Illustrator Frequently Asked Questions
Are you selling the prints & Ts? Using them for marketing? What’s the point?
Our screen-prints & Ts are available “for sale” by donation. All proceeds from the donations are given to a climate charity. In 2021, we raised $25K for The Coalition for Rainforest Nations from our first set of four prints. The point is to get folks excited about climate change solutions, raise some money for climate non-profits, lift up the humans working at those non-profits and create work for the artists & printers we admire.
Is this full rate?
We’ll be honest about our budget. But we aim to pay your full rate. We’re a charity - we know you are not.
You're a charity? Sounds like more rounds and less pay.
Nope. Our goal is collaborative ideation and then very limited rounds. We want this to be an opportunity for you to work on a different sort of project than you typically would and with fewer restrictions than you’d typically have with a commercial client. We may have content notes regarding the climate solution being depicted, but we’ll never have creative notes or ask for something to be more “appealing”. We have no client to satisfy and we’re not trying to sell anything. Our creative director is a freelance creative in his day job - we get it.
When do I get paid?
Typically we pay half the artist fee after we’ve discussed your initial ideas but before you’ve really gotten to work. We pay the remaining half after you’ve delivered the final file. Let us know if you prefer some other arrangement.
Who owns the work?
You maintain ownership of all physical sketches, originals, and some APs that we’ll provide to sell as you wish. We’ll have exclusive rights to reproduce the illustration.
What exactly am I drawing?
A “cover quality” illustration inspired by a climate change solution. We’ll pick one together. Imagine perhaps a teacher at the front of a classroom of girls, a farmer proudly presenting a harvest, a student coasting on an electric scooter, or an immigrant at a ballot box - all drawn with the same cool dynamism as a rock star or the expressive character design of a superhero. We’ll give you the text/copy that needs to be on the print + we can give you character design and/or conceptual ideas to help you get started. Or we can leave you alone to do whatever you like.
Any other guidelines?
Please do not use any traditional signifiers of environmental art. No smokestacks. Nothing on fire. No drowning polar bears. No recycling symbols. Absolutely no planet Earths. And of course no AI.
What are the specs?
Our first prints were standard poster 18” x 24”, but we are open to other sizes if you’d like. We prefer to keep the illustration under 10 colors for screen-printing, but we love unique inks and specialty paper. Our first runs were an edition of 200, we’ll likely do a run of about 500 for our next set.
I deliver flat illustrations. Is that an issue for screen printing?
Nope. We can separate your illustration on our end if need be. But we will need your source file for the printer.
I’m also a screen-printer. Do you want me to do both the illustration and the printing?
That’d be great if you like! Simply give us a separate quote for the printing.
“When Andy at Drawdown approached me with this project I knew I had to do it. Drawdown is one of the ways I feel like I am doing a little something to raise awareness and money. So happy with the end products! Might be one of my favs :)”
— Tula Lotay
“It's been an honor, a pleasure and a challenge for us, to create something in the field we love, drawing and printing something tangible to give our small contribution for a better planet.”
— Malleus