30 Jun 2018, 02:53

Hi all,

I’ve been a freelance children’s book illustrator since high school and am entering my 3rd year of art college. I recently got into a heated debate on Twitter with Chris Do, founder of Blind and TheFutur (a popular design education platform — like SVS but more on the graphic design side) where he was discouraging students to freelance while in school and to instead solely focus on school projects. Is there a balance? Is it good to freelance to get experience in your industry while pushing your work and business skills forward before entering the workforce after school? Would particularly like to hear @Will-Terry and the podcast gang’s thoughts as educators. Chris invited me onto his podcast and I’d like to get some thoughts from the illustration world first. He has me questioning freelancing which is alarming because I’m halfway through college!

My work: www.andrewgthomas.com