Introducing The Complete Guide 2025 Speakers – Part 1
The Complete Guide to Freelance Illustration Course is back, starting April 24th 2025! Get to know the AOI team who will be with you each step of the way.
The Complete Guide to Freelance Illustration Course is your opportunity to arm yourself with the knowledge and skills to thrive in your illustration career. Now in its 5th year, this 6 week interactive online course helps illustrators take proactive steps to progress in their careers and grow their understanding and confidence on the business side of illustration.
Each week, you will explore an essential aspect of freelance illustration, guided by an industry professional who is an expert in their field. This includes learning how to build yourself as a brand, navigating licensing and negotiation, understanding contracts, communicating with confidence as well as learning how to promote yourself and how to work effectively with commissioners.
In each interactive session, the speaker will be available to share their expertise and answer any questions you may have.
In this feature, we introduce the speakers from the AOI team who will be with you each step of the way throughout the course and hosting some of the sessions. They share insight into their industry experience, what to expect from the course and how they can help support you in your illustration journey, whether you are just starting our or looking for a refresher mid-career.
Catch up with Part 2, where we will hear from the industry experts, and about the sessions they will be delivering as part of the course.
The AOI – supporting Illustrators for over 50 years
The Association of Illustrators (AOI) is a not for profit membership organisation, which has been supporting illustrators and the illustration industry since 1973.
We’re a small but mighty team, dedicated to helping illustrators build careers with confidence and make their mark in the world. We work to advance, protect and champion illustrators’ rights, ensuring a thriving industry for all. The Complete Guide is our most in-depth course, and a great opportunity to benefit from our industry experience over a longer period.
What’s the Complete Guide, and why join?
The Complete Guide draws upon the wealth of knowledge built at the AOI over its 50-year history, as well as bringing on board a wider network of experts in their field, so by joining, you’ll be able to take advantage of all this knowledge, experience and understanding over the 6 weeks (and beyond should you become an AOI Member as well).
If you’d like to build a strong foundation from which to progress your career, if you want to build tools to feel more confident day to day or if you want to maximise the opportunities open to you, the Complete Guide is for you. It’s equally useful for beginners as it is for mid-careerists looking for a refresher or boost in confidence.
It’ll be a welcoming community of illustrators and experts, sharing advice and helping each other flourish – so we hope you’ll come join us!
Who are the speakers?
The Complete Guide is delivered by industry experts from the AOI team, and external speakers, who you can get to know in Part 2 of this feature. Let’s get to know your speakers from the AOI team.
Derek Brazell, AOI Publications and Membership Manager, is the brains behind the bi-annual Inside Illustration suite of content, exploring and providing insights into different areas of the industry, encouraging illustrators to diversify their illustration careers and boost their industry knowledge.
Alongside this, Derek supports on the Members Helpdesk and particularly enjoys helping illustrators understand the contracts they receive from clients and explaining what the various elements mean. For Derek it’s been “fascinating to develop my understanding of the legal side of running an illustration business over the years.”
Derek is also instrumental in the AOI’s Campaigning Efforts, currently leading on AI Campaigning alongside CEO, Rachel Hill.
You’ll meet Derek in the Contracts, Copyright and Infringements Session in Week 3.
Sarah Morris is our Membership Manager, overseeing and nurturing the Membership Department, leading on membership projects and the growth of the AOI’s audience.
A big aspect of her role is developing industry relationships, supporting the membership team and the AOI’s members in collective and individual goals – providing valuable business support and advice, resources, events and championing illustrators and illustration as a profession.
For Sarah, the best thing about the role is the variety of different projects – from managing the mentorship scheme, to leading on the events strategy, building community and developing courses such as this one!
You’ll meet Sarah in the Intro Session, as well as in Licensing and Negotiation in Week 2.
Brittany Freeman is our Membership Advisor, advising members on all sorts of queries related to their illustration career on the Helpdesk. This might be helping them dissect a contract, supporting them in a difficult client situation, or offering some thoughts on promoting themselves – something Brittany will be speaking in depth on during her session.
Brittany finds the best part of her role is being able to help our members, offering a new way of looking at a situation or empowering them with confidence to see the value in the work they do.
You will meet Brittany in How to Promote Yourself and Find New Clients in Week 6.
What is their industry experience?
With over 40 years’ experience within the illustration industry, these three speakers know their stuff, and are excited to share their expertise as part of the course.
Sarah and Brittany worked as Illustration and Illustration & Animation Agents, at various London based agencies. In this role, they had the opportunity to work with different illustrators with various focusses in the industry, and were able to support them in their career growth. Brittany explains:
A big part of what I did as an agent was building relationships with clients, promoting the artists and negotiating fees and contracts for their projects. I was able to gain a clear understanding of some of the challenges and excitements of working with clients and in the creative industry more generally, navigating those all too familiar ups and downs.
They have also had experience mentoring illustrators and providing portfolio consultations for organisations and events such as UAL, Agents for Change, The Arena, Pictoplasma and London Illustration Fair.
