Back when I was first asking y’all about how you find illustrators, I stumbled across illoz.com, a cool portfolio site with some handy art direction tools built in. I signed up, and since then I’ve made a lot of folders in my illoz account, with lots of samples by people whose work I like. But not until two weeks ago did I find an artist whose work I thought would be the perfect match for a specific story.
| story | illustrator |
|---|---|
| is about a girl at camp, mostly takes place in woods | draws a lot of girls in woods |
| is creepy | can draw very creepily |
I confess that I didn’t contact Sam Weber using the lovingly designed art direction interface on illoz.com, though it certainly sounds nice—
An art director account at illoz gives you the ability to initiate project assignments with any illoz portfolio owner. Sketches can be viewed here at the site, then commented on and approved. After that, final art can be downloaded directly from a portfolio owner’s personal area. The job can go from start to finish, right here at illoz.
I think the thing is, I’m a socially challenged geek to begin with, and I’d always rather contact someone through a structured form than by phone or e-mail, so I try to fight that tendency by occasionally picking up the phone, instead. Not that I picked up the phone in this case, either. But I did write a long, no doubt overly detailed e-mail directly to Sam, mentioning that I’d found him on illoz. And he wrote back! And he accepted the job! And he did it very quickly! And I love it! And it’s on our home page until tomorrow morning, and in the story indefinitely!
So, that’s my illoz success story.
The story Sam illustrated, incidentally, is by my colleague Ellen, and I think it’s really good. You should read it if you’re, you know, one of the few designer-types who knows how to read.
