{Collaboration & Original Artwork}
Girls Rock Indianapolis! approached me to create a poster for their upcoming rock and roll camp. I couldn’t let the ladies of GRI! down, so in order to keep the poster artwork true to the indie roots of GRI! I contacted a fantastic local illustrator, Aaron Scamihorn.
Have you heard of Aaron? If not, you better look him up now!
As an illustrator he has a wonderful edge that keeps his work fresh and unique. The older I get the more I’ve come to realize that it’s better to collaborate with as many talented individuals as possible to come up with a unique visual solution, than to try and hammer it out by myself and miss the opportunity to create something very out of the ordinary. Illustration is not one of my strong talents and I love working with illustrators like Aaron because of two things:
1. No stock photography.
2. No stock vector art.
It’s a great opportunity when you have a client that understands how important it is to keep their identity/message original by staying away from stock photography and stock vector art. Why? Because stock web sites that sell cheap stock images to you and I are also selling the same images to millions of other marketing companies and design firms. It’s not an all together bad thing, but it makes it very hard to advertise a service as being truly unique when the same artwork is used for a feminine hygiene product that winds up being used for a software design guidebook.
It’s not always easy to convince clients to use original artwork/photography…budgets and time has to allow for you to use an illustrator or photographer. But when you do get a chance to use artwork/photography that is created uniquely for your client’s services-it makes all the visual difference.
