In Conversation: Ari Liloan

For our first In Conversation piece of 2021, we’re massively excited to chat with Filipino/Italian illustrator, Ari Liloan. Ari’s currently based in Berlin, continuously building an extensive list of projects, clients and developing a new love for illustration with a style coined as “a bastard of 1930 goldenage surrealism & 2020 vector art dilettantism”. We also get to chat about how the pandemic affected Ari, as she went full-time freelance & balanced those struggles from day to day.

Hello! Who are you? What do you do?

My name is Ari, I'm a Filipino/Italian illustrator based in Berlin. Most of my work is editorial, some of my clients are New York Magazine, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian UK and GQ. My favorite subjects to draw centre timeless topics such as power, money, science, death, love and fried chicken.

How does your typical creative day-to-day look like?

This is going to sound weird, because I work in unholy hours. I wake up around 1-2 slowly getting started with breakfast. My commute to my studio space is deliberately long as I like to use that time for sketching ideas, napping, emails and audiobooks. I just need hours to get started but the amount of work I get done while drooling and looking out of the train is actually impressive. At the studio I tackle administration tasks first, so I have a clear head to focus on drawing. My brain is just best in the evening so I wanted to take advantage of those hours. I usually go to bed around 4-5, which works well for my clients as most of them are American anyway. That's just how my circadian rhythm works so I arranged my schedule around that.

You’re currently living in Berlin, how’s the creative community over there?

I haven't done a lot of networking here to be honest, partially because of corona and partially because I'm a hobby-hermit. Which is a pity because it's so easy to meet creatives, you basically can't spit in Kreuzberg without hitting an artist. I'll plan to do that more once everything calms down. It's nice to have someone to whine to when Photoshop crashes again. From what I've observed the community is really competitive in the best way possible. You are highly motivated to keep up with your peers' quality of work. A studio colleague for example showed me his new website for the first time and I wanted to both punch him in the face and kiss him on the lips.

Your work is brilliant, we’ve been following for you a while now and wondered if there’s a specific piece of work you’re most proud of? What is it and why?

It's a bit like asking who's your favorite child. You probably know but you shouldn't say it out loud. I can tell you the first thing that came to mind which was the cover for the Los Angeles Times. It was about the challenges of finding a public toilet due to covid restrictions. Originally we had some sort of maze in mind, as detailed crowd scenes are what I'm mostly known for but I surprised myself with this more conceptual and surreal approach. And I really enjoyed the reactions by the public. A popular tweet was "I know it's a toilet but I really want to frame that and put it on my wall". That made my day.

You describe your style as “a bastard of 1930 goldenage surrealism & 2020 vector art dilettantism”. Where did it originate from? Were there any early inspirations you remember when you started to create?

Originally I thought about pursuing fine art and dabbled forever in oil painting. Escher, Bosch, Dali are classics that I still admire. But the more I learned about the art world the more I felt estranged from it. I was constantly debating in my head whether I'm too stupid or too smart to appreciate some artworks. Which is why I switched to advertising, web design, and finally illustration, as I like having assignments, clients and being of service.

I like to think of myself as a highly enthusiastic dilettante, as I never really specialized until now. Having multiple interests can feel like a curse as your attention is constantly fragmented. I found my peace with it, as I like to cross pollinate between the disciplines. Dabblers are also more resistant against frustration, as they are used to being beginners. Even as a student, I hated drawing, vector environments were a nightmare and my color combinations looked like poop. Having this habit of leaning into the things I'm bad at brought me here.

You went freelance during the pandemic, how was that like? Was it difficult to get going or did you naturally fall into place with your new freelancing duties?

I was well prepared. Not that I did expect covid, but my goal was to have enough savings for a full year before doing it full time. Being so intimidated helped, as I approached freelancing like Victorians build bridges. They didn't have the math figured out yet, so they used way too much steel and stone, which makes for unnecessarily safe bridges. I was careful about it because I saw too many friends diving headfirst into their freelance careers and murdering their creativity on the way. Struggling with finances, unexpected workloads and unfulfilling assignments lead to them going back to a normal job. "Jump and the net will appear" is such dangerous advice, because we're all adults so let's acknowledge that the net might not catch you. Building a safety net and tackling the business side of things early on is a mandatory first step. Burdening your art to pay your bills is already a lot to ask so take good care of it.

Do you think the pandemic has helped to elevate your practice or disengage others from discovering your work?

I can only speculate of course. The engagement on my socials have been higher as everyone was chained to their phones anyway. That said it's hard to stay in anybody's mind when everything gets swallowed up by the next 2020 tragedy. So I didn't really receive any commission through Instagram which is usually how illustrators get their jobs. What worked surprisingly well was cold emailing and leaving a phone number or skype contacts. I also attached personalized PDFs in a mobile friendly format with curated work for the publication. Putting in the extra targeted effort probably put me on the map so especially in times of so much digital noise throwing a smaller but tighter net seems to be a good strategy.

When we briefly spoke recently, you mentioned having repetitive assignments - do you think this is a natural problem for freelancers? Did you have any ways of working around that problem?

There are always pieces in your portfolio that stand out to a client, but if it's always the same piece you're forced to repeat your "best ofs''. At first it didn't bother me, because I did and still do enjoy drawing detailed crowd scenes. The downside is that after half a year I felt like a one trick pony. To get out of that I did 3 things.

First: I rearranged my portfolio, and showed different subject matter first. Generally speaking, even if you specialize in e.g. portraits it's good to include landscapes, animals, characters, environments, objects etc, so the client can image your work in different usages. As a small black and white spot illustration or a full double page.

Second: Even if I get a job that refers to similar work I'm known for I try to present multiple sketches with different approaches, alongside the specifically requested sketch.

Third: I try to evolve that style and expand my own visual vocabulary that way. That could mean "doing your thing" but maybe in a perspective you're not comfortable with, color schemes you've never tried, adding new subjects, textures, techniques, scales, effects, etc. That way you can see your own style grow up.

What advice or tips would you give to freelancers and illustrators right now, who either may be unmotivated or finding it difficult to balance the pandemic and their work?

Procrastinate! Creatively speaking, it doesn't have to be a productive or "respectable" task. I read that Einstein played the violin. He mentioned the term “Combinatory Play”, the act of opening up one creative channel by dabbling in another. I realized that I’ve been using something similar whenever I get stuck on a brief I tend to do other things instead of pushing too hard without making any significant progress. For me that means baking, building another aquarium set up or doodling flowery vines and dicks all over my tax returns (dont).

With the right intention it's about staying in motion instead of procrastination.

What’s next for you? Are there any projects you’ve got planned for in the future?

This year I started doing more commercial illustrations, which is a surprisingly different beast than editorial, but I'm excited to see where it goes.

In the spirit of a dabbler I also try to see how my interests can feed one another, so my personal projects center marrying illustration with web development. I'm interested in pursuing animation as well, but anytime I use after effects for more than an hour I think "Why am I doing this to myself?" Creating illustrations with pure CSS or animated SVGs on websites seemed like a good circumvention. It's likely more laborious so it doesn't make a lot of sense but it works anyway. The last sentence could be the anthem of my life.

Make sure you check out Ari’s work here: madebyari.com & @madeby_ari

—

Image credits:

Headshot of Ari — Torsten Drever

Illustrations — Ari Liloan