Illustrations That Weren’t

I did this artwork for a job earlier this year for a major national magazine (which shall remain nameless), who then decided not to run the illustrations. The story was about “brothers”, both fictional and in real life. They say they loved the work I did and I did all that was asked of me, but their chief editor could not make up his/her mind about the visuals. I was told they actually contracted four different illustrators to do the art for this article. I am not sure they used any of the art from the four of us.

I was paid my full fee, however, even though there was a kill fee clause. That’s because most art directors (at least I have found) don’t invoke the kill fee unless they really feel the reason they aren’t running the art is because the artist dropped the ball… especially if they want to work with that illustrator again.

If you work long enough in the business this does happen sometimes. Kind of a bummer as this was a high profile publication I’ve done work for in the past, but I am sure I’ll get another project from them sometime.