Lettering Artist Jackson Alves
About this episode…
LETTERING ARTIST JACKSON ALVES
This is actually the fourth time Jackson’s been freelance. He’s not just quit jobs, he even once quit his own company.
But whereas the other times he was a ‘regular’ graphic designer, this time he’s spent a decade as a specialist: a lettering artist and calligrapher.
Regularly posting to Instagram and Behance got him noticed and grew an audience as commissions from around the world reached him at his home in Brazil.
He’s since launched online courses, prints, fonts and NFT collections, building his reputation so he can work when he wants around his family. There’s no sign of him quitting this time around.
Read the highlights in the next tab.
NEVER BE SHY
Jackson put his work out online every day and it got noticed. But he also contacted design blogs sharing his work. He put himself out on YouTube to help sell his courses, and when he realised NFTs had potential he got involved with Spaces on Twitter. Just a few examples of how his reputation has grown because he knew he had to put himself forward…
“Never be shy. You need to be shameless and to go after your dreams. Believe in yourself, it's very important..”
LINKING TO SOCIAL
Jackson was getting his work shared on a lot of design blogs. Fortunately his style of typography was a trend at the time. But he decided it was best, not to have the blogs link to his website…
“I'd decided instead of these graphic design blogs have a link to my website, I’d send the link to my Behance. Because I thought, okay, if I send the link from my website, people can enter my website, but never remember my website again. But if I send the link from my Behance, people can see my Behance and can start following me on Behance. And I think it's better than having my website.”
IT’s A CHALLENGE TO WORK ALONE
Jackson is involved in a number of Brazilian design/callirgaphy WhatsApp groups. Giving feedback, receiving it - having others to speak to because…
“I think is a challenge to work alone every single day. Because I work in my home, I'm actually not alone - I have my wife, I have my daughters, but sometimes I think you miss the connection with another professional.
Like when I worked in a studio, for example, you have a lot of other people working with you and other creatives and this mix of professionals is always good to create good work to increase your career, stuff like that.”
WORKING FLEXIBLY
Not having a fixed time to do his work suits Jackson just fine…
“I don't have a fixed time to work. I tried to work like a regular job, like start in the morning, stop to lunch, and work until the beginning of the evening. But actually that never worked for me - because some days I wake up, go to to have a coffee and breakfast, start to talking with my wife. And some days I just start to work after lunch. Some days I start work really beginning of the morning, some days I go late in the evening.
I have two daughters. And if I see my daughter needs help, I can take some time, go with my daughter and then come back to work. So I prefer like that, don't have a fixed time to work: depends on the work, depends on the time, depends on my mood <laugh>.”
“Never be shy.
You need to be shameless and to go after your dreams. Believe in yourself, it's very important.”
Lettering Artist Jackson Alves
More from Jackson Alves
Jackson’s website
Jackson on Instagram
Jackson on Behance
Jackson on YouTube
More from Steve Folland
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and Lettering Artist and Calligrapher Jackson Alves
Steve Folland:
How about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Jackson Alves:
Actually I can say this is the forth time I'm a freelancer because when I was 19, I started my first freelance journey. After some time I come back to a job and when I was 26, I quit my job again to be a freelancer again. And that time I started my design company. And four years later when I was 30, I quit my own company to come back to be a freelancer again. After some time, went back to a job - normal, regular graphic designer job. And when I was 35, I quit my last job. This time, my last job. Now it's more than 10 years, I worked as a freelancer. So this is the longest time I'm a freelancer. But you can see with this story, it's always hard for me being a regular employee in a company for a long time. I need to quit and be doing my own thing, <laugh>.
Steve Folland:
That's cool. When you said you had your own design company, like, did you hire other people?
Jackson Alves:
Yeah, actually. That time I just finished my graphic designer college. I didn't work as a graphic designer. I worked in a printer company, so I used to print something and also finish the files that came from the clients. I wanna start to work as a graphic designer, so I quit that job and start to do freelance, but I have the great idea of invite my friend to work with me as my partner. But I already had some clients but my friend didn't have any clients at that time, so it's not a good idea because I started actually splitting my income as a freelancer with my friend, and don't split the clients because my friend didn't have a client that time <laugh>.
But after some time I invited another person to be a partner also, but this time she came with some clients. So we started the regular company and after, I dunno, maybe one year, I started hiring a junior designer. We had two junior designers. At the same time I got married. And I didn't make enough money for my life. So in the same time, another friend from the graphic design college, he started working as employee in another companies. And I saw, uh, he had a salary like four or five times bigger than me as the owner of a design company.
