So inspiring, so beautiful, this is the effect her
illustrations have on everyone.
Whenever I see them, they make me smile and I am sure they are the reason of many others to smile too.
Today Emily shares her journey with us...
Here is my absolute favourite one!
- What is your favourite part of creating inspiring illustrated printworks?
E: There are so many things I love about the process, but I'd have to
say my two favorite parts are 1) knowing I'm making something that
inspires/touches the person who'll buy it -- I love knowing where my
work ends up! -- and 2) being able to see my own ideas through from
start to finish based on my own creative vision. I worked in advertising
for many years before leaving to write and illustrate my own work
full-time, and while there are things I loved about the process of being
an advertising creative, the decision as to whether our ideas ever saw
the light of day was ultimately up to our clients. So it's fun to be
able to have an idea and go make it!
- Have you always wanted to do that?
E: No! I actually didn't know what I wanted to do until the last
couple of years! I spent close to ten years climbing the ladder in
advertising, and when I finally got to the place I thought I wanted to
be when I first started in the business, I realized it wasn't right for
me at all. I quit my full-time ad job in 2011 in order to freelance and
figure out what I actually wanted to do when I grew up. :)
- Which is your personal favourite of them?
E: I have two -- the Joan of Arc quote, "I am not afraid, I was born to do
this," both for the sentiment and the design. I feel like both of those
things really represent me as a designer and a person. My other personal
favourite is "You Are Doing A Fucking Great Job" -- I have that one on
the wall of my office and I think none of us hear it enough!
- How does your normal working day looks like?
E: It varies depending on time of year and what deadlines I have
approaching, but most days, I wake up, check email from my bed (a
terrible habit!), then go into the studio. I spend the first half or so
of every day responding to email, doing phone calls about licensing or
with my sales reps, working on my website -- administrative stuff. I try
to shift over to actually creating work in the second half of the day
-- some days I'm more successful than others! When I'm on a deadline, I
take illustration work home with me at night as well.
- What is your most memorable moment, when opening a shop on Etsy?
E:
I’d
always wanted to have a greeting card line, but I’d successfully talked
myself out of it, thinking I could never make enough money, it was too
hard, etc. Last January, I designed one last-minute Valentine card and
had 100 copies of it printed, figuring I'd sell a few, and I
put it in my Etsy shop. The next day, Etsy posted it on their Facebook
page, and I hate using the phrase “went viral,” but it went viral. It
got over 10,000 likes on Facebook (I think it may have been the
most-liked post of the whole year?!) and my card ended up being featured
on Buzzfeed, CollegeHumor, Reddit, Glamour.com, Design Sponge, 9gag, and a million other blogs. It was insane.
From
my Etsy shop, I sold and shipped over 1,600 individual copies of that
card to customers in 8 days(!?) and came out of the experience with the
decision to create my own card line. So Etsy is really a critical part
of the story of my business!
Thank you so much Emily!!
All images belong to Emilymcdowelldraws