Derek was fortunate enough to work as an illustrator for many years and even has some picture books he illustrated still in print. Following a few years on the board of the AOI, Derek started working part time in the membership department and after a few years went full time. Derek reflects:
I think having that background as an illustrator has been really useful in helping me advise members across all aspects of running their business – it is hands-on background know-how. Related to that, I have co-written several books with Jo Davies (Getting Illustration Clients and Becoming A Successful Illustrator) which are aimed at helping illustrators getting a good sense of running their business and sourcing potential clients
Both of Derek’s books Becoming A Successful Illustrator and Getting Illustration Clients are available discounted for AOI Members. Head to the Discounts page.
What can I expect from the sessions?
The Complete Guide Course is designed specifically to help equip illustrators in building sustainable careers in the industry.
Each practical session of the course runs for 1 hour and a half; attendees will have the opportunity to ask their burning questions directly, within a 30 minute Q&A.
Attendees can expect to receive support across all of the important aspects of running an illustration business, starting with licensing and negotiation which are two things that are considered an illustrator’s bread and butter, allowing you to receive an income from your work.
This is something that as an Agent, Sarah was dealing with on a daily basis on behalf of the illustrators she represented. It’s also a big part of the 1-1 support we provide on the Members’ Helpdesk.
During this session, Sarah will guide you through the basics, looking at the factors that make up a licence, written licence examples and useful questions and phrases you can put to your client to gain a comprehensive understanding of the project and how the work is going to be used. Negotiation is also a big part of commissions, and commissioners will generally expect a level of negotiation when talking to an illustrator about a potential job. Sarah shares:
Negotiation can feel quite daunting, but it needn’t be feared. It’s really just a scary word for agreeing the parameters of the project. In this second session of the course we will go through licensing and how to approach negotiation, with useful tools and phrases you can adopt to navigate negotiation with confidence.
This is an extended version of a popular talk that Sarah delivered at Birmingham Design Festival and London Illustration Fair.
In Derek’s session, he will be looking at three important elements that are crucial for running your illustration business: understanding copyright and why it’s such a good thing for creators; explaining the main aspects that make up an illustration commission contract, and also covering copyright infringements, with real-life examples to help clarify.
Brittany will deliver the final practical session of the course focussed on self-promotion. This last session follows on nicely from the previous sessions presented by our external speakers, where you’ll already have been considering how to build yourself as a brand and how to communicate effectively – this session will give you that extra boost to put your work out there with authenticity and confidence.
Self-promotion can be a challenging part of building a career and many illustrators may not feel entirely comfortable putting their work out there. This session will prepare you to overcome that mental block, by breaking self-promotion down into small actionable steps, recognising the importance of it for your career in the long-term and making it work for you.
Building Knowledge and Sharing Advice
If building a freelance career, it’s so important to soak up advice from the community around you, but also to give advice to others. The Complete Guide is a fantastic opportunity to do just that, building knowledge as part of a welcoming, friendly cohort.
Our speakers have benefitted from plenty of advice throughout their careers – we ask them to share a piece of advice that has been helpful in their career, or advice they have given that really resonated with illustrators.
Derek advises that it’s easy, and understandable, to believe that going freelance isn’t going to be all that complicated, and that for an illustrator it’s just a case of producing great images for your clients, but having done it himself, and advised illustrators over many years, he believes that a really beneficial piece of advice is to develop a clear all-round understanding of the aspects we cover in the Complete Guide. He adds:
If you’re starting out, it helps give you an in depth understanding and knowledge to get you off on a good foot. And if you’ve been working for a while, the course goes into details that you may not know and help you with ongoing development to enhance your career.
For Brittany, some helpful advice she came across was to do the work justice. It can be easy to feel that self-promotion is something separate from the work, and so selling can feel awkward and unpleasant, but it is important to tie your promotional efforts back to the work itself. She wants illustrators to think about the effort they have invested in the work, how much they love the project they have done, and how much they want people to see it and get excited about it too:“The work is not going to be found on its own, so you have to put it out there, show your excitement for it, highlight its unique qualities, and give it the best chance for success.”
For Sarah, she has seen that it can be all too easy for some illustrators to hold themselves back, and believe that they are not confident or skilled enough in certain areas. She shares some important advice on confidence that is helpful to bear in mind:
Confidence isn’t something you need in order to take action, rather it’s built by taking action. Running your own business, putting yourself out there and navigating how to work with clients, licence your work and negotiate can feel daunting at times, however the more proactive you are in taking small steps towards your goals, and time to build upon experiences, the more you will build confidence, which in turn helps propel you forward.
If you are a participant of the course, there will be much more knowledge, advice and insights to come your way. Don’t forget to catch up with Part 2 of this feature, where we will hear from the industry experts sharing their expertise as part of the course.
We can’t wait for you to join us!
The Complete Guide to Freelance Illustration is open to all illustrators, with discounts available to AOI members, as well as limited bursary spaces. For any questions, you can reach out to us directly: [email protected].
Don’t miss the chance to be part of this years’ cohort. Find out more and reserve your spot today. See you there!
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