So that time I think, okay, I have my company, but the money's not enough. It's better to be employee and have a regular salary because I can make more money than I can make right now, that time. So that's the reason I need to quit my own company. So, when I quit my own company, I start doing freelance for some companies here in my city, and after a couple of months, a company decided to hire me.
Steve Folland:
And then what was different 10 years ago when you went freelance for, well, at the moment, what is the final time?
Jackson Alves:
<laugh> Yeah. Uh, the difference.. so that time, I told you it was local clients, like I can get this client because someone suggest my work. Every one from my city, but the last time and the work I do up until nowadays, it's when I started doing my work as a calligrapher, letter artist. And I start getting clients from the social media, like from Instagram, from Behance, uh, because people start to see I'm doing this calligraphy work, this letter work. And so I start getting clients because people see my work in social media and say, okay, I, I'd like to have a logo made with custom calligraphy, custom lettering like Jackson is doing, for example. And, so my clients that time came from other countries. I think I worked like two years doing freelance for people from another countries and to start getting clients from Brazil. From this last 10 years, I'm freelance, I think I just met in person, like maybe three clients. All other clients just came from social media. And I just talked by the internet, not in person.
Steve Folland:
That's amazing. So had you started sharing your experiments with calligraphy while you were still working for a company last time?
Jackson Alves:
Yeah. Uh, it's a good question because that time I was like around 10 years working as a regular graphic design, like doing the regular graphic design stuff - I try to change from company to company. And when I enter a company, I say, okay, this company's great because this, but is not great because another thing. And, I think like after 10 years work like that, I realised that doesn't help change the company because some problems, uh, keep coming. And I was looking for something that time, like, okay, how can I increase my career? How can I create something new? How can I create something different? So mty friend started doing lettering and he was teaching a workshop about here in my city.
I saw that - I actually didn't know exactly what is lettering at that time. And, uh, I thought, okay maybe it's good to take that workshop and maybe I can learn something different and maybe this can be better for my career. I took this workshop, the year was 2010. And that workshop was so amazing because I start seeing like, this is a possible job p- to work creating letter face, creating lettering, creating, maybe a font, I dunno. And I remember I created a poster in the workshop doing some lettering, and I post that picture on my... at that time it was on Flickr - I had a portfolio in Flickr, and I remember my Flickr was like, have just a couple followers and just a couple likes on everything I post.
And when I post that picture with this lettering I created in the workshop, I had a lot of likes, a lot of sharing. And I remember a guy from Australia sent me mail and asking me to be interviewed - like, oh, I saw your work, maybe you can give me an interview about how is being a graphic designer in Brazil. And I saw it was so insane, so crazy, because I didn't ever have any invite for interviews or I dunno, uh, even for a job from another country. And when I saw that, I think, man, this is something big. So I need to keep doing that. I need to start to learn more about this, letter form word because maybe something big can come of that.
So I started studying a lot typography, and then I learned that the typography came from the calligraphy, and so I start studying calligraphy and I was so excited about that. And, uh, every single, uh, word I create with my calligraphy, I started to take a picture and then publish on Instagram. And after some time, uh, when I start getting better with calligraphy, I started recording videos doing calligraphy and start publishing on the Instagram. And that time, Instagram usually help, <laugh> usually help us and Instagram was not, uh, nowadays it's a terrible algorithm and <laugh> and, uh, so my videos start to go viral on Instagram, and a lot of people start follow me, and then my following start to increase a lot like crazy. And after some months, I, I got a couple thousand followers, uh, after that, like 10,000 and then 15,000 and the just increased like that.
And I also started to send my work to graphic design blogs, websites. And, uh, I, I had my work feature in these websites a lot. And I'd decided that time instead of these graphic design blogs have a link to my website, I send the link from my Behance because I thought that time, okay, if I send the link from my website, people can enter my website, but never remember my website again. So if I send the link from my Behance, people can see my Behance and can start following me on Behance. And I think it's better than having my website. So yeah, it was a great decision that time. So this time my Behance started to grow up a lot also. And, uh, with my Behance and my Instagram account increasing, uh, having a lot of followers, I start to have a lot of commissions to create calligraphy for people from other countries, from United Kingdom, from Australia, from United States, from Mexico. And so after some time, I was like okay now I have enough commissions, I can leave my day job and make my living just with that.
