Animation by WNW Member Anthony Eslick
We’ve built Working Not Working profiles to be as multifaceted as you are. What that means is they’re aesthetic, adaptable, and can serve a number of roles. Here are our team’s collective thoughts, as well as the basic steps that you should follow to ensure a great profile.
Read More“I think the biggest problem is that globally the narrative pen is in white folks’ hands. Even in Africa, our regional campaigns are created all the way in London. That's ridiculous to me. I think we need to give the people the narrative pen.”
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Ray Smiling speaks about creativity as if it were a recap of a Transformers fight. It’s about creating and destroying, it “needs more explosions.” He’s the kind of Creative Director that you want to have if you’re into advertising. His ability to think outside of the box, and encourage other creatives to do so, is well-documented.
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From working with R&B artist 6LACK to market his 600 Degrees hot sauce to handling creative direction for a project with Nike, Donye Taylor has carved her own path on her terms. She’s not letting up for anyone. Taylor talks The Digital Footprint, what drives her, and what she plans on doing in the future.
Read MoreArtwork by WNW Member Chris Burnett
We asked WNW members to tell us about the creative people who most inspired them, the companies whose projects most impressed them, and their under-the-radar discoveries who deserve to be household names.
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Gray has spent years applying what he’s learned in the industry, and what he’s discovered seeing creatives operate on all levels, through mentoring Black and Brown rising creatives. Here’s Gray on his creative philosophy, mentoring, and what all creatives should know, below.
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Illustration by WNW Member Lu Zhang
If you’re a freelancer struggling to understand your finances, you’re not alone. 72% of Americans report that their money stresses them out, yet talking about money remains taboo. Let’s make 2021 the year we change that.
Read More“You start in one place and you end up somewhere else at the end.” Work With is a film series from Working Not Working that introduces you to the creatives behind the work. In this installment, Ahmed Klink shows you that when you take the time to visualize where you want to be, making moves becomes second nature.
Read MoreA good starting point if you don’t know what to sign, what to read, what to listen to, and what to do. It’s hard to know where to start. But where you start doesn’t matter. What matters is that you do.
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WORKING NOT WORKING
Congratulations to all of this week’s announced winners across all categories in the ADC 99th Annual Awards. This year, The One Club for Creativity partnered with Working Not Working to offer freelancers a lowered entry price and the opportunity to have a bigger voice, presence, and platform in the creative industry. As a result, the ADC Awards saw hundreds of freelance applicants this year. The partnership also led to a new category, presented by Working Not Working. We’re excited to announce that the inaugural “ADC Freelancer of the Year” award is presented to artist Kadir Nelson.
Kadir Nelson is a Los Angeles-based illustrator and artist. His work is emotional and spirited; it’s painterly and figurative. It’s also a monumental task to even begin to summarize his body of work. Engaging with his art leaves a lasting impression. That may explain why his paintings are in the permanent collections of several notable institutions including the United States House of Representatives, the Muskegon Museum of Art, The National Baseball Hall of Fame, United States Postal Museum, the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland, and most recently, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the World Trade Center, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
It’s fitting that Kadir sets the bar for ADC’s “Freelancer of the Year” honor, given his more than 25 years as a freelance artist. He credits his parents with inspiring him to be comfortable with independence at a young age. “My parents owned their own businesses when I was a kid, and later while I was in college my mother quit her stable job as an engineer and became a self-employed author and speaker. It was a powerful example of bravery and professional independence.” Throughout college, Kadir sold his work to support himself and pay for his tuition. Shortly after graduating, and a stint creating conceptual artwork for DreamWorks Pictures, Kadir officially became a freelancer.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever had an ‘I’ve made it’ moment because I still have to work for a living. Painting, living, and evolving is a journey, and as I’ve gotten further into my career I’ve learned to appreciate that very fact.”
Flight of the Clotilda - 2020 ADC Gold Cube Winner
As many Working Not Working Members know, existing as a professional freelancer means growing comfortable with uncertainty. Creativity becomes not just a job or a living but a means for survival. The independence that comes with freelancing can be a dream, but it’s not for everyone. Kadir doesn’t see arrival as part of the freelance equation. “I don't believe I've ever had an ‘I've made it’ moment because I still have to work for a living. Painting, living, and evolving is a journey, and as I've gotten further into my career I've learned to appreciate that very fact…My career has been a wonderful string of moments and opportunities.”
These opportunities over the years include working with clients like National Geographic, HBO, Nike, Disney, Hennessy, and Sony Music, with moments like frequently been featured on the cover of The New Yorker and contributing over a dozen commemorative US postage stamps honoring American legends.
“My mission is to create artwork that illustrates the journey of the hero and to remind humanity of the best and noblest parts of itself.”
Where do you go from there? As Kadir tells us, “My mission is to create artwork that illustrates the journey of the hero and to remind humanity of the best and noblest parts of itself.” For many artists both young and established, Kadir’s career is itself the journey of a hero. What has he learned over the years from being a freelancer? “I've learned that my voice as a human being and an artist is powerful and that I can use that power to connect with, to heal, and inspire people. I would encourage artists to tell their stories with their work and paint subject matter that is meaningful to them.”
The other lesson is to keep going. Despite all of his accomplishments, Kadir doesn’t rest on his laurels. That’s why he’s the ADC Freelancer of the Year. “I was fortunate to have the opportunity to create a cover for National Geographic this year. It was a life-long dream to do this job since I'd seen their beautiful covers since I was a kid. I also won the Caldecott Medal, which was also on my dream board. I also got married in 2019, I finished the first draft for a big book I've been dreaming up, and I also began creating paintings for a monster project, so it was a very good year. Like most years, I've had also challenges, but I cannot complain. I can only keep pushing forward.”
We’ve officially launched a weeklong virtual recruiter session on the WNW platform. Over the past month, the graduating class of just over 100 students has been putting together their portfolios, housed within their own section of Working Not Working. Now, recruiters have the chance to discover, chat with, and hire any and all of these up-and-coming creatives.
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WNW Member Jon Burgerman
Jon Burgerman led the WNW community in an hour-long virtual doodling class. Participants joined the video call, armed with paper, pens, pencils, paint, and many more tools that don’t only start with the letter “P.” We could go on about how great this was, but instead, we’ll let the work speak for itself.
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In this episode, you will learn the importance of self-reinvention to escape formulaic mediocrity, how to know if your subconscious is driving your work, and why inviting people into your own invented universe is perhaps the only way to get clients to give you free rein.
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In this episode, you will learn that doing CrossFit while pregnant is probably not the best way to train for childbirth. Also, how having doubt and self-sabotaging your work and maybe your sanity alongside that doubt can be a valuable part of the creative process. This is a conversation we were really excited to have and it does not disappoint.
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Booking Escapes Prototype for Booking.com by WNW Member Brandon Burns
See the exact, step-by-step process you can take to search through the WNW database, connect with and follow UX designers whose work you love, and create a short job post to attract UX designers.
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We've built a tool that allows creatives to share their Top 3 Companies list not only on the WNW platform but on social media as well. When you list a company in your Top 3 on the platform, we notify hirers on WNW who work at that company.
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Our creative community wrote down more than 4,000 names. Here are the fifty agencies, brands, publications, services, stations, studios, tech giants, and more that made the cut, ranked in order.
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