Franz Lang on understanding freelance illustration as a business

Since we last wrote about London-based illustrator Franz Lang two years ago, the Italian creative has been taking on more editorial illustrations, as well as honing her colourful digital craft. She’s designed a t-shirt for Everpress in collaboration with the charity Sister Support, been commissioned by Papier magazine and worked on a number of other editorial campaigns for the likes of Mailchimp where she demonstrates her dynamic illustrative skills time and time again.

Previously, Franz’s work saw powerful women take centre stage, but as her career has steadily developed over the past couple of years, the illustrator has progressed from working primarily in print, to a variety of other commercial channels. “Illustration has gained a bigger spotlight in the arts and communication scene,” she says on the growing industry. “And it’s nice to see that the discipline is no longer seen as just ‘drawing’ and people are starting to grasp the complexity of the job.”

As she’s worked on the biggest projects yet over the past two years, Franz’s attitude to her occupation have also shifted with time. Though working on bigger projects has helped her to define what the illustration market demands, the essential lesson that Franz has picked up along the way is that: “Running a business is never easy, but understanding that I am a business as well, has been one of the biggest steps I ever made.”

For the illustrator, each project presents another learning curve. It’s not just about the eye-catching compositions, it’s also about understanding and applying freelance illustration as a business “with schedules, reviews, drafts and so on.” In a similar vein, one of Franz’s favourite projects so far has been to design a t-shirt sold on Everpress to raise vital funds for Sister Supporter, a charity that works to end the harassment of women seeking abortions in the UK.

In other work, she’s illustrated a book on sustainability titled Natura Manifesta, designed a poster for a mental health campaign for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and JED Foundation and illustrated an article for Culture Trip exploring “How to survive the Chinese New Year interrogations.”

Consistently producing work which is socially minded yet always beautiful, we can’t wait to see what Franz does next.