The paper toy network

Commercial Jobs?

OK, let's put some fuel on the fire and discuss something more seriously that the ban of cheese ;)

With the rise in popularity of papertoys it was bound to happen that us papertoy designers were going to be approached for commercial jobs. I already did a couple and have a few more in the pipeline as well. Which is a great reward for all the effort we have put in designing our toys and make them available online for free. I am getting paid fairly for these jobs, because the companies involved understand the effort that is put into designing papertoys and approach the collaboration as professional as it deserved to be.

But I feel there's a problem arising as well. Often I get requests from certain companies to work on a commercial project, but already in the initial e-mail they are indicating there's no budget, it will be a nice way to promote myself, or they ask me to work on some concepts and if they like it they might collaborate with me. I even have the suspicion that certain companies are shopping around different papertoy designers to see who is willing to work for the least amount of money, or even for free, and pick that one.

In my opinion this is wrong!

First of all, these companies DO see the value of your papertoys as a commercial product, otherwise they would not initiated the project and contacted you. Unless they are a charity organisation or something similar they are planning somehow to make money out of it. So they should pay for it accordingly. Regardless of their 'limited' budget.

Also, it doesn't matter if you see yourself as beginner or experienced papertoy designer. They do like your work, otherwise they would not have contacted you. Apparently you already did some excellent self-promotion, so that argument becomes invalid as well.

And then something I've been tricked into a couple of times before. Speculative work. You spend a couple of days (and nights) creating some ideas and concepts to try to get a job and then you find out they've asked dozens of other designers as well and just pick the one they like the most. So you've wasted a lot of time on something that will not be used and you don't even get paid for all the time you spent on it. Believe me, it sucks and has a seriously demotivating effect.

So what now?

Well, I think we're with too few to start a papercrafters union :)
But we might need to boost our confidence a bit more and don't sell ourselves too easily. I think there needs to be a clear distinction between the work we put online for free and the commercial work we create for companies. And somehow we need to communicate this clearly to the outside world.

The discussion on NPT about selling papertoys has become more active again lately, and I indicated early in that discussion that I thought commercial jobs were a good way to make some money out of your designs. But it will only work if we all stick together and start seeing the value of our own work. Do not underestimate your own talent!

Any thoughts and suggestions? Agree? Disagree? Let the discussion begin.

And don't forget... Enjoy!. Designing papertoys should stay a fun activity and this is NICE papertoys.

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by ben the illustrator on August 13, 2009 at 4:07am: I agree Marshall. If someone else is going to make money out of the object you craft (ie. a commercial business) then YOU should be making some money out of it. I think the ideas people bounce around about selling paper toys is slightly separate, that is more of an 'art' thing, crafting a one-off and selling it to a collector.

But taking a commission to create a paper toy for a company is a design business thing, and you should be paid likewise. People doing spec work, or naively working for companies for free (sometimes big companies) has had a bad effect on the illustration industry already, just because you're a creative type and love what you do, DON'T LET BUSINESSES TALK YOU INTO DOING SOMETHING FOR FREE BECAUSE 'IT WILL BE GOOD PROMO FOR YOU' !!! Promo for what? Another company to come along and use your services for free?

By all means do free stuff for art projects, for exhibitions, toy sites, friends etc etc. But if a business is using your paper toy skills to promote themselves and make money for themselves, they should be paying you to work with them. If they're making a buck, you should too.

I can rant on this kind of topic for hours, but right now I have to get on with something else, but I'll be back! Marshall, you raised a hugely valid topic here.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Marshall Alexander on August 27, 2009 at 4:57am: I had a similar problem with a magazine a while ago and managed to find the e-mail address of someone higher in the chain of command. I e-mailed that person and got a copy of the mag instantly. Maybe you can give that a try.

Don't give up, a copy is the least you deserve.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Alexander Gwynne on August 13, 2009 at 5:08am: well, ive been trying to get some work involving papertoys, they can be a great promotion tool, i think the way to do this is get in tutch with magazines, this way they can give out a designer toy but its only another page, good look man, i love your work and hope i can be as succesfull as you one day ;).

and just so everyone knows i was the one talking about not baning cheese.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Luke 'Glood' on August 13, 2009 at 8:01am: I agree! why should you give them paper toys for free just so THEY can make money out of it. They get somebody talented to do all the work for them and then ue it to get money! I agree with all of you!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Bryan on August 18, 2009 at 6:45am: I've been contacted recently (through NPT) by someone who wanted some paper toys designed for an 'upcoming film'. I saw that the email had been forwarded to many artists, and no commission was mentioned. When I responded asking if there was a wage my email was totally ignored. I've tried contacting the commissioner several times, but no answers.

The commission was in June. Did anyone else recieve this email also?

I wondered if one of the artists offered to do it for free or not.

