Take each day as it comes - Illustrator Stanley Chow
Stanley’s first break came when he was doodling on a bit of paper in the fish and chip shop he worked in. The customer he was serving was an art buyer, and he set Stanley up with an interview that landed him an agent.
Later, back in the days of MySpace, when Stanley first began building a profile online, he got a 3am phone call from The White Stripes’ management team. They’d seen his illustrations online and they wanted to commission him.
Fast-forward to today and Stanley has his own studio as well as a booming print shop, and he’s worked with every dream client he had on his list.
“You spend so many years slaving away, not really knowing what direction you’re gonna head in,” says Stanley, “and then 10, 11 years down the line, you realise things have actually worked out really well.”
MORE FROM STANLEY CHOW
USEFUL LINKS
Kristian Duffy on the Being Freelance podcast
MORE FROM STEVE FOLLAND
This episode is kindly supported by With Jack!
With Jack exists to help keep you in business by supporting you financially or legally if you have problems with a client.
With Jack is all about giving freelancers the insurance they deserve.
Visit withjack.co.uk and be a confident freelancer.
TRANSCRIPT OF THE BEING FREELANCE PODCAST WITH ILLUSTRATOR STANLEY CHOW AND STEVE FOLLAND
Stanley Chow: Hi. How are you doing, Steve?
Steve Folland: I am good.
Steve Folland: As ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Stanley Chow: Went to art school and all that kind of stuff. But when I left art school, I went back to my folks' house, worked in their chippy, and then whilst I was working in the chippy, I served a bloke, who basically comes in every week. He orders sweet-and-sour sauce and fish and chips, which is quite a weird combo. But, whilst the sweet and sour sauce was getting ready, I was just kind of doodling on the chip paper, and he asked me, "What do you do?" I said, "Well I work in the chippy, obviously." He said, "No, what do you really do?" I said, "Well, I've just studied art, I finished art school, and that's why I want to be." And he said, "Well, I'm an art buyer for this ad agency in town. I can set you up with an interview at the ad agency."
Stanley Chow: He set me up with this interview with this guy in ... I can't remember his name. This was almost 25 years ago now. And he says, "Well, we don't really take on illustrators here at our agency but my friend, she's an art agent. She's down the road. I can sort out an interview with you with her. She's the owner of an agency called the Northern Art Collection. I had an interview and she took me on basically.
Stanley Chow: So I got an agent really soon after leaving art school and that's what kind of prompted me to be a freelance illustrator. I mean, like anything was better than working in the chippy, really. So yeah. So I left home, I moved into town and the thing was, is when you're starting out, there's not that much work really. So whilst living in town, central Manchester that is, I started DJing as well, so that paid for my living, whilst I was trying to find work as an illustrator basically. So that's kind of the short way around of explaining how I began freelance.
Steve Folland: Wow, if you hadn't have been doodling, none of this might've ... Well-
Stanley Chow: Yeah.
Steve Folland: So as you say though, you move in, you've got an agent, did you also try and find your own work when you decided to make that move or were you relying on them?
Stanley Chow: Well, before the agent, I was going up and down to London and meeting people, with no avail really. I mean I was trying to meet other agents as well. Also, at the same time I was sending my work to different publishers and stuff and trying to get interviews, but to no avail, really. It was almost like every journey I went down to London was a lost cause. So yeah, every time I came back with my tail between my legs and just carried on working in the chippy and just fingers crossed, something might happen.
Steve Folland: And did you ever lose like I don't know, I guess belief or confidence in it?
Stanley Chow: Oh no, I never lost belief. Don't get me wrong ... I had utter confidence in myself because I knew I was good. It was something I was always aware of, even from when I was really little, utter belief in myself. Maybe too much belief, really. Yeah. So if it didn't happen now, I knew it would just happen another time. That was how I kind of dealt with things really.
Steve Folland: Yeah. So you're DJing, back in your story this is, your DJing, you're trying to find your first clients. How did it pick up from there?
Stanley Chow: Well, this is it. I was getting a bit of work from my agent but also whilst I was DJing, I was meeting lots of new people really in the center of town. I was meeting other DJs, other club promoters. They wanted their posters done for club nights and stuff and I was designing flyers for my own club nights, when I was DJing and stuff like that. And I just became like ... There was this network of creative people doing stuff all the time in the center of Manchester, and we all helped each other and we were always trying to give each other work if we could. So I met some bands, if they wanted a record sleeve design or whatever or poster design for their gig, I'll do that basically for them. So that was the early steps basically into freelance illustration and design.
