Illustrator Ben O’Brien - Catch Up Episode
About this podcast episode…
BEN O’BRIEN, AKA ‘BEN THE ILLUSTRATOR’
Ben O’Brien, known to many as Ben The Illustrator, returns to share how his freelance journey has evolved since his first Being Freelance appearance back in 2018.
From losing all his travel industry clients overnight in 2020, to discovering new income streams through lockdown listening parties, to launching a creative studio with his wife, and literally building a studio with his friends. Ben’s path of adaptation has been found by following his curiosity, being more open that ever to opportunities.
Now 25 years into his self-employed life and 20 years as ‘Ben The Illustrator’, there’s a lot of experience for Ben to draw from (making no apologies for the pun).
- Finding clients through word of mouth (and why you can’t force it)
- Running a print shop… and knowing when to shut it
- The joy of building your own studio from scratch (literally)
- What AI can’t do (and how human illustrators can stay ahead)
- Why sharing your work (not just your services) really matters
Ben seems to be a really happy place creatively and with work life balance.
And he's rediscovered the joy of doing what he always loved.
Available as a video podcast too - Watch Ben here on the site, on YouTube, or Spotify.
Read a full transcript & get Links in the tabs.
More from BEN O’BRIEN
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and illustrator Ben O’Brien
Steve Folland: Shall we crack on and head to Somerset and say hello to this week's guest. And that is freelance illustrator Ben O'Brien. Hey Ben!
Ben O'Brien: Hey. Hi Steve. Nice to speak to you again. Thank you very much for having me on.
Steve Folland: I want to pick up from where we left off really. So, Remind us what you were doing in 2018, and then take us on a journey. How's things evolved since then?
Ben O'Brien: I mean, I'm still illustrating full time. It's what I do, so that's not really changed. But, so I went back and looked at the old episode and I said on that episode that I wanted to do a lot more travel illustration. Because that was something I was enjoying a lot of the time.
So 2018, so I did do that. I kind of pushed myself in the travel industry. I got a few kind of like good regular clients. I was doing a monthly job for, an airline magazine. I was working with a PR company on quite a, quite a regular kind of rate, quite a few things like that. And it was all kind of like really good.
And then obviously 2020 happened and the travel industry crashed. And at the time I had maybe four or five projects on a couple of fairly big ones, and then a few of the regular ones and everything got cut off sort of thing.
Every job I was on got canceled as soon as we kind of went to lockdown, because that was the first industry to panic really.
Like we went into lockdown. I was kind of kept busy, I think for the first few weeks because I got a son and he was like, obviously like we all had to. You know, home educate and all that kind of thing suddenly. My wife's business had to kind of work out how they were gonna do it. So I, I kind of probably just didn't really focus on my own work for a while.
And because I didn't have any clients, 'cause they'd all dropped everything. I didn't really do anything. But then obviously it came to a point where I was like, okay, I have to figure this out now. 'cause this the past two years of working in the travel industry. Now is I, you know, I didn't know where it was gonna go.
I didn't know how long lockdown was gonna happen, how, I didn't know how long the world was gonna stop traveling and that kind of thing. So I guess I kind of pivoted and I ended up doing a lot of work for the music industry. Music's like my first love, so I think beyond even before illustration or whatever.
And so I started to kind of connect with more people like that. there was a lot of things going on like lockdown stuff. Tim Burgess, the singer from The Charlatans, started doing these Twitter Listening Parties and I was really, so every night everyone would listen to an album at the same time, and then people would tweet along with it and then he'd have the bands tweeting about it or people who worked on the artwork or that kind of thing.
And so I kind of found a really nice like community there. Of people I got to know. And then I got to know Tim Burgess. He asked me to do a couple of things, and so I did some illustrations for the Listening Parties. And then that's kind of grown. And then now I work quite regularly with him and kind of his team of people and doing things with them.
