SCBWI Bulletin: In this issue...

May - June 2002

Art Directors' Guidelines For Presenting Your Work
by Nancy D. Lewis

Figure out your passion. It will show in your artwork and spark your creativity. At the Art Directors’ Panel of the SCBWI Mid-Year Conference in NYC on February 17th, David Saylor (Scholastic, Inc.), Ellen Freidman (North-South Books, SeaStar Books & Night Sky Books), and Ann Bobco (Atheneum & Margaret K. McElderry Books) indicated that it is this passion that they are seeking.

Saylor said that he looks for artwork that speaks to him in some way that has a sense of storytelling and a sense of personality. Freidman looks for something that has a sense of originality and doesn’t look like another illustrator’s work. Bobco agreed with Saylor and Friedman and added that it must feel true. It can be comical, loose pen and ink, or highly rendered. Art directors are not looking for specific techniques, but looking for wonderful artwork that is an appropriate representation of the content.

How do you find where your passion and talent cross with children’s book illustrating? Research. Go to the library. Look at books. Look at lots of books. Study the different art styles. Study the difference between mass market and trade books. Study picture books, chapter books, and paperback covers. Determine what your true interests are and then continue your research by compiling a list of houses and imprints that produce children’s books with the kind of artwork that you want to do.

Next, you need to research the submission policy of each house. Two resources for this are the Literary Market Place (LMP), which should be available at your local library, and the Children’s Book Council, which has literature available on submitting artwork.

Ann K. Smiley

Many publishers have a portfolio drop-off day. For SeaStar Books and Simon & Schuster, drop off day is Thursday. For Scholastic, it is Monday. Art directors have discovered illustrators on drop-off day, but panelists admitted that you are more likely to get a form thank you letter than immediate work. However, they will often save “leave behind” artwork from a portfolio, which may lead to future work. You can also mail in your portfolio, but it should be a small one and you
should include a SASE if you want it returned. Do not include original artwork.

Your portfolio should only show your strengths. Some people can draw the human body unbelievably well and some people can draw animals well. There are few who can do both well. If you can draw figures and can show faces with expressions then do so; otherwise, don’t try to force it. If you have two distinct styles, you can put both in your portfolio, but it is probably inadvisable to include more than two styles.

If you’re interested in illustrating chapter books include one or two samples of black and white illustration, as there aren’t that many people who are really good at rendering something in black and white. However, the panelists warned against acquiring a skill just because there seems to be a call for it. You run the risk of being “type-cast” because of that skill and of burning out creatively if it doesn’t really hold your interest.

In addition to portfolios, you can send promotional and sample materials to art directors. Try to make your work easily accessible by sending postcards or using easy-to-open envelopes. If possible, show your style on one 8 1/2” x 11” sheet rather than several sheets of varying size. Since art directors keep files of samples and have very strong visual memories, when sending a new mailing it should be new material–not the same postcard you sent six months ago or the same artwork on a new sheet.

If you are an author/illustrator with a dummy, this should be submitted to an editor, not an art director. However, if there are problems with either the artwork or the story, the submission is likely to be rejected, so if you are really good at one or the other then you may want to concentrate on that. On the other hand, doing a dummy can be a good process for an illustrator to go through, and an art director might look at a dummy to see how an illustrator sustains characters throughout a story.

More About The Panelists:
David Saylor is Vice President and Creative Director for Book Group at Scholastic, Inc. Scholastic has several divisions and sells a lot through book clubs and book fairs. The Book Group produces trade books and contains several imprints including Scholastic Press, Author A. Levine Books, Orchard Books, Blue Sky Press, and Cartwheel. www.scholastic.com

Ellen Freidman is Art Director for North-South Books, SeaStar Books and Night Sky Books. North-South Books is a Swiss-owned company that mainly produces English translations of books produced in Europe. SeaStar Books is primarily trade picture books with some novels and novelty books. Night Sky is novelty, mostly based on the “Rainbow Fish” character. www.northsouth.com

Ann Bobco is Executive Art Director for Atheneum and Margaret K. McElderry Books, which are two imprints of Simon & Schuster. Anne Schwartz Books and Richard Jackson Books are part of Atheneum. Viacom owns Simon & Schuster and Nickelodeon, so there is some overlap and product sharing. www.simonsayskids.com

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