Steve Folland: And did you have confidence in making those kind of first, I don't know, jobs as in like pricing wise or what you were delivering or did it feel ...
Stanley Chow: Well pricing-wise it was just like I'd do it for free, really. I mean, in those days, I mean we were all doing everything for nothing, we're all playing gigs and stuff. It'd be 50 quid here, and that'd be like, "Yeah, 50 quid, that'll do, and a pint. Okay, cool." That was the kind of transactions we were making really, back in those days. But in terms of other bits and bobs, I was getting bits of magazine work as well, but my agent was dealing with pricing then, so I didn't really have to worry about pricing on that side, the actual real work in publishing. But I'd call like, anything that's based in music, was just like fun work, you know?
Steve Folland: Yeah. And so how did it continue to grow from that?
Stanley Chow: I basically got to a point where I was DJing more than I was actually illustrating really, for a good few years. But also I got poached by another agent, you see. So that changed a lot things. So I was at the Northern Art Collection and I got poached by the Central Illustration Agency, which was really cool. The guy that owns Central Illustration Agency, he's good, Brian Grimwood, he's an illustration legend as far as I'm concerned. But he did a talk at my college and that's when you leave our school, getting an agent is probably one of the easiest ways of finding work. But anyway, when I left art college, I did send him a letter, well sent his agency a letter. They sent me a standard, "We don't take on students, blah blah blah." But then a few years later on they came and poached me some, so that was quite a nice turnaround really.
Stanley Chow: But then things picked up from there on really. And I started working for magazines, like Sugar magazine, and Just 17, and More magazine, doing fashion based illustration, which was the thing I was into at the time, and it was the direction I was pushing myself. It was like fashion based illustration, and that progressed into more work. And then I ended up being a storyboard artist for a few years, doing Head and Shoulders adverts, story boarding their adverts before they came out and stuff. So it was all just doing little bits of jobs like that really, as well as DJ and stuff. So basically I was back in the late 90s early 2000s I was illustrator/DJ.
Steve Folland: And so how did you balance your, I guess your work day back then?
Stanley Chow: Oh yeah, yeah. Well the work there was I DJed that night, and then if it wasn't too hungover, I'll add work to my portfolio and then do illustration in the daytime. But the thing was I wasn't getting that much work in you see, so when I was working it was purely adding stuff to my portfolio, as opposed to actually doing actual illustration work. I mean, it's like I'd be lucky to get one commission every three months really in those days. So, that's why I needed the DJing to pay the rent, even though rent wasn't that expensive at the time.
Steve Folland: And so you had quite a lot of, I don't know, would you call them side projects? Or you would simply think of things to work on in order to take your work in a direction you wanted it?
Stanley Chow: Yeah, exactly. Basically trying to put stuff in your portfolio that would try and get you work. That's what we were encouraged to do in the early days and by our tutors, be as varied as possible, cast your net as wide as possible, to get as much work in as possible. Basically that was the mantra we were given when we were younger. So that's what I did, I just filled my portfolio with as much stuff as I possibly could.
Steve Folland: And that's the thing as well, I guess talking about the early 2000s, late 90s, you wouldn't have had, or maybe you did, like a website, a web presence type thing.
Stanley Chow: No, not at all, yeah, not at all. It wasn't until Myspace, which came out in about 2004/2005, before I appreciated what the internet really did for me. I mean this was it, in those days, because I was DJing I didn't have time to go out and look for clients really, like actively look for clients. I mean you'll meet people on the way and then a lot through networking just by hanging around, you would just meet people. And that's how jobs might happen, just putting yourself out and about basically, is where jobs would appear. As opposed to actually directly like, "I'm going to knock on your door, knock on someone else's door." So, that happened from DJing, but then I totally relied on my agent, you see. I didn't know where my work was coming from, I just relied on my agent to give me a phone call every few months basically, and that was how work came in.
Stanley Chow: But then with Myspace, that really changed the game really, because that's when you could actually curate yourself then you know, you put work up on Myspace and then people would directly come to you, you see, and that was a whole new thing. Essentially, once I understood my space, you could see social media being a thing. I kind of leapt on that really, as soon as it started to establish itself.
Steve Folland: What did you do to leap on it? Especially I guess as well because Myspace had a lot of music elements to it, and you clearly had that music element to you?
