{"id":4102,"date":"2025-02-24T15:03:26","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T15:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pablovester.com\/2025\/02\/24\/ilustracion-ocio-vs-ilustracion-producto\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T13:46:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:46:21","slug":"ilustracion-ocio-vs-ilustracion-producto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/2025\/02\/24\/ilustracion-ocio-vs-ilustracion-producto\/","title":{"rendered":"hobby illustration vs. product illustration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since around 2018, I\u2019ve been attending illustration fairs\u2014sometimes as a participant, other times just to browse (\u201cin civilian clothes,\u201d as I like to say). At every one of these events, you can wander through aisles of artists selling all kinds of products featuring their own artwork. Whether it\u2019s fan art or original characters, I see them printed on an endless array of objects: mugs, keychains, charms, glasses, earrings, stickers, prints, blankets, notebooks, notepads, and a long list of etceteras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Just how cute do these phone charms are?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I AM AN ARTIST THAT PRODUCES<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The process of preparing an item to display before thousands of people by a specific deadline is anything but simple. The first step is deciding what the illustration will be and where it\u2019s meant to go. A drawing for a paper print isn\u2019t the same as one for a mug or a tote bag. There are countless variables to consider, but above all, you have to think like a designer (or pretend to be one): composition, readability, whether the focus should be on the text or the artwork, whether to omit text entirely, whether the colors will translate well to the chosen medium, and so many other \"what ifs.\"\n
<\/br>\nAfter endless drafts and settling on a final design, you have to find the right supplier to bring your vision to life. Whether it\u2019s acrylic manufacturers, companies that hand-paint pins, or print shops that handle paper goods, each supplier must be thoroughly researched, vetted through fellow artists, and subjected to exhaustive price comparisons. Once you\u2019ve chosen one, you have to prepare the file for production\u2014CMYK or RGB color profile, vector-based Illustrator files or layered Photoshop documents, transparent PNGs or flat-background JPGs, whether the dimensions fit the supplier\u2019s printing matrix or if you need to account for a \"safe zone\" for cutting.\n
<\/br>\nAt this point, you\u2019d think all the hurdles have been cleared\u2014but the production process isn\u2019t over yet. You still have to pick up the printed product and check if it looks the way you imagined, keeping in mind there\u2019s at least a 30% chance it won\u2019t. And let\u2019s not forget the possibility of defective items! Even then, the event date hasn\u2019t arrived, so now you have to prep everything: trimming, rounding edges, sorting by color or theme so they\u2019re easy to find when someone decides to buy them. And if you don\u2019t finish in time? Chances are, on the day of the event, you\u2019ll be backstage frantically cutting with a pair of kids' scissors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could go on about everything that can go wrong\u2014and I haven\u2019t even touched on the day of the event itself\u2014but you can probably imagine that if you\u2019re exhausted just reading about the process, living it is twice as draining. All of this is just to create a product featuring an illustration. But what\u2019s the process for drawing just for fun? You pick up your tool of choice\u2026 and that\u2019s it. The end. Nothing more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I AM AN ARTIST WHO IS WORN OUT<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When I described the journey of creating an object, you might have noticed I used a lot of production-related terms\u2014as if artists were meant to be tiny walking factories. Supplier, layout, quality control, packaging\u2014these words drag us into an extremely capitalist approach to drawing. But drawing is an art. Why must we kneel at the feet of the goods-production machine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Miyazaki was right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Artists shouldn\u2019t\u00a0have\u00a0to be factories. They just want to\u00a0be. Period. I dare you to ask any artist in your circle whether they\u2019d rather draw freely or assemble a pin with their artwork. The pre-event ritual isn\u2019t just about production or restocking\u2014it\u2019s also about watching thousands of peers on social media, stressed and exhausted, juggling multiple tasks, brainstorming new\u00a0designs<\/em>\u00a0(it\u2019s not even \"drawing\" anymore, now it\u2019s \"designing\"), or scrambling to find a new supplier because their usual one jacked up prices. Doesn\u2019t that sound exhausting? I\u2019d even go so far as to say demoralizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I AM AN ARTIST-TURNED-PRODUCT<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not criticizing fellow artists who engage in what I call \"product illustration\"\u2014they do it because, at the end of the day, we all live in the same society. We have to produce to earn money, and with that money, we eat (and reinvest in new products). Not everyone has a side job, and it\u2019s very likely that their only income comes from selling merchandise featuring their art. You have to brainstorm and offer new products every month or every event to make enough profit to cover daily living expenses. I\u2019d bet anything that everyone wishes they could break free from this cycle\u2014but they can\u2019t. I have to eat, and so, I have to produce.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point of these words isn\u2019t to attack my peers but to make it clear that any artist, illustrator, designer, or ceramicist trying to make a living from their craft is also just trying to survive on planet Earth. And in that grueling production process, buried deep beneath it all, they\u2019re leaving a piece of themselves behind. Production days are long, and every item is made with attention and care. Know that we display them with love and high hopes\u2014for you, future customers, and a little bit for ourselves, too. I always hope that at least some of that love shines through in what I\u2019ve made, that you can see beyond just a cute little drawing on a print. Behind that endless production journey is a sleep-deprived person who desperately wants you to appreciate their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in the end, when we manage to carve out a sliver of time between all that production, we do what we know best: we draw. But now, I\u2019m not drawing for a customer. I draw for leisure. I draw to rest. I draw to\u00a0be. I draw for myself.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Desde m\u00e1s o menos el 2018 que asisto a ferias de ilustraci\u00f3n, ya sea como participante o para pasear (\u201cde civil\u201d, como me gusta decir a m\u00ed). En todas ellas se pueden recorrer pasillos de artistas que venden todo tipo de productos con ilustraciones de su autor\u00eda. Ya sean dibujos fan art o con personajes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-es"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4102"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9050,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4102\/revisions\/9050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}