Steve Folland:
So cool. I love it. And that's really smart about getting people to follow you on Behance as well. But you were sending your work to design blogs as well and getting featured. How has it changed over the past 10 years? Are you still doing all of those kind of things?
Jackson Alves:
Uh, not exactly, because, um, I remember that time like 2010, 2012, the typography in graphic design, the calligraphy in graphic design was really a trend. And so these blogs used to have typography inspiration. So that helped a lot because I created typography and after some time, because my following increased a lot, I didn't send anymore to blogs because people used to already follow me. It's not necessary to do that anymore because I already had a big audience. So just need to keep my social media updated, like keeping publishing. And the commissions, they keep coming with that.
Steve Folland:
So most of your work was commissions. Obviously you'd been freelance before, you'd run a company, so did that help on the business side of things?
Jackson Alves:
I can say yes, because actually, as as you said, I already doing freelance at other times and also after my graphic design college, cuz I was a great student on the graphic design college, the university gave me the postgraduate course for free. So my postgraduate was about business actually - managing companies, stuff like that. So my postgraduate helped me to run my own company. Yeah, that's the reason, for me it's a little bit easier for do that.
Steve Folland:
And how about how you make your money today? Do you have other income streams other than just commissions?
Jackson Alves:
So yeah, my main income is the commissions, but I also have some income from teaching classes - online courses I have. I have an online course, for example in English on Skillshare. So I have some income from there. I have an online class in Portuguese, but from my own platform, it's actually not my own platform, but it's not like Skillshare because Skillshare used the audience from Skillshare. But I also have my own course and I need to sell people to people, but of course I can charge so much more to my course, but it's only in Portuguese. So I have this income from teaching classes. Also because of the pandemic, I stopped doing the in person classes. But I used to teach a lot of in-person courses here in Brazil and actually, I already travelled to the United States four times to teach a calligraphy class in United States. I teach a class in San Francisco two times, uh, New York, New Orleans. Now after the pandemic, I think I need to come back to teach in person classes, so it's another income. And I also try to sell my works as a products like selling prints on my online store, sometimes to shirts, sometimes typeface - fonts. And also since 2021, I start starting selling NFTs. So this is another form of income today.
Steve Folland:
When it came to creating a font, did you have to take time out to spend on it? People call it passive income, as in you've created a product, people can go and buy it, but I'm just wondering how much work you put into it and how you managed to take time out to do it, if that makes sense?
Jackson Alves:
Yeah. To actually create a font, it's hard work and usually takes around at least one month of work to create just one typeface. It's really hard work to create. And the first typeface I created was when I was in a job. So I just used my vacation time to create my first typeface and published on a website called My Font. But another type face I created, I needed to save some time. So I try to, but this time of course, I don't work the entire month, just in this project I try to do this like a side project. So maybe this took two or three months working as a side project to create this font.
Steve Folland:
In order to make room for working on a side project. Do you have to say no to commissions?
Jackson Alves:
Uh, not exactly. I try not to say no to commissions because I, I will never know <laugh> when commissions will appear again. So I just use some free time. I have like maybe some time to work on the weekends, or you know, maybe I work on a commission and I create, for example, the sketch and send to the client and when I'm waiting for an answer from the client, I can work on my side project, stuff like that.
Steve Folland:
And how about the way you work? Do you, do you work from home or?
Jackson Alves:
Yes, I work from my home. I don't have a fixed time to work. I try to work like a regular job, like start in the morning, stop to the lunch, and, uh, work until the beginning of the evening. But actually that never worked for me that way because sometimes, because my wife also stays in the house all day long... And so for example, some days I wake up, go to to have a coffee and breakfast, start to talking with my wife. And some days I just start to work after lunch. Some days I start work really beginning of the morning, some days I go late in the evening. And actually I don't have a fixed time, depends on the work, depends of the time, depend of my mood <laugh>.
So yeah, I prefer like that because I have two daughters. The young daughter has 10 years, and my oldest daughter haas fourteen years. And sometimes I take time to just stay with my daughters. Like, for example, maybe my daughter is doing some homework for school. And if I see my daughter needs help, I can take some time, uh, go with my daughter and then come back to work. So I prefer like that, don't have a fixed time to work.
Steve Folland:
Nice. So it sounds like your work life balance is really nice.
Jackson Alves:
I try. I try. Yeah. <laugh>.