Stanley Chow: Yeah. Well I used Myspace to promote myself as a DJ, as much as anything else. You could just put your artwork on it and that was it, you see, and you're out in the space, you know what I mean? And then you follow other people, as many people as possible, who might be interested in what you did, and then hopefully you'll get some feedback really. Something might happen, and lo and behold, something actually did happen. When things changed was when The White Stripes got in touch with me via Myspace. So that's where my DJ career diminished and I did a bit of work for The White Stripes.
Steve Folland: Wow. I mean, when you got that message from them, was it just totally out of the blue? Was there any connection there or like they stumbled upon your work?
Stanley Chow: Yeah, they stumbled across my work but yeah, it was completely out of the blue. I mean like the thing was that I did a bootleg White Stripes poster basically. I just posted up on Myspace and it traveled round the internet, unbeknownst to me because I didn't really understand it then. But it eventually got to them and because you leave your phone number on your MySpace account, I got a phone call at three o'clock in the morning saying like, "We're The White Stripes management, seen your poster." And I was literally crapping myself because I thought, "Oh my God, I've just done a bootleg White Stripes poster. And they're ringing me up to sue me." But then they said, "Oh Jack and Meg have seen your poster and they want to work with you. But by the way, please take down that poster off the internet."
Stanley Chow: So yeah, so there it was, I ended up doing some work with The White Stripes.
Steve Folland: Wow. So what did you do for them?
Stanley Chow: I designed a USB stick for them. It was little caricatures of Jack and Meg and it was released as a special edition for their Icky Thump album.
Steve Folland: And so how did things change from there?
Stanley Chow: Weirdly enough, things kind of went downhill because it was literally just before the recession really. We had that economic crunch starting in 2007 and then in 2008 it really took hold I think. So yeah, I could see a downturn in work, but then Twitter appeared and Tumblr basically, Tumblr were the other two online social media things. Well Tumblr first really, I started using Tumblr a lot whilst Myspace was dying, and I was slowly meeting more and more different art directors on Tumblr. And then I was getting more work, but also I was getting work because I had that White Stripes thing on my CV. So basically lots of people from America got to hear about me, and then before I know it, I'm working for The New Yorker magazine on a pretty regular basis. And then it just kind of exploded about 10 years ago I would say. I started working for The New Yorker, Time magazine, Variety and all those big American magazines that you always dreamt of working for, and then all of a sudden they're literally calling you up every week really. So that was quite mad.
Steve Folland: It must have felt amazing.
Stanley Chow: It was, especially at the time I'd just had a baby in 2009, and we'd just moved into a new house, had a baby and no work was coming in, and then all of a sudden things started to slowly happen. In fact, a lot of things happened around about that time. It was almost like, for a whole year there was nothing, and then with the help of social media, things just really slowly erupted. Because of The White Stripes I started doing more cartoons of different people or celebrities and stuff, and I started doing footballers as well, and Edgar Davids, the footballer, he saw one of my pictures on Twitter basically and said, "I want one done of me." So I did a picture of Edgar Davids that ended up as his Twitter profile page, and that just grew into something else. It opened the door to the world of football illustration basically.
Stanley Chow: In some circles I'm better known as a football illustrator than I am just a normal illustrator, if you know what I mean. But that opened up that side, but then I was also breaking America at the time as well. So it was all ... and then I was selling loads of prints, and then, well the thing was, people started emailing me, "Can you sell this picture as a print?" And I would just sell it as a print. That evolved into having my own print shop basically now.
Steve Folland: Did you then set up an online shop? When was that, 2010?
Stanley Chow: 2010 I set up a shop just to sell a couple of pictures of celebs, and also there's a street scene of Oldham Street, where is the street where I used to DJ a lot. But people lapped them up, so that was how my print shop evolved really. It allowed me to initially sell prints from my cheap crappy printer. I sold so many prints in the first year that I could buy a bigger printer, and it just kind of grew and grew from there. So that was growing whilst my illustration career was getting bigger. So everything just works off each other really.
Steve Folland: So you're actually literally fulfilling those print orders as they come in yourself?
Stanley Chow: Yeah, I was, and then I got someone to help me whilst I was illustrating.
Steve Folland: What, somebody who worked alongside you or virtually?
Stanley Chow: Well, initially I was doing all this from home and then we had a spare room where I worked from, but whilst it got really busy I basically hired one of my mates to come in and just help me out three days a week. "Can you just press print for like a whole day and then take the prints to the post office and I'll give you 50 quid a day?" And he was like, "Yeah, I'll do that." So that was happening, but then I was getting busier and busier and busier. I'm selling more and more prints. So I moved into town basically, I got a studio in the center of Manchester and this is where, I don't know if you remember, you interviewed a guy called Christian a couple of years ago who I hired to work for me. I got him to come and assist me and do bits and bobs here and also help me run the print shop as well.
