The cogs continue to turn…
May 15th, 2012 | Darren Di Lieto
There’s been lots of work going on in the background at hai, with a few swooping changes coming soon. But for now we’re going to be adding a specialism to our search section… Comics & Storyboard! Are there any other specialisms you think we should have?
A members update will go out to notify members when it’s available for selection in their profiles.
Off the Wall…
April 30th, 2012 | Darren Di Lieto
You may or may not have noticed, but we’ve got another new background on the site. This time round the new background was from the very charming David Habben. The backgrounds on hai normally take a long time to process and there are generally several on the go at the same time. Plus it normally takes a number of revisions to get them just right due to the nature of their usage.
Here is the sketch David sent me a couple months ago…
Instantly you could see the concept and where it was heading from David’s sketch, so I asked him to proceed with fleshing it out. Next time I heard from him, attached to his email was this little number…
As you can see there was a good deal of detail in the artwork!
Now David needed to make a few changes, so it would work as a never ending website background with the top cropped. The left, right and bottom were all made to match #dad0b7 and so was the website’s CSS.
Basically the image above is the finished article, but I still needed to make a few adjustments. I needed it to work a bit better with general screen sizes, and I wanted to speed up the time it took to load the page as much as possible, and the only way to do that is to either compress the image or reduce the number of pixels.
As you can see I reduced the number of pixels by making it shorter and expanding the width of the wall in the centre. I also added the logo. The reduced height also worked better with general screen sizes as it allowed more of the artwork to be seen.
David was very accommodating and easy to work with and I’m very happy with how the background turned out. To see it in action, visit… hire an illustrator and check out David Habben‘s work to see what else he can do! 
Administration Update…
April 29th, 2012 | Darren Di Lieto
I’ve been hard at work recently make the administration side of hai easier for us and our illustrators to manage. So from our end I’ve integrated some major changes into our user management system. And from the point of view of the illustrators it should be easier to access the admin section of their profiles, where they can update their info and galleries. Which is great news all round!
Hire an illustrator is always being improved and this isn’t going to stop any time soon. We want to make the service we run the best it can be – with the aim of finding work for our members and making it easy for them to manage their portfolios.
Now, I should best get back to crunching some more code!
Making the right connections
March 14th, 2012 | Jane Di Lieto-Danes
We’re always experimenting with new ways to connect hai members with clients, so we’re really pleased with the amount of use that is being made of the Art Buyer Enquiry Form!
We’ve always worked with art buyers to help put them in touch with our artists, but the form makes for an easier and more accessible way for people to contact us, while making sure we have the information we need about the commission. There has been a steady increase in the number of requests for us to recommend artists for jobs since the form was added to the site around 6 months ago and helping art buyers to find members is now a sizeable part of our day to day work. This is obviously great news for our members!
A wide variety of people use the form to get in touch, from first-time authors to large publishing houses and from local community groups to international advertising agencies. We are always happy to advise less experienced commissioners about budgets, etc, and hope that the service helps to make life a little easier for busy art buyers!
Spring is in the air…
March 12th, 2012 | Darren Di Lieto
If you hadn’t noticed, we have a new background image on the main website. As soon as I get a chance I’ll do a write up on the sketch to final image process. The artwork was created by the wonderful Livia Coloji.
Settling into the new office…
February 19th, 2012 | Darren Di Lieto
It’s been a chaotic few weeks, but we’re starting to get back on track now at our new address. More updates coming soon! To find our new address please check our contact page.
A job well done!
February 3rd, 2012 | Darren Di Lieto
We really appreciate it when one of our member’s clients send us a nice email to tell us what a great job the illustrator did! Here’s one we received a few days ago…
“ While I was searching for an artist for my novel, The Vampire Girl Next Door, I came across hireanillustrator.com and looked through the portfolios of many artists on your site. I had a particular style in mind, so when I found an illustration by Jose Pardo for a horror novel, Widdershins, I knew I had found someone who could create an illustration I would like for my own novel. Fortunately for me, Jose Pardo is not only a talented artist, he is also an easy person to communicate with. I had spoken with some other artists before him who may not have liked such a specific idea I had in mind for the cover. With Jose, he welcomed all my ideas and suggestions which were often quite detailed. The result was a cover just like what I wanted. It’s a cover I would have illustrated if I were an artist instead of a writer. In addition to the cover illustration, he also designed the cover with the lettering for the title and also the logo on the back cover. The cover is now a perfect match for the idea of my novel. Everyone who sees it compliments it and I know it will contribute to future book sales.
I belong to a local writers group and I recommend hire an illustrator in general and Jose Pardo in particular for their book covers. “
– Richard Arbib
Mini update: 2011 Review…
January 4th, 2012 | Darren Di Lieto
We’re currently doing a review of what worked and what didn’t in 2011, as far as promoting our lovely members is concerned. So there are hopefully going to be lots of new promotion and advertising opportunities in the pipeline as we work out our timetable for 2012 over the coming weeks.
Elf & Safety – the new hai background illustration
January 2nd, 2012 | Darren Di Lieto
A few weeks ago leading up towards Christmas we asked the loverly Miriam Bos to create a winter background for the hire an illustrator website. We love the way it turned out and we hope you do too!
Here’s the finished article in all it’s glory.
Backtracking a bit, here is the original rough/sketch. Miriam was a joy to work with and very quick off the mark. From the word go, she knew exactly what we were after.
Miriam explained to us that the image had a story behind it and it was the story that was the basis for the concept. There was an elf who thought that the winter was so cold that the trees needed clothing to keep them warm! After receiving the rough I made a few small suggestions, like moving the squirrels onto the inner trees to give them a bit more screen time, but all in all I was happy for Miriam to proceed to produce the final image.
The final was then produced and we went back and forth a few times, knocking off a few pixels here and there, optimising the image for web, and arranging it to work with the layout of the website and logo. Once that was all done with a couple days to spare we got the new background up for Christmas!
With a great eye for colour, Miriam Bos was a pleasure to work with! Check out the new background on the hire an illustrator website.
