When I first started out in surface pattern design, the advice I was given to get my art ‘out there’ was to do one or all of the following:

• Enter design competitions – they promised exposure.
• Post frequently to social media sites like Instagram & Pinterest – Art Directors peruse them looking for new talent.
• Add work to print-on-demand sites such as Society 6 or Spoonflower – Building a successful product line will get you noticed.

What I wasn’t told was that these methods are extremely competitive and your art will just get lost in all the other art that’s on them. Not to mention how exhausting doing all these things are with no guarantee of return on investment.

After discovering Shannon McNab on Skillshare and following her on Instagram – one great piece of advice she gave was to stop doing these things in the view of getting ‘discovered’ and to do this instead:

Create private work and contact art directors directly

So I stopped posting on social media. I came off Instagram and started developing a body of work with the intention of contacting art directors. I did contact a few but what I did was send one email to one company, wait a week and send another email to another company. Composing each email took ages and my portfolio was all over the place – I had no idea how many floral pieces I had in it!

The whole process of contacting art directors was a chore

It was a haphazard, muddled operation and I had no idea if the art directors had even received my email. I was not going to get far with this method.

After taking every online course run by industry leaders, I vowed not to spend another penny. I wanted money to come in, not to go out! 

Shannon launched the beta course for ‘Pitch Your Portfolio’ around this time. I was intrigued but hesitant. After all I vowed not to spend any more money on courses. 

However, the promise of creating a system to organise your portfolio and send consistent emails to art directors on a regular basis sounded tempting - it was exactly what I needed. 

The betas gave rave reviews about the course. I reasoned that if I just sold one portfolio piece by following the course’s advice, then it would pay for itself. And there was two payment methods – a one-off payment or a 6-monthly plan. I opted for the latter – I was sold!

After completing the course, my portfolio is lovely and organised now. I can see exactly how many pieces I have in each category and clearly see any gaps that I need to fill. I have a private portfolio on my website for art directors to look through. And I have a system in place where I can easily send off a bunch of emails to art directors in one sitting. 

Honestly, signing up to the course was one of the best decisions I’ve made

Of course you can do all this on your own. If you’re disciplined and put your mind to it, you can do exactly the same thing as I have done. But along with step-by-step organisation, 

Shannon’s course offers the kind of insider knowledge that’s worth the price alone - the types of email replies you’ll receive and how exactly to reply to them. 

My time is precious – I want to spend as much time as possible creating art. I also want to get my work in front of the right people. I now have a system that streamlines this process. With Pitch your Portfolio, you will get:

If you follow Shannon’s method, you will become SUPER-DOOPER-organised! And if you are a typical right-brained creative, you know how organisation will make your life that much easier and will free up your time for making art.

I love this course so much I became an affiliate and I’ve never been an affiliate for anything before. I will only ever back something I 100% believe in. Since starting the course I’ve sent dozens of emails to art directors, many of whom have shown interest in my work and I’ve secured several licensing deals!

THE DETAILS:

• Enrollment opens Tuesday, April 4th until Tuesday April 11th 2023. CLICK HERE to sign up.
• This is the ONLY time Pitch your Portfolio will be offered in 2023 – it won’t be available again until Spring 2024 and the price will likely go up.
• If you sign up using my link, I am offering a FREE copy of my ‘Jumpstart Your Art Licensing’ Companies Directory. Check the guide out here. (In order to get this bonus, please use the same browser and/or device to complete the transaction. Use my affiliate link here).
• If you have any questions, send me a message and I’ll get back to you!