Steve Folland: And how did that feel, suddenly moving actually into a studio space and bringing somebody on board? Did that sit well with you, that whole more intense ... I don't know, feels more of a business doesn't it?
Stanley Chow: Yeah, it was bittersweet really, because I was pleased to move out because the second child came along and it got to a point where I can't actually do any more work in this house whilst we've got two little kids in the building. Also, there was a real satisfaction because I could see my career moving along and it almost felt like I was justifying myself in doing this as a job when I got my big studio on my own, and then hired someone else full time to work with me. It was the justification that I was doing the right thing, really. Because you spend so many years slaving away, not really knowing what direction are you going to head in and then 10, 11 years down the line it's like, "Oh this has actually worked out really well."
Steve Folland: Yeah. And is that how we find you today? Has anything changed since then?
Stanley Chow: Well not really, except I'm just getting busier, and I'm selling more prints. But also at the same time I'm trying other different things as well, like making customized football shirts and stuff, just to keep me amused really. I don't DJ anymore.
Steve Folland: Let's touch on work life balance, because when you were working from home, how was it for you back then?
Stanley Chow: It was, I'll work all hours of the day. I'll basically wake up, I'll work until I have to do something, like maybe change the baby's nappy or eat some food and stuff, and then I'll work until two in the morning, go to bed. Maybe have half a night's sleep with a crying baby, and then go back to bed, wake up at 10 in the morning, work until dinner time. It was, yeah, it was all around the clock to a point where I wasn't really good at anything really, because I was pretty much knackered all the time. So ironically, whilst I was working at home the work life balance was pretty unbalanced. But since I've been working in town, I've set myself really strict hours. Well, I won't say strict hours, relative strict hours. I'll come into work at ten and I'll leave at six or seven basically. And I've realized that's actually given me a better work life balance. Ironically, when I'm spending more time away from home.
Steve Folland: Yeah. And do you manage to take breaks, holidays?
Stanley Chow: Yeah, we have set holidays, like the May half term is always a holiday we always use and late August as well is when we always go on holiday. So I try to get as much work done before we go on the holiday. But my problem is I find it very hard to switch off, you see. If I go away without my computer, I just tense up basically, because it's like, "Oh my God, I need to do this, I need to do this." And then when I want to go away with my computer, I end up probably not spending enough time actually being on holiday. So I find it really hard that, because my brain is constantly worried about work and I'm constantly thinking about work all the time, whether it's my own work or somebody else's work. I guess that's just the way a creative thinks, you know what I mean? It's like constantly having ideas all the time.
Steve Folland: And these days, do you deal directly with clients or if people get in touch with you, do you direct them towards your agent?
Stanley Chow: It depends on who it is really. It depends on how the person engages with me via the email. Sometimes you get an email message and it sounds really formal and sometimes there's lots of money involved, then I'll just send them to my agent. Sometimes you get a more chatty email and therefore, "Yeah, I can deal with this one myself." So yeah, it's one of those feelings when I get an email, whether I send it over to my agent, or I'll handle it myself. Usually if I think a job is going bring in like five figures or so, I'll send it to my agent because they'll be able to get more money out of them.
Steve Folland: Yeah. Even though they take the cut, they're better at dealing with that. And how about managing, I don't know, I guess your workload. Do you manage to put off deadlines on those?
Stanley Chow: Oh no, never miss a deadline. That's the absolute forbidden but no, I've learned how to say no. That's the biggest lesson of my life is learning how to say no. When you start out, you've got to say yes to everything because you don't know when your next job is. That's what you were always taught back in the day. I don't think anyone assumed that anyone would get so busy to the point where you have to say no. I say no 90% of the time now. I mean, even since I've been talking to you, I've seen two emails I'm going to have to type no to, that have just come in. So yeah, it's really crazy for me now. I've hit on a formula where everyone just wants a bit of my work really. And I'm totally flabbergasted by it, but at the same time it's like, "I've got to say no to these people." And that really is like a dagger to the heart sometimes, to me because also at the same time you're making someone else feel pretty sad that you've got to say no to them.
Steve Folland: Is there anything that makes you feel that you need to say no, that you've learned over time?