The name of the film was never disclosed.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Morgan Gleave on August 18, 2009 at 7:25am: Excellent topic, Marshall, and something me and my wife/business partner have discussed at length!

Having been a graphic designer/illustrator for years, I know how it feels to work on commercial projects, and it is hard sometimes to get over the price issue, especially when you're a freelancer...

It would be wonderful if we could make a living from our art, toys especially, but the reality of the situation is, we need to eat. That's where the commercial world comes in. I think we are in a very lucky environment at the moment, with urban culture being accepted more widely...

If the right job with the right people comes along, we should take it. They'll understand the costs! After all, we all have morals, and our art is more important to us than financial gain. That's why places like this exist, and why we all create!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Chris Beaumont on August 18, 2009 at 6:19pm: This is something I have been thinking about for awhile now and I totally agree.

I get a lot of "oh this will be good promotion for you" e-mails. I did it once and the company that I did it for contacted me later for a separate promo - but this time I told them they had to pay - and they did. BUT I feel this is a rare case and it still took a bit of negotiation to get (what i thought was) a fair deal. I basically explained that there was no way to quantify the amount of traffic or exposure I was receiving from doing these designs.

This is not just a problem is papercraft world though. Recently a number of illustrators came out against Google and other companies trying to use the "exposure as payment" plan. Here is a link to the NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/business/media/15illo.html?_r=1

Now, what is a fair price for a paper toy design? I feel that a number of things have to be taken into consideration when deciding. How/Where will the toy be distributed? Will they let you put your name/logo on it? Is the design based on an existing template or must it be done from scratch?

I also factor in whether or not I want to even work on the project. I have turned down offers because it just sounded like work at the end of the day. I have a day job and I started Cubeecraft more for myself than anything else - if I started taking on jobs I had no interest in it would just be more work.

Does anyone have this book? and know what it says about paper toys - if anything?

At the end of the day you should get paid what you feel your work is worth. Don't feel bad for turning down a job if it's not worth your time.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Eric Wirjanata on August 21, 2009 at 1:07am: for the media, i mostly willing to get into a free collaboration.
as when i was in singapore, 60% of Lemi's pattern buyer already shouted "Lemiii" when they see it... and they've found Lemi from blog such toysrevil, magazine etc...

and i also do a few collaboration w/ foundation like orangutan survival... and it's for free.

but for a commercial company... well i never do any collaboration with them, but surely i'll ask down payment in advance.,, because making papertoys aren't as easy as it looks.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by MARKO ZUBAK on August 23, 2009 at 8:49am: To make example, I got this mail today:

Hi There,

We're filming a music video clip for the aussie band, Grinspoon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinspoon) on 30th August 2009 which is very very soon.
Grinspoon is an iconic Australian band and the video clip for the new album will receive great airplay here.

Our concept for the video clip is to use a whole lot of celebrity papertoys performing and it would be fantastic if you could contribute. Basically we are looking for people to contribute paper designs of various celebrities. The more interactive and the more moving parts the toys have, the better.

We are looking for as many designs of celebrities as possible including:
- Britney,
- Lindsay Lohan in a pink convertible
- Kanye West
- Mariah Carey & Eminem
- Angelina, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Anniston
- Robert Downey Junior,
- Madonna
- Elton John on Piano
- and classic movie stars like Errol Flynn etc etc

These characters would hopefully be singing, drumming, playing guitar, being set on fire and generally behaving badly. We want the clip to be very amusing and controversial.

In particular we really want to have some stylised papercraft models/automata of the actual band performing (drums, guitars, singer etc). We'd also love to have some models/automata of the groupies and audience members. We would be honoured if you could participate. This is a low budget film clip so we don't have much budget available but can provide you with a lot of credits and exposure.

If there is anything you would like to know please feel free to contact us. I've attached a treatment of the film clip and links to some of our previous film clips.

Anybody would like to make Britney paper toy for free to be promoted?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Marshall Alexander on August 23, 2009 at 8:58am: I got that one as well :)

I wonder if there's some list in existence that companies use to send these e-mails to all of us in go, or that they are using the NPT memberlist somehow.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by MARKO ZUBAK on August 23, 2009 at 9:21am: Whatever strategy they use, you perceived really well the arising tendency to use us for their profit by contacting separately each one of us and offering only nice words.
I personally gave permission to use my toys for some shorts and projects only few times, but never got any feedback.
I don't have much experience with commercial projects, but in the last year I accepted few and in some occasions I was expected to do more for less.
Thanks for starting this discussion, Marshall!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Eric Wirjanata on August 23, 2009 at 9:01pm: i got that e-mail too... and yeah probably they've found us from NPT.
and after i replied the e-mail, they also mention that they've contacted 20 papercrafter.

because i have a fairly easy pattern, (the latest UMMM! only took five minute to make). i think maybe i'll send one...

i probably going to create a RAMBO.

Eric; ▶ Reply to This