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

Takeia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I started out drawing when I was around five years old. I used to have these Disney and Looney Tunes coloring books and I just started trying to draw the characters. I just loved doing it, and after that I was fortunate enough to be influenced by a long line of people along the way. I used to spend weekends in the Bronx with my cousins, who were all into anime, video games, comics, and hip-hop. I credit those weekends with forging the foundation of my creative tastes, and it was then that I knew I wanted to draw forever.

Looking back, I think that taking business classes or something along those lines would have prepared me more as a freelancer. I did learn the foundational things in illustration through school of course, but I was never taught anything about contracts, navigating clients, setting rates, doing taxes, etc. I had to learn that stuff on the fly through trial and error, making mistakes, and then learning from those mistakes. The good thing about the illustration world today is that there’s a huge pool of information out there, there are creatives sharing their knowledge with each other, and you can learn a lot for far less money than it would have taken years ago.

Interestingly enough, the most essential skills I’ve had to learn had little to do with my ability as an artist and everything to do with self-confidence and resilience. Those two things can determine everything from your ability to handle rejection and criticism effectively to how much money you leave on the table when setting your rates. That’s not to say that having a strong artistic and business foundation isn’t important, but I’ve found that those two things have determined more pathways for me than anything else. And, those are qualities that I’m sure I’ll be coming back to again and again just as much, if not more, than my artistic skills as I navigate my career.

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.

The best way I like to sum up what I do is that I use illustration to help my clients tell the stories that they need to tell. Sometimes that looks like designing editorial illustrations like what I did for Inverse’s Superhero Issue. Sometimes that looks like telling Terence Todman’s story in comic form for PBS. Sometimes that’s being an actor’s “hands” for something like A League of Their Own.

Genre has never mattered to me as much as working with people who want to be inclusive and have something to say. To be honest, I like hopping between different industries and mediums because it keeps things fresh for me and allows me to have different experiences. I get to tell different stories in different ways and that’s exciting to me.

Whenever I’m asked the “what sets you apart question”, I never really know how to answer. I know you’re not supposed to say that. You’re supposed to have an answer ready, an elevator pitch that sums up in 30 seconds, or in this case a couple sentences, why you’re different from everybody else. The truth is, I don’t know what exact quality in my work attracts people.

I do know that I spend time with my clients trying to understand what it is they want to say with their stories, then doing my best to cater my work to capture that message. I’m most in my element when I can identify with the goal or the message behind the idea, and the more I can do to understand that, the better the work will be.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One definite myth I had to quickly unlearn was that I needed to work for free or work on someone else’s project for exposure. I think this is something that’s obvious now, but before social media gave us the power to grow a following more easily (and before the algorithms started snatching that back haha), “work for exposure” was almost like a mantra that often came from people who couldn’t provide exposure at all. It still happens but I think now that artists are more connected than ever, they’re quicker to call out the manipulation behind this kind of thing.

I once had someone from an agency reach out to me, only telling me that there was no budget for their project after listing all the big brands they had worked with and the level of exposure they could provide. I kindly gave them my day rate and told them that I would not be able to work on their project otherwise. I’m not sure my younger, less experienced self would have done that. I might have taken the dangling carrot, dreaming of the day when I too could say I worked with big brands. I learned that the only thing behind that desire is a need for validation, and that need for validation will absolutely have you leaving money on the table.

One of the great things about being a visual artist is that your work is going to immediately speak for itself. There are going to be people who resonate with it for one reason or another and that in itself is its own kind of exposure. I can tell you without a doubt that most of the work I’ve gotten has come from a personal illustration, where the client wanted that aesthetic for whatever project they’re working on. I learned that it’s better to invest your time in making the things that you’re passionate about if you really want exposure. The clients will come. Clients with real budgets.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

The Win Without Pitching Manifesto by Blair Enns and Pocket Full of Do by Chris Do have taught me how to balance approaching clients with empathy and curiosity while also maintaining the value of what I do. I also follow people in indie publishing who have grown over the years and are using the landscape to push out content that is centered around making the publishing community more inclusive. I’m really inspired by these businesses and the creators who run them (shameless name drop): Women in Comics, 133 Art, Subsume Media to name a few. I’m also fortunate enough to have people around me that can fill in the gaps of my own knowledge when I’m unsure how to approach something.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.takeiamarie.com
• Instagram: @takeiamarie
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/takeiad
• Other: For project inquiries: [email protected]