We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chris Koehler a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Chris, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

In recent years, I’ve focused most of my illustration efforts on pursuing movie poster work. I’ve been lucky enough to work with a lot of my dream clients, including Mondo, Hero Complex Gallery, and Bottleneck Gallery. One of my favorite collaborations in this field has been with Universal Studios. They found my work through a gallery piece of a girl swimming with sharks, which led to them hire me to illustrate a poster for Jaws. That was a dream job with a dream client. I could hardly ask for more! But the following year, I was giving an even more meaningful opportunity by the excellent art directors there.

I’m a horror fanatic, I watch horror movies while I work, eat, and sleep. Most of my posters are of horror movies as well. For fans of the genre, there is nothing more foundational than the Universal Monsters. So when they asked me to illustrate a series of posters for the classic monsters — Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein, and Bride of Frankenstein — it felt like the culmination of years of work and luck paying off at once. I had an incredible time collaborating on that project, especially researching and revisiting all the movies in the early canon. After the art was completed, I started seeing it pop up in the wild — on limited edition posters, apparel at hot topic (another oddly specific life goal), jewelry in the Universal Studios gift shop, journals, and an ash tray! The most rewarded aspect of project actually ended up being the friendships forged with the team at Universal and the other artist on the project.

Even now the collaboration keeps going, and I count them as one of my favorite clients. Just this year we worked on the key art and packaging for the 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is chris koehler, I’m an illustrator from San Francisco. Since starting in illustration twenty years ago, I’ve work cross discipline in a number of fields, from editorial, to comics, to publishing, to retail packaging, and now primarily in movie posters and key art. I’ve had the unreal privilege to work with New York Times, Marvel Studios, Universal Pictures, Tor, Penguin Randomhouse, and hundreds of other excellent clients. I love all areas of illustration, even if I’m a free floating ball of stress half the time due to deadlines and insecurity.

I’m not a smart person, nor am I particularly talented, but I a deeply emotional little cookie. I hope my work can provoke a strong emotional response in others. At the very least, I hope my audience appreciates my obsessive attention to detail and overworked rendering.

I’ve also taught illustration for over fifteen years, including stints at California College of the Arts and UC Berkeley. Now I’m more of a wandering lecturer, popping up around the country surprising unsuspecting students with inspiration bombs.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I often see my artist friends post inspirational messages and pleas to “Support Artists,” usually imploring their audience to buy their art or subscribe to their services. Although this is well meaning and seemingly innocuous, I think this messaging is misguided and harmful. It positions artists as charity cases, surviving on the benevolence and generosity of friends, family, and those who are kind enough to condescend to pity them.

The message we should be spreading is “Buy Art to Support YOURSELF.” Art beautifies spaces, enriches life, and stirs emotions. Art gives us identity and community. Above all, art has value. Owning and buying art should be seen as a way to enrich your own life and bring meaning and interest to your environment. Art shouldn’t be seen as a frivolous luxury, it should be seen as a vital component to a healthy life.

People shouldn’t support art. People should support themselves with art.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I had no idea how to promote my work as a young illustrator, I spent years making work for an audience consisting only of myself. I wish I knew earlier on how to get my work in front of receptive audiences and art directors, beyond social media.

When I first graduated, I identified a number of goal clients. It wasn’t until years later that I finally decided to reach out to them. For the most part, a client’s contact information can easily, especially on the publication’s masthead or linkedin. I found hundreds of valuable contacts with a little google grease and diligence. But scaling that can be time consuming. Luckily, there are a number of services that provide massive databases of contacts for a fee. The one I use is called Agency Access. It costs around $700 a year, but contains tens of thousands of potential clients, especially ones I never thought to reach out to.

When you have a massive list, you can use a Mail Merge email service to send personalized emails to hundreds of people per day, with little to no effort. You may be the best artist in the world, but unless you are seen you won’t get work! On the other hand, even mediocre artists can thrive with enough strategy and hustle. I’m proof of that!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://chriskoehler.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ckoehlerart/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ckoehlerart/