And then through doing that, I got to know quite a few kind of bands, kind of up and coming bands and established bands. And I've kind of now working far more on like music based stuff or music festivals, events and that kind of thing, which is, like I say, that's my, my love sort of thing. So I'm getting to do these things and I'm getting to go and go places and meet my heroes sometimes and kind of just working on stuff that I really, really love.
That's kind of where I am now. I mean, as far as my own work, that's kind of, yeah, that's where I am now.
Steve Folland: Much more in the music industry. Yeah. When, when you say, "yeah, I got to know Tim Burgess and he asked me to do a couple of bits", I almost felt like there might be a little step missing out of there though.
As in like, did you create a piece of art? Like how did he know what you could do in order to ask you to do it?
Ben O'Brien: There was one morning when we were in lockdown and this is quite early on because I remember it must have been like early spring. I was walking the dog quite early one morning because we had to, you know, you had to go early before anyone else was out and that kind of thing.
And I was listening to music. I was listening to this Massive Attack. It was their first album. I always liked the cover for it, which is like a warning sign sort of thing. Mm-hmm. and I was like, oh, do you know what I might do for fun when I get back? Like create my own version of that. So a kind of a simplified graphic version of that cover.
And I did that and, it was just kind of a satisfying thing to do. And I put it on socials and people were like, 'oh, that's cool, I like that'. And then I started doing them during the Listening Party that, so that evening, maybe even, there'd be a Listening Party and everyone would be on Twitter. And then while I was listening to it, I'd create my own graphic version of that cover.
And then I'd share it during the thing and everyone was like, oh, these are really cool. And then I started building up a collection of them. Tim liked them. That was the connection. I think that was the first time. Then he sent me a direct message saying, These are really cool, let's do something, blah, blah, blah.
And he started telling me about listening parties that were coming up and you know, maybe you could prep, you know, get ready with this one or this one if there was like a particularly big Listening Party because it was all just kind of like promo and it was all kind of like there just this fun, weird community thing that was going on during lockdown where you had to kind of like find your people and do whatever.
So I was like, yeah, of course I'll do this. So it started with that, with these kind of graphic album covers. Which then built into quite a big project for me, and I ended up doing. I dunno, 150, 200 of them sort of thing. I started selling them as prints, which I actually, I, I closed the print store earlier this year just to have a bit of a break from it and kind of refocus a little bit.
But during lockdown it was really good for me because that's where I, I could make money sort of thing, because everyone was at home a lot more. We had this community, this kind of Twitter Listening Party community. People wanted to do more in their houses and kind of like people were buying more artwork for their houses than they had before.
'cause you know, people were still earning, then they had a bit of expendable income and you couldn't go out. You couldn't go on holiday. You couldn't, you know, and so people have kind of realized people were doing a lot more at home. So I kind of started pushing them as as a thing. and people started buying them.
I did them with 12 inch prints. They come in kind of a vinyl sleeve, you know, big kind of neon sticker on it like you used to get in the record shops. Yeah. And it's kind of became a thing. So it became quite a big part of my business from late 2020, probably until earlier this year. I.
Steve Folland: Isn't that amazing. All out of just, well, I don't even, it's not even like a side project. It is just, I love drawing. I'm being part of this thing and I'm gonna do it, but that's essentially what it, it was. Yeah. You were already working at home though, at that point, right? Yeah. When we last spoke, have you stayed at home the whole time since?
Ben O'Brien: I moved into a studio, actually, this was another lockdown thing. Weirdly, it's a long story. There was a big building down the road from where I am. A big kind of former industrial building, the front of which is a bakery, the back of which was empty. Someone was gonna put studios in there sort of thing.
They were gonna like build it into studios that didn't work out for the person who was doing it. so a friend of mine went to the landlord and said, can we, can we build our own studios in there sort of thing. Because during that kind of first, the proper year of lockdown or whatever, building work could carry on.
