DESIGN—Taiwanese illustrator fulfills his freelance dreams

Picture provided by Nien-Ken Alec Lu

Nien-Ken Alec Lu took a long journey to achieve his dream of becoming a freelance illustrator. 

SAN FRANCISCO– As the sun rises over San Francisco, Nien-Ken Alec Lu rises with it. While his husband Brandon Jernigan heads out to his office job, Lu grabs a quick shower, a bite of breakfast to get his body running and settles into the home office of their apartment. 

The once spare bedroom has been transformed into Lu's work-from-home sanctuary. The room is adorned with magazines, graphic novels, figurines, action figures and other knickknacks that generate inspiration  for him. "This space is where I'm made to work," sad Lu. 

Lu checks his email for messages from his agency, Anna Goodson. He fields and sorts through  updates on his current projects and proposals for new work. For the rest of the day he'll carefully craft illustrations for clients and publications until Jernigan arrives home from work. 

Recently Lu worked on an illustration for Chronicle of Higher Education, a news publication about higher education. The illustration features teachers jumping across a sea of books as they grab on to new ways of teaching manifested as human-sized lightbulbs. This abstract and larger than life imagery portrays the article that talk about how educators are adapting to new methods of teaching as teaching environments change. 

Before he was making illustrations from the comfort of his own home for a living, Lu was just a kid who loved drawing. "I always as a kid liked to draw," said Lu. " I would draw anything. I love art classes." 

In 2011, Lu was a high school exchange student from Taiwan. It was at Riverton High School in Wyoming where Lu met his first art mentor, Ms. Vinich. Marianne Vinich was his stained glass art teacher. Vinich was the one who saw the potential Lu had as an artist. 

"She opened up my world and mindset of possibility to become a professional artist," said Lu. 

Vinich's passion infected Lu with the belief that he could become a professional artist. He decided to bring up the idea with his family. Cost of college was a big factor for the Lu family, but they believed their son should pursue the career of his dreams. 

"They’ve always believed a career should be the thing that are interest us not just making money, and they worked so hard to make sure we have that," Lu said. "I’m truly grateful for them, and it is one of the reasons I work so hard to have a passion to call my career."

Lu took his conviction and work ethic to the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Nothing stuck out particularly about this school to Lu other than it's low cost. He wanted to get into his illustration education right away. Lu chose illustration over a fine arts degree because it aligned with his career goals more. "I wanted more opportunity to collaborate with clients," Lu said. "I can draw. I can hone in my style. But I can still know a lot of people working with the bigger picture." 

Through out his time at college, Lu transitioned from watercolor illustrations to digitally created illustrations. He started this journey with a class in Adobe Photoshop where he learned the basic techniques of creating digital illustrations. "The industry needs speedy turn around," Lu said. With watercolors, any changes have to be meticulously scraped away and carefully redone to hide the previous iteration. In digital apps like Adobe Photoshop or Procreate, an iPad drawing app, changes can be done in just a few strokes of the fingers.

After completing his education in 2015, Lu needed to be strategic and pragmatic. His dream is to be a freelance illustrator, but at this point there's "no way" he or any fresh graduate can jump into freelance right away. "We need to be realistic," Lu said. "We need to be artistic to pursue our dreams, but we still need to be paid by jobs."

Lu started his post-graduate life as a design assistant for Jarret Yoshida, Inc., a tech company in New York. "I do what they ask me to do," Lu said. While Lu has some wiggle room with his creations, ultimately this line of work was not satisfying or "free" enough for him. Lu would go on working full time for four years and saved every penny along the way to support his end goal, becoming a freelance illustrator. 

In May 2017, Lu left the corporate design world and joined Anna Goodson, an illustration agency based in Toronto. Lu did through research into potential agencies before concluding Anna Goodson was the perfect fit for him. Anna Goodson provided Lu with care and attention he needed as an artist, focused on generating sustainable work for all their artists and had values that aligned with his. "They opened my whole, stable freelance world," Lu said. 

As a freelance illustrator Lu is connected with clients through his agency. He's allowed to choose which jobs he'll take on and which ones he'll send back to his agency. However, Lu never shies away from any job. While not every job is not immediately eye-catching or in Lu's area of interest he takes on each one with the same amount of enthusiasm. He'll take on any client as long as the proposed work isn't offensive to him or his values. He sees every job as an opportunity. "I try to give myself the space to learn from the client," Lu said. 

Lu's favorite job thus far is his work for 826 Valencia, a non-profit based in San Francisco dedicated to developing the writing skills of under-resourced children. His work for them entailed creating illustrations that paired with the work being produced by the young writers of this program or extra reading material for the students to take home. One cover dealt with the growing gentrification of San Francisco. "I live in San Francisco, and I see this problem and I'm impacted by it," Lu said. 

While this was unpaid work it didn’t matter to Lu. "If I use my voice, use my art to voice for them, to help them just a little bit. I'm going to do it," Lu said. 

Today, Lu creates his own schedule but is careful to avoid overworking and burning out. He makes sure to check in with his mental and physical health because those two factors can contribute to his feelings of burnout. If "all is well" Lu will go take a walk, get a  cup of coffee or sit in the park. "I realized that a quick environmental change helps the most to recharge with creativity," Lu said.

 Lu is also mindful of giving time to himself and his social life. He tries to finish work at around 5 p.m. when Jernigan arrives home from work, so they can spend time together. "My favorite activities are going outdoor hiking, playing board games and enjoying some wonderful food with friends and family," Lu said. "These things relax me and get my mind out of thinking about work." 

One of Lu's tips for aspiring designers is to treat your work as a business. "We are no different than a person who starts a tech company," Lu said. " They provide an app. It's a product.  We provide a service of creating illustrations for people. We're literally creating our own business."

Lu isn't the only one who had this approach to freelance. Kelly Bryant, a professor of graphic design at Auburn University, worked in full-time jobs, freelance and sometimes both simultaneously.  She reiterates that freelance is very business-like. 

"You really have to be savvy about how you're keeping up with clients," Bryant said. She emphasizes the rapport between designer and client is a key part to the success freelance illustrator. There's many phases of concepting, sketches and revisions that are "a lot more labor intensive," Bryant said. "When you have that level of trust it helps streamline your process and make you a little more efficient." 

With everyone in the illustration industry competing for the same clients, it can become easy to question self worth and talent when being compared to the accomplishments of others. Like many artists, Lu also struggled with this self doubt. To keep going as an illustrator sometimes reminders of goals can clear the path. 

"Always come back and sit down and think 'I'm creating my own business." Lu said. "The business is up and down. If I get more clients? Great. If I don't get more clients, I need to come back to that artist mindset. I will create what I like to remind people I'm still there."  

Lu recognizes the journey to becoming a freelance illustrator is difficult and ever ongoing, but that never discouraged him. He hopes that it won't discourage other dreaming illustrators either. "It's  a long game," Lu said, "I'm still in this journey."