Selling illustration to clients

I had someone from NB Illustration come into the agency this afternoon to show the studio their book. Everytime we have an illustrator or agent come and visit, we all come away feeling inspired and reinvigorated.

I always talk about the challenge of selling illustration into clients, and that I feel they often really need to see what they are going to get from the off. It's the banana story - you can have a portfolio full of drawings of different fruit, but if the client wants a banana, and there isn't a banana, well, we just can't take it any further. This takes away the magic that illustration brings to the project, the fresh interpretation of the brief. However I still feel that its up to me, as a Creative Director, to do a better job if I am to do more work with the many excellent illustrators out there.

There were so much great stuff in there, but I was drawn back to the Linocuts by Ian Phillips. Generally, I seem to be drawn to the graphic and digital work, so maybe this was a reaction against this, to the more tactile and nostalgic. It reminded me of an Adnams beer campaign. The subject matter really suits that style, lazy walks on a British beach. In the rain.