It was like one industry that wasn't, that didn't stop. So we were allowed to go and build studios. So we hired one builder and he taught us what to do. And so we spent about two months, there's five, six of us spent about two months learning how to do stud walling. We learned how to do installation. We put flooring in.
We learned the whole, we didn't, we had to bring people in to do electrics and, and a little bit of plumbing. But, you know, he basically taught us how to build walls. We did it and the five of us went down there and, you know, with the, with the one builder, we paid him, but you know, we were his team essentially, so we didn't have to pay him as much 'cause you'd normally pay a team of builders.
He had us at hand and willing to do anything. So we built two studios anyway in this space. And then we ended up with building a gallery next to it, which we kind of co-ran as a little group. Yeah, so I did, and then we were there for about three, four, I can't remember if it was last year. It must have been early last year.
We moved, I moved out of the studio and my wife and I kind of came both, came back home to work and we've been working at home again since then.
Steve Folland: How was it for those, I mean, man, you built it. Yeah. How was it? For that time when you were back working alongside other people?
Ben O'Brien: Yeah, it was good. I mean, it was with friends, so it was, you know, every day was just hanging out with your friends kind of thing.
So it was all people I already knew. And you know, we've all known each other for years and we get on well and that kind of thing. So that was really good. You know, you end up kind of diversifying a bit. 'cause we were also running a gallery. There was, you know, I'd end up working with them a little bit more, which I wouldn't have done if, if we weren't in the same room, 'cause two, two of the guys in there were graphic designers, so they could kind of say to me, oh, Ben, you've got a free day next week to illustrate something? I'd be like, yeah, sure. You know, it's that kind of thing is really good, which is always the bonus of being in a shared studio.
I've been kind of in and outta shared studios for 20 odd years. I. You know, that's really good. That's a really good side of it, is that there's people there who could be clients or who you could collaborate with, which I really like. But yeah, last year, we were finishing up with the gallery in that building and we were just kind of, my wife and I kind of wanted to start working together on more stuff.
She wasn't in that studio, so we kind of said, well, let's move back home again. So, we moved back home, decorated our spare room, and this is where we're working now.
Steve Folland: So, are you two working together now or just working at home together?
Ben O'Brien: We've always worked on and off together, but then as of about a year ago, we've started working kind of officially together.
So my wife's like a brand consultant, so she doesn't do the design work, but she does a lot of kind of creative direction and that kind of thing on like brand things for like independent brands. She finished her old company. She started getting offers of projects to work on sort of thing. And she said, well, you know, why don't we just do it together rather than her finding designers to work with or illustrators to work with. You know, we'll do it as a team.
And I've always been a bit, so I have two illustration portfolios in different styles. I work quite strictly within those two things. I don't really like the idea, well, I didn't used to really like the idea of being like a jack of all trades or trying to manage other illustration styles or anything like that.
I kind of got set in my ways in a way, but, working with my wife, it kind of feels sort of different and it's a lot more playful when we've got a project. Now we're not restricted to how I already illustrate. If my wife says, you know, could you do this? Could you do something like this? What about, you know, whatever.
and I'll give it a go. Now I kind of like, I, I dunno. I felt something different last year that I haven't felt in a long time where I wanted to do new things and I wanted to experiment more and I wanted to create different styles of illustration or design work or, and it's all, you know, it's all been pretty good like that since then.
Steve Folland: So Ben, the illustrator. Still exists with his own niche and style.
Yeah.
But does this have a company, like a company name?
Ben O'Brien: Yeah, we're called Extra Dollop.
Steve Folland: Nice.
Ben O'Brien: As in like with ice cream, like we give you the extra dollop sort of thing. I don't really know where that came from. That would've been an idea of my wife's, 'cause most of the clients we're working with are food or drink related, which is kind of the world my wife's always worked in. So it really suits that.
And it's kind of us saying, you know, oh, we're playful. You know, we like funny ideas, you know, and now we just wanna do that for lots of independent brands.
