How to use business principles in your creative career

You don't have to be a banker to care about business. We've written about why artists should aim to get paid, and how to set up a creative business. Now, as we see in the new tax year, Thalia Thompson explores ways in which you can use business principles to aid your creativity – not just your bank balance...

Working in the creative industries can mean an escape from the corporate world. But there are lots of business principles that still make sense in a freelance or creative career.

Robert West is an up-and-coming artist who’s comfortable with the balance between creativity and business sense. “Knowing that art is a business does not get in the way of your practice,” he says, “To me the business world does not seep into the studio…Organised business strategy is what takes place outside the studio and is what you need to get your work and yourself known.”

Planning and targets

Whatever you want to achieve, having a plan can help you get there. You can stay flexible of course, but setting yourself concrete targets helps prioritise your workload.

Chartered psychologist Sarah Dale runs the coaching programme Creating Focus. She says “Goals don’t have to be big sticks to beat yourself with. But if you have a picture in your mind (and preferably written down or drawn too) about where you would like to be in a year or five years’ time, this will help inform what you need to do to move in that direction.”

She recommends setting specific targets, “For example, if you are writing a book and you have a goal to finish a first draft by X, get feedback from people by Y and so on, the project is more likely to be realised.”

An annual appraisal

As a freelancer, you might work alone, but as writer and career coach Joanne Mallon says, “You can still have an AGM if you are a company of one. Think about what work you did and where that came from – this gives you clues as to what aspect of your marketing is working, or not, and tells you where best to focus your efforts in the coming year.”

Training

The world never stands still and nor should you. It’s definitely worth investing time or money in training to keep up to date with new developments in your field. If finances are tight, look at on-job experience or trade skills with a friend.

Market research

No business would launch a new product without thoroughly researching the market first. For a creative career in the current economic climate, finding gaps in the market that you can fill is more important than ever.

Samir Ceric from Debut Contemporary works with emerging artists, helping them showcase and sell their work. “Creating art and approaching the marketplace is not so different to launching a brand new business,” he says. “Identifying your target audience, knowing your competition and devising PR and marketing strategies, are all part of an overall strategy a successful creative of the 21st century will need to master”.

Business Development

A busy workload can mean it’s hard to make time to work on career development. As Joanne Mallon says “It’s easy to get so caught up working ‘in’ your business that you forget to work ‘on’ your business… But if you are consistently planting seeds for new work, you have more chance of seeing a consistent harvest”.

Article by Thalia Thompson

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Image: Its Business by _Davo_, available under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license.

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See here for map http://bit.ly/TWOQUEENSMAP

Two Queens is proud to announce the grand opening of our new artist-led gallery and studio project in Leicester. This event will see the opening of two new exhibitions in our gallery spaces:

Vanilla Galleries presents

Splash Waterfalls:

A SPACE TO CELEBRATE THE BANISHMENT OF THE CONTEMPORARY ART VOID IN LEICESTER'S CULTURAL QUARTER. A BAPTISM OF ENERGY, LIGHT AND SOUND, THE ARENA OF THE GALLERY SPACE PROVIDES A CONTEMPLATIVE ZONE FOR PERFORMANCES, DISCUSSION AND CEREMONIAL ART MAKING. WITH THE ELEMENT OF WATER AS THE THEME FOR THE SHOW, AS A SYMBOL OF OUR EVOLUTIONARY BIRTHING POOL ON PLANET EARTH, WE WANT TO ADDRESS NOTIONS OF CULTURAL REBIRTH, REGENERATION, BAPTISM AND THE RISK INVOLVED IN HIGH BUDGET CULTURAL PROJECTS, AS REPRESENTED BY KEVIN COSTNER'S 1995 EPIC WATERWORLD.

CUSP presents

A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky 
Featuring: Kitty Clark, Tintin Cooper, Amy McDonough, Miguel Pachico
9th - 24th March 2012

Examining contemporary folklores and archetypes, this exhibition brings together four artists whose work presents images and narratives which are both of our time and timeless. Referencing classical mythology and folk storytelling traditions alongside Disneyland and the cult of premiership football, these ideas resonate with the shared concerns of our culture, satisfying primitive interests held within the human subconscious. 

Exhibitions will run until the 24th of March, opening times: Wed-Fri 12-5pm, Saturday 11-6pm.

