Finding Your Niche As an Illustrator

How To Find Your Illustration Niche

As an illustrator just getting started in your career, the eagerness to try everything can be very tempting. You may want to try a million new tools and software, but some of the seasoned illustrators on our roster have advice on how niching down can really boost your career.

Focus In
We understand how being a "jack of all trades" can sound like the go-to when starting your career as an artist. But Mel Cerri, lettering artist & illustrator, suggests focusing on who you want to be as an artist.

"It was hard to teach myself to not to be the crazy learner anymore and just be focused on finding who I wanted to be as an artist. That was a process, but it was so worth it. Lettering has a million different ways it can go and so many different lettering styles, and so many different feelings you can convey through your work. I was always taught that I should be multi-talented. [But with a niche], people will know exactly who to hire if they need this thing."

Sacrifice for the long haul
Illustrator Dave Arcade also shares that cutting away other experimental elements is a necessary sacrifice.

"It's a sacrifice to kind of cut away the fat, but it's a good sacrifice. It doesn't feel good at first, but once you realize you're kind of onto something, you need to sacrifice those things that take you away from that path. And that can hurt a little bit, you may feel like [you've] wasted many hours, months, and even years because you've put a lot of time into that area of your style. But it'll help you get to where you were going."

Finding your niche as an illustrator can be challenging or even frustrating, but as we've heard from these illustration vets, it will definitely help in the long run.