Digital Journal of Illustration |
Creative Space
Me and a couple of my colleagues started an initiative a couple years back to organize a community to unite and support Russian-speaking and Russian-based illustrators. Here in Russia illustration industry (especially book illustration industry) is in a very different state than in the EU/UK/USA. The main issue is that it is heavily underfunded, which means fair terms (and fair pay) are even harder to achieve. There’s also no official body for illustration in Russia and no easily accessible resources on licensing/financing. So, until now illustrators were basically on their own. It so happened that a few practicing illustrators including myself shared the same concerns and wanted to act upon them. That’s why we created our project, Иллюстраторская среда (Illustration Environment in Russian). What we wanted to do first and foremost was to provide illustrators with accessible information resources and create a platform where an open industry discussion could be held. This is the main focus of our community right now. We have two main platforms on which we are most active: Our Instagram instagram.com/Illustratorskaya_sreda where we host regular livestream talks with industry professionals (editors, agents, practicing illustrators, designers, authors, animators and more) And our website illustratorskayasreda.ru which has a few categories, including Blog (where we post various articles, interviews and industry insights) and Resources (featuring online materials on pricing, finance, licensing etc). Most of our resources are free and openly accessible to everybody, as our goal is to provide all illustrators with fundamental information, they may need to remain informed and safe in their professional practice. We share responsibilities with my colleagues equally, each of us has text materials, work on Instagram, time for live translations etc. Personally, I also do all the design of the website and Instagram page. For now, we only work in Russian, but we have many plans and hopes for development!) Thank you for the opportunity to tell about our work to a wide audience, this is important for us!
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