Stanley Chow: Well, yeah, there's two things. Simply if I can't fulfill, if they've given me a deadline and I can't fulfill it, there's no way I can fit this in, you've got to say no. But then there are some jobs where it's like, I don't really fancy drawing your grandmother and your pet dog. But you've just got to say it in the nicest possible way really. Yeah, I'll probably get a pet dog, maybe three or four times a week, and maybe three or four grandmothers a week too. I get wedding anniversary ones about 10 times a week. So yeah, they're the jobs that are most regular nos, basically. But yeah, they're also other magazine jobs and other commissions and ad campaigns I've said no to recently, which is like you want to do them, but I've already made a promise to someone else. I've got to do this job. So, it's like if I feel it'll cause me any little stress in missing a deadline, then chances are I'll say no.
Steve Folland: Are you someone who sets goals for what you do, or do you just see how things go?
Stanley Chow: Oh, there's no goal. There's just see how things go. Because as a freelancer I don't know what's going to happen the next day. I'm worried every day that this last job will be my last job, because one it just might just stop. I never rest on my laurels, I never taken anything for granted. So, at the same that's why I don't have any goals. My only goals are to make sure I make enough money for my family and keep a roof over our heads and feed the kids and stuff, and send them to school and whatever and by them what they want. They're my only goals I have in life. But in terms of creative goals, it's just carry on doing what I love doing, which is illustrating really. In terms of bucket list, I feel like I've achieved all my bucket list. I've worked for all the people I've wanted to work for over the last 20 odd years now, 23 years since I've been freelance now, and take every day as it comes is my mantra really.
Steve Folland: What would you say has been the biggest challenge of being freelance?
Stanley Chow: The biggest challenge. Oh wow. Oh, the biggest challenge with being freelance is actually, it's the money thing really. It's knowing what to do when the money stops coming in. That is the biggest challenge. Do you carry on in persevering in trying to sell your wares, or do you actually just quit and then try and find a proper job? That was my biggest challenge, I felt. Between 2008, 2009 literally for a whole year there was no work coming in. And that's when I had to question myself, what choices can I make now? Because there's the mortgage to pay.
Stanley Chow: So yeah, for me that was the biggest challenge, but also in terms of in the creative sense, There was a point in my career when I was doing work, which I wasn't enjoying it at all, and I felt like I had to make a creative artistic change and it was like, it's a gamble to make artistic changes, like when money coming in already, you see. But I was working for editorial magazines and I was almost getting quite bored of it and I wanted to do more fun stuff, which is how I ended up working with The White Stripes, so it did pay off, but at the same time it was like, "Do I take that plunge or not?" So that was hard, they were hard decisions, really. Yeah.
Steve Folland: Nice. Now, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Stanley Chow: I think if you've got a confidence in yourself to want to do freelance and that's the only option, being freelance, then just go for it, take the plunge. Because the thing about freelance is, you can only learn on the job really. It's one of those ... for me as an illustrator there aren't any, not at that time, you can't work for anyone as a freelance illustrator, really. Not when I started anyway, it was only freelance or nothing really. But yeah, just take the plunge and learn from doing what you want to do basically. I think that's the best way to ... that's what I'll tell my younger self. Don't worry about it, because to get experience you have to do it. You know what I mean? You can't just ... there is a whole like you won't get hired because you haven't got enough experience, then just go and do it to get the experience.
Steve Folland: And it sounded like when you first started out you had a real community of other creatives around you. Is that still the case today?
Stanley Chow: Well, the building I work in, we're all creative people, so in the sense that is the case by default. But back in the day it wasn't like ... it all felt like the creative people who hung around, we were all misfits basically, who weren't after proper jobs. We all had our eye on a different prize, which was make it as a musician, make it as a DJ, make it as a writer, or an actor, or whatever, or an artist and we all hung around together and encouraged each other in those days. I didn't go out seeking it, it was just basically I found myself in a place where that's where everyone who I was hung around was doing really. We're all part time working in a bar, part time doing this. But ultimately, whatever we were part time doing, that wasn't what we wanted to do. We all wanted to be creative and change the world, so to speak.
Steve Folland: And did that pay off for others around you as well?
Stanley Chow: Yeah, the people I hung around with, it was people like Badly Drawn Boy. I don't want to name check, but yeah.
Steve Folland: Fair enough...
Stanley Chow: Badly Drawn Boy, and Elbow, and Doves and there's people who are working for big fashion agencies now, and I've got a friend who's just written a screenplay for a major feature film and that's just come out this year. So it's just like we were all doing our own stuff and then dreaming really. And now it's all happening really. Most of my friends have become stupid successful from meeting at that time, back in the early days of Manchester.
Steve Folland: That's so cool, all by keeping going and supporting each other to do what you wanted to do.
Stanley Chow: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.