Steve Folland: And so how are those clients coming in? Does that feel different to how your illustration clients come in?
Ben O'Brien: Yeah, it's a lot more word of mouth. Like it used to be, like my illustration clients, I used to kind of like put things on social media, contact art directors. It almost felt a more formal way of promoting myself, cold emailing people and that kind of thing, using portfolio sites, whereas my wife's clients, so just kind of like...
We've worked for one guy who is a really great guy called James, who has a sausage roll company. So we rebranded his sausage roll company and then he's like constantly recommending us to people. So we're now getting much, much more word of mouth. There's people that my wife's worked with in the food industry and now kinda like getting in touch saying, oh, we've got this project, you know, do you wanna work on this?
That kind of thing. So it's a lot more word of mouth than than I've ever found before for getting work, which is good. I really like that way of working because you kind of already got some trust there because they've kind of, you know, they've got a reference from whoever's recommended us to them.
But it's a hard, I'll tell you the thing with word of mouth. Like how do you make that happen? You can't force people to talk about you. Do you know what I mean? Except by like every time you work with the club, make sure it's always enjoyable, make sure it's really good to make sure you're easy to work with and all that kind of thing.
You know, there's a better chance of them recommending you to someone else, but you can't. I struggle a little bit with... How do you make that happen? Yeah, I haven't quite got it yet. I'm, you know, I haven't figured out, I haven't got an answer. Whereas it used to be like, if I was like emailing art directors, I can make that happen.
I can get email addresses and contact 'em and say, hi, I'm Ben, here's my portfolio. I can make... I can, that's up to me to make that happen. But you can't force word of mouth necessarily.
Steve Folland: No other than, as you say, doing a good job and I guess still being visible, still being on their radar, which is something that you always seem to be good at.
Ben O'Brien: Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah, because I feel, I, I said no, social media is just not cutting it for me anymore. I used to kind of feel a real, kind of like buzz around it and I'd feel like I could put something out there or put a, you know, put a few illustrations out there on a certain theme or whatever and then, you know, there'd be work come out of it, someone would contact me or whatever.
So I'm still putting myself out there sort of thing. But yeah, I. I'm finding it's a bit more kind of like unknown I feel now this Yeah, how things are now. Social media's not as clean cut as it used to be,
Steve Folland: But is it, you mentioned there you having two portfolios, like two styles, whereas when we spoke pretty sure you only had one.
Ben O'Brien: Yeah.
Steve Folland: So have you... yeah. What happened there?
Ben O'Brien: So again, this is in the studio with my friends and one of them, Neil, who I'd worked with a few times, he's a creative director. He was working on a project, a packaging project for a seaweed snack right from Copenhagen. And he had an idea for how he wanted it to be.
He was doing the, the branding design, the logo, typography and all this kind of stuff. And he wanted these kind of hand line drawn illustrations sort of thing. And he said to me, 'cause I was literally on the table next to him, he said, could you do something like this? And I was like, no, I don't think so, but I can recommend people.
And so I gave him a list of illustrators that I knew would be kind of like work well with it that would bring something creative and this kind of thing . AHe worked his way through that list and some people weren't available, some people he couldn't get in touch with. Weirdly, one person had recently done a seaweed snack campaign, so they couldn't, they couldn't do it.
And they were like, oh, I'd love to work on this, but I think it might cause an issue with my other client. And so Neil was like, are you sure you can't work on it? And I was like, okay, I'll have a little play. And he gave me a few sort of like ideas and a bit of a mood board, and I kind of went away and sort of did some doodling essentially.
And I was like, oh, actually, do you know what? I could do this? You know, it is not like how I illustrate at all, but I could do this sort of thing.
And we kind of like developed it a little bit together. You know what the line drawings would look like, the style of pen brush stroke and all this kind of thing. And developed it into a really solid style, which I was thinking is just for that project.
