whatever it is the vehicle for you giving feedback keep it in one place and then you know if you take your time over it and you make it count you're going to have a much better result you don't have to be super fast and jump into giving feedback but like I mentioned before even if you can give an idea of when you're going to give feedback that is really helpful so saying thanks for sending this I will get back to you on Friday amazing we can all relax and the illustrator can kind of make a note on the calendar on Friday I'm going to be receiving feedback for this thing worth talking about opinions versus facts and in the past I've had and I know some of my friends who also illustrators have had feedback where people just say oh I don't like it and um that's it's fine everyone has opinions totally get it whatever but if there's not much you can change cuz you can't mind read so if you don't like it what is it about that you don't like you know the color slightly off is there something weird going on with the perspective is it too busy is it too empty the more clues you can give us the more we can help and you don't have to know exactly how to change it that's the reason you've hired a creative is because they've got the creative brains to fix it and to problem solve but just give them a little Head Start you know like if it's if it's the colors or if it is you know they've missed this big chunk of content and important information that you wanted in there you could can put it that way so yeah just remembering that you hir a professional they know what they're doing the last one is to be patient illustration can be a time consuming process and if you want good work sometimes it takes time especially if there's rounds of revisions going on also in the time even when an illustrator is not working they're thinking about the work and you know they problem solving in their head and that can take a while so as long as you have the dead lines and perhaps the key check-in times mapped out before you begin the project you shouldn't need to worry about it I also included um a list of like feedback nightmares maybe I'll put them on here as a like slideshow or something I feel they're too painful to read out they're so bad no I can't do it I can't do it okay um I hope this has been helpful I'll put a link to download it below nice to see

you!