Steve Folland:
So you've mentioned Instagram and Behance and you do YouTube as well, don't you?
Jackson Alves:
Yeah, yeah. I have a YouTube channel. I think it's almost 90,000 followers I have on YouTube. Yeah, it's a great channel.
Steve Folland:
You're obviously putting out things pretty regularly on Instagram. How often do you create stuff for YouTube?
Jackson Alves:
<laugh> from the last year? Uh, like I, I almost never <laugh> publishing new videos, uh, because I started my YouTube channel to help me to sell my online classes, online courses. And so I think from 2019 to I think to 2021, I publish a lot of videos. And 2021, I used to publish live on my YouTube channel every single week through the whole year in 2021. It was fun. I liked that, enjoyed that, but in the same time, I don't like, like this fixed <laugh> time, like, because I need to save that time every single Thursday to have this live. And after some time I start getting tired of that, do that because, okay, uh, like for example, if, uh, if, uh, I wanna do another thing on the Thursday, uh, I can't because I already had, okay, I need to do this live on my YouTube channel.
After some time, I got tired about that. Also because 2021, I work hard to create my latest online course in Portuguese - it is a huge course I have in Portuguese with almost 140 classes I recorded by myself. And so I invested a lot of time in this course in 2021. And a lot of content through my Instagram, from my YouTube to help me sell this course. But then I thought I like the main income is from the commission, and the second income, come from the classes. And I don't wanna invert this. I don't wanna be like first teacher and then a professional calligrapher, for example.
I noticed that I was creating almost just content for my online classes. So when 2021 was finishing, I decided, and I promised myself, okay: 2022, I will work only for my commission clients because I need to get more commission from the clients. I'm cool with my online class for now. So 2022, I was focused for commission work and also with my career to sell my NFTs. So I need to save some time and I decided to not publish for YouTube from 2022. And for this year (2023), I didn't decide yet, <laugh> if I will come back to recording for my YouTube, one a week or maybe one video for a month.
Also because my YouTube channel is like 90% Portuguese content and, uh, I think I need to start producing English content through my YouTube channel. So, uh, that's another reason of procrastination too. Okay. Of course, for me it is harder to create content in English. It's easier to create Portugese, of course. So for now I just wonder <laugh> how I take care of my YouTube channel for this year.
Steve Folland:
What would you say has been the most challenging thing of being freelance?
Jackson Alves:
Of course, getting enough work - it's always a challenge. I know some people like to work as a freelancer and maybe his wife or maybe his husband or his partner, has a regular job, so they have regular income and the freelance income, but in my case, it's just my income that pay the bills in my house. So yeah, have a regular income. That was a challenge. But another thing I think is a challenge is you work alone every single day. Because I work in my home. I'm actually not alone - I have my wife, I have my daughters, but like, uh, sometimes I think you miss the connection with another professional. Like when I work in a studio, for example, you have a lot of other people working with you and other creatives and this mix of professionals always is good to create good work to increase your career, stuff like that.
So I think it's a challenge to work by yourself. But yeah, it's possible to do something to help with that. Like, we have a group on WhatsApp. Brazilians love <laugh> WhatsApp. So we have a lot of groups in WhatsApp and a lot of professional groups in WhatsApp. So we have like, a Brazilian huge group of all the kind of professionals that work with typography. We call this Type BR. Uh, so we have a lot of small groups. So with calligraphy groups, I think this group help us to not feel alone. Like maybe I can create something. I can send so to my friend, to my friends and say what do you think about that? And, uh, maybe I can have some feedback on my work, and I give feedback on the work of my friends. So that helps a little bit to deal with this challenge of work by yourself alone every single day.
Steve Folland:
If you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Jackson Alves:
I think the first one is never be shy. You need to be shameless and to go after your dreams. Believe in yourself, it's very important.
And also a really important thing, <laugh>, I would tell my younger self - try to find a way to study English because communication English, uh, I think it, it was the harder part in my professional life always because I tried to study English when I was young. But my family didn't have money to keep me in my English school because in Brazil it's kind of expensive that time.
So I didn't study English when I was young. And I just started English when I start getting this communication with other countries in this last phase of being freelance. Now I can speak in English in meetings with clients. I started taking English classes after 30 actually, but was not enough to communicate in person, like to enter the meeting. So I spent like almost two months in San Francisco to improve my communication in English. It's easier if you start when you are young. So if I can back the time, I'd try to find another way to study English because it's something that keep my life easier in the future.