MENTEE SPOTLIGHT : Poan Pan
Illustration for The New York Times Book Review
It was a real pleasure to mentor Poan for 6 months as part of The AOI's Mentorship Scheme. He already had a phenomenal amount of talent, was developing a great illustration style and was driven to build a solid, and dare I say, super successful illustration career.
Poan is originally from Taiwan, but recently graduated with a degree in Graphic Communication Design from Central St.Martins in London where he now lives. As I said he already had the talent, and knew what he wanted to achieve, but wasn't 100% sure of the paths he could take to get there. Our first focus was Poan's online portfolio, it's not an easy thing to curate, and sometimes you have to be cutthroat, but you have to ensure you are only showing your best work, that you're displaying a memorable style and that you're showing some versatility in what you create. Poan and I worked through his folio, dropping a few pieces and highlighting others, until we had a succinct body of work that would appeal to art directors and show what he's capable of. I'll be honest, it looked fantastic, I can show off about it because it's his work not mine!
Cover illustration for Cubitts
Next we moved on to one of the key tasks for an illustrator, self-promotion, you could be the greatest artist on earth, but if no-one knows you exist, you'll never get any work. So we worked on gathering contacts, email etiquette and managing social media. Poan is so keen and dedicated he set to work and started to gain new commissions. Poan is set to be quite a master of editorial illustration especially so it was great to see him climbing this ladder during our mentorship.
Illustration for Politico Europe
I won't share everything we worked through together, but other sessions included awards and competitions, taxes and pricing negotiation, and (something I view as an important aspect of freelance illustration) pitching yourself into the industries you're interested in, whether it's politics, skateboarding or fashion.
I can't take the credit for Poan's career success, he would have achieved great things some day anyway, but I'm proud of how we worked together, I thoroughly enjoyed mentoring him and I'm super pleased to see his work go from strength to strength as he builds the creative career he set out for.
To enjoy more of Poan’s work you can view his portfolio or follow him on Instagram.
Illustration for The New Statesman