So he had me on board and I was doing the illustrations for the packaging, but then as soon as I started showing that to people, people were like, oh, I like this. You know, can you do this for me? Or whatever. And so then I was like, okay, maybe I could have two portfolios.
First, it's a bit of an odd thing to get your head around because it's like having two personas or two characters, but it's been fine since, you know, I've kind of promoted them both separately.
They're on one website, so I have Ben O'Brien dot com as a website, and you go there and there's both portfolios, but then I can also kind of consider them to be two separate portfolios and I can promote them to different clients.
I've got some clients that would've never considered my normal Ben The Illustrator work maybe is too colourful, it's too graphic. But now I can approach other clients with it. So as, yeah it is going, it's going good.
Steve Folland: Awesome. And how did you, when you were reaching out to those potential, you know, like, Hey, here's this new style. Because before that it was like the niche of me. Mm, here's this new style, my split personality. What... did you do anything in particular to get that out there?
Ben O'Brien: I started thinking about clients that I'd wanted to work with that it wouldn't have been right before. I found it quite invigorating actually. 'Cause it was like starting out all over again.
'Cause I really enjoyed when I first became Ben The Illustrator, which is 20 odd years ago now. And I really enjoyed that thing of setting my sights on something, setting goals kind of thing, and, and thinking, oh, I wanna be... because I was new to illustration even at the time, I'd spent 10 years working in animation.
So I kind of looked back on that and I, I really enjoyed doing that. Again, it was quite invigorating to start over and kind of just come up with new things. The new style, which are called Ben Draws, is a lot kind of funnier, I think, and I can be wittier a lot more character in it. So it's like, oh, I can make funny jokes now. I can make silly illustrations. I can, I can do whatever I like.
Once it had started to get the ball rolling and I was getting a lot of editorial work and I was like, yeah, I really like this because editorial work was my first thing I really did as Ben The Illustrator. And then I hadn't done a huge amount of it, for a couple of years with Ben The Illustrator, but then Ben Draws kind of got me back into that world and I really liked it.
I like how quick editorial work is, especially like newspaper work or whatever, even though it's not always in print anymore. I really like the fast, you know, they can contact you at 4:00 PM and it has to go online tomorrow morning and it's like, can you do it? And I'm like, yeah, I like that. I like the challenge. I like to kind of get into it.
And so I got back a lot more in the editorial world through doing that. And then I produced a little book of these illustrations and it was nice to design the editorial style of it. And then I sent that out to clients. And that was good 'cause again, I hadn't done any print promo for myself in, in years. So it was fun to do that kind of thing again. Yeah. Was great.
Steve Folland: So an actual physical book that you mailed to like art directors or?
Ben O'Brien: Yeah, just a little A5 kind of soft cover. You know, nothing... it had to be kind of like on a budget in a way. But I'm lucky that, you know, I'm a good friend with the guy who runs a print company and he can advise me and tell me the best way to do it.
And also he'll do small batches, which is really important. 'Cause there's a lot of time you think you'll get something produced and they'll say, yeah, sure. It starts at 500 or it starts at a thousand of the he'll, like, yeah, I'll do you 20. Okay, cool. So I did do that. So that was really good.
Steve Folland: Amazing. And that worked?
Ben O'Brien: Yeah, it did. Yeah. It was, yeah, it was nice. I, you know, I kind of got to connect with a few, a few more people through the art directors and design agencies, ad agencies and that kind of thing. And then, yeah, and then there was more work, you know, for a little while there was more, 'cause it was more exciting and new. There was more work for Ben Draws than there was for Ben The Illustrator.
Steve Folland: This is like you've diversified twice. So there's, there's Dollop, Extra Dollop.
Ben O'Brien: Yep,
Steve Folland: Yep. And two versions of Ben.
Ben O'Brien: Yeah. Yeah. But I'm good... I mean, I dunno. I dunno what it is, but I get bored quite easily, so I've always kinda had these other things that I'll start.
