Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Will Ingram. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Will, appreciate you joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I’m really lucky to make a living as an artist right now. It’s something I’ve done intermittently since college, and it hasn’t always been enjoyable. When I was finishing school in Athens, GA a few years ago, the wages for students and even grads were (and still are) almost comically low. The school paid me $7.25 an hour to be a glorified janitor, so when I got a liquor store job at $8.50 an hour I thought things were looking up. The reason I turned Land of the Freak from a semi-active tumblr account into a brand with several product lines was purely out of financial necessity. If I wanted to take my girlfriend out for pizza on a Friday night, I needed to put any marketable skills I had to use in a way that could build upon itself and lead somewhere. My skill, in this context, was drawing. It’s something I’ve relied on in hard times, whether that’s losing my job or moving to a new city without professional connections. I’m grateful that I spent time as a kid developing a skill I could use to provide for myself independently, without waiting on a boss to tell me “go.” I never thought that I would be able to build that to a point of paying my rent. That being said, I have very few responsibilities at this time in my life- no kids, etc. We’ll see if I can scale up to meet that challenge one day.

Will, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Will Ingram, and my brand is called Land of the Freak. I’m primarily an illustrator, but my bread and butter over the years has been applying my art style to sneakers, boots, jackets and other merchandise. Making these products helped me to build a giant portfolio that basically just puts my art style in different contexts and shows brands that it can be applied in a million ways. Catching business owners’ attention with sneaker art has led me to be hired for designing consumer products like phone straps and vape skins, as well as creating branding, logos and promotional materials for other companies. It’s been critical not to compromise my style or messaging in co-branding projects, so I can put everything toward my portfolio and the small but supportive internet community that I’m building into a cult.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

People say that NFT’s have no inherent value, and are an indication of an inflated and unhealthy market as a result. I think they’re wonderful money laundering tools, and it’s pretty funny that people don’t perceive them as any other security that can be exchanged. Anyone who owns NFT’s wants other people to start investing in that market, because that drives up the price of their own assets. It’s exactly like a Coca-Cola shareholder trying to convince people they should invest in Coke. I’m not paying for a jpeg. The NFT market is so over-saturated that I have a near-zero chance of recouping the $100 it costs to mint my art into an NFT on a general NFT exchange platform. I could, in theory, invest in marketing my NFT’s to my instagram following, but that’s seen as such a whore-move by me and my community that it would kill my credibility and rightfully destroy the brand.

: Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Land of the Freak exists for me to commodify the outsider/weirdo/outcast experience. What would be the point in me experiencing a lifetime of crippling alienation if I can’t monetize it? Now you, too, can show the world that you’re a unique and tortured artist by purchasing one of my fine American-made products.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/landofthefreak
• Other: Merch – https://wieuca.bandcamp.com/merch