TWO QUEENS: 2 Queen Street, Leicester LE1 1QW

Known for bold, engaging pieces including performance, installations and audience participation, you can expect nothing less on 7th March, entering past a playful window display created by Agnetha Sjogren and whilst surrounded by the welcoming Debut team, the local celebrities and a cooly fashionably dressed arts crowd, be prepared for a surprise and a vibrant visit from Akleriah alongside your champagne, cocktails and cupcakes. Look out for exotic Goji Royal and Fairly Juicy cocktails, generously provided by FAIR. Spirits – expect the finest spirits from Fair Trade ingredients from the company at the heart of transparent and sustainable ethics in ultra premium spirits. FAIR. offers the latest sources of inspiration for fresh, healthful and generous cocktails.

Local resident DJ for the evening and ex Central Saint Martin's student, NIYI will be keeping things lively with some killer tunes and if we're lucky we might get a taster of his soon to be released album “Great Britain” coming out on Tummy Touch Records. NIYI has played guest slots on Radio 1 and XFM and ran his weekly club night ‘I Heart NIYI’ at Punk in Soho for a year (Lady Ga Ga performed live for the first time in the UK last year as part of London Fashion Week and Calvin Harris, Little Boots and Golden Silvers have all DJed).

Follow us from the gallery to After-Party hang-out spot just down the road at Westbourne House Bar.

All rights reserved Richard Mosse 

After the deaths in Syria of World renowned Journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, 28 the media took a pause and looked more closely at the under reported conflicts around the World. Colvin often spoke about the need for taking risk, and it was the reporting by her and other journalists like her who went into areas of conflict that helped influence the public and the political machine to sometimes take action, and gave the people in these areas much needed support.

Artists have for along time too been involved in this process of bringing a subject to the forefront of culture and society, Richard Mosse is one such individual. Mosse has for years have been photographing War zones and conflict areas such as Lebanon, the Middle East and most recently The Congo, the Infra Project is perhaps his most recognised work. Mosse is widley known having an exceptional back catalogue, having exhibited his work around the World. His work has aided in transforming often indescribable situations in the Congo into a profound visual perspective. He will be showing the Infra Project at the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool from 30th March - 10th June 2012 

"Richard Mosse’s Infra project uses obsolete military surveillance technology, a type of infrared colour film called Kodak Aerochrome, to investigate ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Originally created to detect targets for aerial bombing, Kodak Aerochrome film registered a spectrum of light beyond what the human eye can see, rendering foliage in vivid hues of lavender, crimson and hot pink.

On his journeys in eastern Congo between 2010-11, Mosse photographed rebel groups constantly switching allegiances, fighting nomadically in a jungle war zone plagued by frequent ambushes, massacres, and systematic sexual violence. These narratives urgently need telling but cannot be easily described.

Infra offers a radical rethinking of how to depict a conflict as complex as that of the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The images initiate a dialogue with photography that begins as a meditation on a broken documentary genre, but ends as an elegy for a land touched by tragedy.

Richard Mosse was born in Ireland in 1980. He currently lives and works in New York.

He is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery, New York." 

The shop has a limited front facade though its street presence is optimized by floor to ceiling glazing. The unique interior and forward thinking brand of this bread shop is apparent to the public, attracting new customers to the premises. If this bread shop was in my area and not in Australia I would go there every day, firstly because of the bread and secondly because of the architecture.

baker d. chirico' by march studio in carlton, australia | all rights reserved march studio image © peter bennetts 

Have you ever looked at a white wind turbine and thought they look sleek, simple and pure, but perhaps they could use just a little colour to spice them up. Well thats what German Artist Horst Glasker decided to do to acknolwedge their unique design and environmental contributions.

Stop frame may take a long time to do but if its done well there is little that can beat it. This is one such example Animator Steven Briand made this expectional stop frame animation over a two month period while working as an intern at Partizan. This is clean, sleek and clever; its amazing what you can do with some paper and card, see more of his work on vimeo.

PROTEIGON from BURAYAN on Vimeo.

A good friend of mine who produces 3D projections sent me this, it wasn't one of his but it is rather amazing. Why don't we have these sorts of things everywhere? it would be great. Sober Industries and Studio Rewind collaborated to create this spectacular interactive light display projected onto these unique 3D models.  

Press Release

"Sober Industries and Studio Rewind took the Tiger mapping project to another level. For the 'Rotterdamse Museumnacht2011' we built two large sculptures. Both sculptures were projected with mapped visuals. New in this project was the interactive part. The spectators were able to control the visuals projected by a custom made cubicle with motion sensors and buttons. By tilting the cubicle the color of the visuals changed and the buttons were used to skip through the visuals and to create other effects like blending and scratching. The sculptures are made entirely out of wood and can be disassembled to smaller pieces which are more easy to transport."

'Welcome into the future' Sober Industries x Studio Rewind from SOBER-INDUSTRIES on Vimeo.