It's one of the things that I enjoy about being my own boss, having always been my own boss, is that I can just start something. Like a week later, that could be a a legit project. Whether it's a big money maker or not, no one knows. But I like to do that. But then just the same, I also just kind of like cull things.
If I end up with too many things, I'll just go I'm bored with that one. Now I'll stop that. I mean, and if it's only me working on it, you know, it's no bother. I don't have employees, I don't have other people relying on those ventures, whatever they may be. So I quite like that. I've kind of always had these things that I'll start something new, build it up.
And then if either it's not working anymore or it's not profiting or I'm just bored of it, I can just call it a day and do something else. Yeah, I know... I know something else will come to fill my time.
Steve Folland: Ben, how is work life balance for you now, COVID aside for you now compared to 2018, do you think?
Ben O'Brien: Yeah, it's fine I think. I don't remember what I said last time, but I used to have a bit more of a problem of... not my family, but like family life or that kind of thing, kind of encroaching on work time. I sort of have always been so rigid about I need to make sure I do a full day's work every day. And then, now I think I've kind of aged a bit and I've kind of eased up a little bit.
And now, you know, if my son says, 'oh, can you pick me up? Can we go here?' Whatever. Especially like during summer holidays when they're at home all the time. I'm a lot easier about it now if, if so long as the work, you know? So long as I know I can get work to a client on time and meet my deadlines and all that kind of thing.
I'm a lot easier about prioritizing family. Not trying to say, oh look, it's three o'clock, I can't stop till five. I'll just go, okay, that's fine. I'll do this tomorrow. I think that's just an age thing, trying not to stress as much. Nice. So, yeah, no, I, I think probably work life balance at the moment is as good as it, as good as it can be.
Steve Folland: Really good to hear. So you feel like the industry has changed since 2020?
Ben O'Brien: Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I do. I mean, not necessarily bad, not necessarily, you know, there's hybrid working is more normal now. Remote working is more normal now. So I'm hoping that illustrators that aren't near a major city are, are perhaps more able to, to be getting regular work or even taking on full-time jobs for working remotely and that kind of thing.
Social media has changed a lot. Obviously now, mostly in the past year we've got AI to kind of confront with, and even like stock illustration sites have kind of stepped things up even more with their technology. So there, you know, there's different battles now to what there was five, ten years ago.
Steve Folland: How do you confront those battles?
Ben O'Brien: Well, let's say the AI one. And one of the things for me is that like AI can produce a certain types of illustration very well, but it has to be fed the concept. AI can't really come up with great ideas. It can only reproduce what's already out there or kind of reflect the idea of whoever's prompting it or controlling it.
Whereas illustrators, humans are really good at coming up with visual ideas 'cause that's kind of what we do. And so I am just kind of dedicating myself that when I'm doing illustrations now, that I've got a really strong concept that's come from nowhere but my own head because that will win over the machines.
'Cause as, yeah, I've not seen a kind of image generating AI thing that that can come up with great ideas. I'm dedicated to that, to making sure I've always got really good concepts on things. I'm trying to also put a lot more detail in my work and a lot more kind of texture and that kind of thing. I'm trying to experiment more, so create, you know, using, I dunno, more interesting color palettes or colors that shouldn't really go together and that kind of thing.
Because if no one else is doing that, then it's not out there for AI to do. I'm creating it myself. Yeah. So that, I mean as far, yeah, that, as far as that battle goes, that's kind of where I'm at and I'm trying to sort of keep in touch with kind of industry people, whether they work at ad agencies, design agency, whoever, to see where they're at, are they turning to AI and that kind of thing.
And I think a lot did. They've tried it a lot, but they're starting to realize it doesn't really give them the originality they want or it doesn't make things kind of as handcrafted as they want concept wise and, and all this kind of thing. So I'm starting to hear more conversations now of people who have tried it and it's not worked out or they've tried it and it works for some things.
