For Anyone in a Band That Wants Art, or Any Artist Who Wants to Work With Bands...

GoMediaZine just finished up an awesome article on the 15 Mistakes Made by Designers in the Music & Apparel Industry. It was a really good and interesting series and because I know there's a lot of great artists on this forum, and even more people with bands, I wanted to post this to help just about everyone.

I'll run down the rules and post links to the articles at the bottom:

The 15 Mistakes Made by Designers in the Music & Apparel Industry

• 1. Not Charging Enough
• 2. Ignoring Typography
• 3. Unprofessional Behavior
• 4. Over Promising
• 5. Not Understanding Apparel Production
• 6. Lack of Originality
• 7. Not Following Directions
• 8. Not Utilizing the Medium to it's Fullest
• 9. Lack of Respect for Other Designers
• 10. Delivering Files Before Getting Paid
• 11. Working for "Exposure"
• 12. Failure to Research a Client
• 13. Unclear Communication Up Front
• 14. Letting One Client be 40% of Your Income
• 15. Thin Skin - Unable to Take Criticism

The First 5 Rules: http://www.gomediazine.com/industry-...y-part-1-of-3/

Rules 6 - 10: http://www.gomediazine.com/industry-...stry-part-2-3/

Rules 11 - 15: http://www.gomediazine.com/industry-...stry-part-3-3/

Every illustrator and designer, both starting out and industry pro, has and will make these mistakes. Myself? I've made each mistake happen at least once, especially when I was first starting out. It's amazing that commercial art school, for all the time and money, doesn't teach you a lot of otherwise common-sense things.

One example? I had a job early in my career where I was excited for a lot of reasons, one being that it was a chance to work for someone who could lead to a lot of work. After doing a ton of work and revisions, and sending the original files and everything, I wound up never seeing a penny and getting promised "exposure". In this one job, I had virtually broken all 15 mistakes (save maybe one or two) and looking back, the outcome taught me a lot.

I recently had a client where I actually learn all of my lessons and me and my client came out on top. It was a win-win situation and we're both reaping the benefits of it.

If your just starting out as a designer or an illustrator and dream of working with bands like I did and, in fact, still do, these rules are really good to follow. I know that if I had followed these rules early on I would have saved a ton of aggravation and would have done a lot better.

Bands and musicians, I honestly hope you learn a bit from this before you start hiring an artist. I know a lot of people on here would never do anything to purposely hurt someone who wants to help them, but even when you don't think something you do is wrong, it still can be. I think not understanding the process that's involved can lead to a lot of problems and I personally like to try and help my clients understand it. Don't be afraid to ask any artist you hire how they work or what they're up to; communication tends to be key.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the post. It was a really cool series of articles and I hope I helped both the bands on here and my fellow artists who post here as well.