Like it's maybe it's great for doing like rough storyboarding or you know. Trying out video effects or, or so kind of thing, but it doesn't necessarily produce it at the standard that people want you know, to actually put out there, especially if it's like an ad campaign, it's a big budget. You can't put something out there that's substandard.
So I'm hoping that that battle, you know, we will overcome that battle just by being human
Steve Folland: And by being nice to work with.
Ben O'Brien: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. yeah. Yeah. 'cause it's also, I dunno, like on the concept thing, it's like bringing something new that they were, you know, they might not even been asking for it, but sometimes you could say, oh, have you considered this?
And AI doesn't do that, doesn't think of other things you could do. So kind of like, you know, you can bring, I just feel we can bring more, you know, and be more enjoyable to work with and more reliable, I'd hope. Yeah.
Steve Folland: You mentioned, so have you just celebrated 20 years? 20 years of Ben The Illustrator.
Ben O'Brien: 2005 is when I started Ben The Illustrator, and last year was 25 years of being self-employed. I worked in animation beforehand, but yeah, 20 years of Ben The Illustrator, which was April, I think this year, March, April.
So I did a bit of a thing. I kind of, did an illustration every day and I wrote a little blog post just about my experiences or my kind of knowledge, but I don't really feel like... I hate people trying to be an expert, in a way.
So all I can speak of is my own experiences. So this is how I do things, this is how I approach things that, you know, my thoughts on things, opinions to illustrations. To mark the 20 years. So it was every weekday for a month. Yeah. And I put a post out every day, which was really nice to do, and just creating like a new portfolio, a new body of work around it.
So that was really good. I really enjoyed doing that because I haven't really, I feel like I hadn't sort of spoken out on industry things that much in recent years. Now I have this nice kind of body of work and you know, writing about the industry and so I'm kind of now sort of fiddling about with like, could it be a book?
I'd really like to do a book about illustration, about the industry and that kind of thing. . So that's my kind of next step with that. That's, yeah, with the work I produce for that month.
Steve Folland: Obviously with, it's that whole visibility, it's that playful exploring type thing as well. Giving you something to put out there.
But what, what did you, in having to sort of analyze those 20 years and think about it all, what kind of jumped out at you?
Ben O'Brien: The main thing was that I really love illustrating.
Like I'm not, it's just... it is literally, I, for myself, if I didn't have any work, I would still keep making pictures even if I didn't show them to people.
I still just really, really enjoy that process. It's like, I don't know, you go for a walk 'cause you enjoy walking or people that do sport 'cause they enjoy playing sport. I, I... I really, really enjoy the process of drawing pencil and paper and then going on a computer and creating digital artwork. It's really kind of therapeutic.
It's quite meditative. I find, it's like good for my mind and then just having this finished artwork every day because normally, like when you work, you don't necessarily make illustrations every day. Because sometimes you're doing, you know, you're... I don't know, I'm cleaning up rough drawings on Photoshop or, you know, kind of boring things or you're doing your accounts or whatever else, but...
Every day having to produce an illustration or get a few done, so I had once to post, the next few days was kind of quite intense, like almost like a bootcamp sort of thing.
So that was the main thing I think was just like really, really falling in love with the process again. And also like not... obviously nothing wrong with client work, obviously... None of it was for clients, so I was free to do whatever I wanted so I could just create stuff.
So that was really good. Really good and I connected with a lot of people. Weirdly reconnected with a lot of people I haven't spoke to in ages, illustrators and that kind of thing. That was more so from posting on LinkedIn every day.
'Cause I don't use LinkedIn all the time. It's super hand, you know, it's the, probably the best social media platform as far as work goes for your career. But I don't post on it daily. But for that month I did. And then I, you know, the algorithm sort of helps you out a little bit and people start kind of coming outta the wood work like, oh my god. Yeah, I haven't spoken to you in ages! So that was really good.
Steve Folland: Brilliant. I loved seeing it. It was so cool. Cool. And yeah must have been round about then, you see, that I started thinking, really need to speak to Ben again. Yeah. I've seen, I've seen his, his listening party album artwork. I've seen him in the studio.
I know there's stuff to talk about here. Lots has happened. And yet, Ben The Illustrator's still going strong in 20 years. I love it.
Ben I always finish by saying, you know, 'what would you tell your younger self about being freelance'? But what would you tell 2018 Ben?
Ben O'Brien: Oh, right. That's a good one. 'Cause do you know what I thought about this question before? I wrote down what it would be and then I looked back at the old podcast and it was the same thing.
So I don't, so I don't wanna..
Steve Folland: It's nice to know you've not changed.
Ben O'Brien: Yeah. Yeah. so what would I tell 2018...?
Steve Folland: You're not allowed to tell him to buy like shares in Zoom.
Ben O'Brien: Oh, right.
Steve Folland: Or something like that. Alright.
Ben O'Brien: I think it's almost like, like keep pivoting or keep open to other things because of what happened in 2020 where all my, I lost all my work. That meant money that I was expecting wasn't coming. You know, contracts were kind of scrapped in some way or another, and I was really like, you know, I was terrified sort of thing because I live kind of month to month. You know, I don't have some massive savings and I don't make the kind of money that relies on, you know, I can't just drop everything for six months and be financially stable.
And so at that point, everything was kind of taken away from me. And I was like, oh damn. How, how do we make sure, you know, the, the mortgage is paid for the next three months or whatever.
And so there was a, like an element of shock in there. A little kind of like being suddenly, like everything was dropped around me.
But I did come up with things and I did kind of pivot and I did kind of manage to keep going. So I think, I think it's always good to have, almost like to have some side thing on the go so you've got something to fall back on or to have something that's, you know, like an idea that you'd really like to do someday and then just save it, put it on the shelf.
Because if you do lose everything, you need some, you've gotta find something new sort of thing. And like I said, in 2018, I was like, I wanna work in the travel industry more. And I just went full in and I was a hundred percent working in the travel industry and not expecting, you know, COVID happened and it, you know, one industry wasn't enough because as soon as that industry closed down, I had nothing.
So I think I'd say, you know, make sure you've got something. Make sure there's some security there. I've, I've always been a, I'm a, I'm a... I'm terrible with like, you know, accounts and taxes and pensions and all that kind of thing. I don't think like that. I can't, I get, can't get my head around paperwork or admin, all that kind of thing.
So, I'm, I sometimes I've side way too much on the creative thing and I don't really think about the security or the, that kind of thing. I think probably from never having... I've had like part-time jobs, but I've never had a full-time job because I went self-employed from day one. So it's just not in me to think about that kind of stability.
So if I could go to 2018, it'll be like, make sure you've got something. Be prepared for, for all your jobs to be canceled the same day, whether that's side projects or something to fall back on or something new that you've always wanted to do. Yeah, like be prepared.
Steve Folland: Awesome advice. Ben, it's been so good to catch up.
Ben O'Brien: Yeah. Yeah, it's been great.
Steve Folland: Who would've thought so much would happen, since 2018? But also congratulations on 20 years of Ben The Illustrator.
Ben O'Brien: Thank you. Yeah.
Steve Folland: And. Yeah, taking that forward, but also Extra Dollop as well. That sounds like a fun Yeah, it's fun, fun thing for you to carry on exploring. Go to being freelance.com as there are for all of our guests. You can find links through so that you can find Ben online and check out the episodes.
There's over 300 episodes and if you're wondering how Ben got started and you never listen to the first one around, go back and find it, you can just search, for, for Ben's episode and it will come up. It's so easy to type. You'll find
it in no time.
For now though, Ben, thanks so much and all the best being freelance!
Ben O'Brien: Thanks so much, Steve.
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