Monday, February 15, 2010

International Artist Profile
for Eloquence magazine, November 2009.
Justin M Maller - Exploring freelance
by Michelle Viljoen

Freelancing is responsibility. Freelancing is freedom. Freelancing is nipping off work to go buy an awesome pair of sneakers for you sneaker collection without having to explain it anyone.

“I’ve actually had to ban myself from buying high-tops,” says Justin, from Australia. “I reckon they look heaps better on the shelf, but I always get so much more burn out of the lows.”

When Justin M Maller is not indulging his sneaker addiction, he is in front of his computer, working as a freelance digital artist.

Justin’s success as an illustrator is notable, as his major at university was in creative writing. “I am self taught in illustration... I got my first copy of Photoshop 4 back in 1998, and have been playing around with it ever since.

By the time he graduated university in 2006, Justin was already booking his first freelance jobs. Soon he decided to quit his job to freelance full-time. Work started off on an un-glamorous note with mostly editorial work, but Justin had only to wait before he started booking small scale illustration work. Nowadays, he gets to work on some “pretty excellent” projects.

He has also found the time to work on an artistic collective called Depthcore Collective. He co-founded the group with fellow artist, Kevin Stacey. to create an artist’s collective with a 3D and abstract vision. “It seemed to me as if the internet had been custom designed to facilitate interaction and collaboration between artists across the globe.”

Justin calls himself an “unaffected artist” as he hardly ever looks at what other artists in his field produce. “I simply sit down and create the things that occur to me – as such I feel that my work stands on its own, and doesn’t come off as inspired or influenced by other illustrators.

Justin takes pride in quality work and spends time experimenting and refining new techniques in his work. His inspiration comes from anything and everything he comes across in his daily life.

“I would hope that my approach to my work creates my signature more than any specific content or execution.”

It this individual signature that attracts clients to his work, Justin says. “Most clients come to me because they want my style of work, so even jobs that are rather guided still afford me a greater deal of freedom than I expect a lot of designers enjoy”.

Freelancing has paid-off well for Justin, but he admits it has its ups and downs. “There is only one person to do whatever work you take on; if you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done, and the buck stops with you.”

He says this immense freedom is one of the bigger challenges of working as a freelancer. “Having no oversight and no enforced structure is something that I think a lot of freelancers struggle with initially; they’re challenges to be reckoned with.

After some years as a solitary freelancer, Justin has learnt to deal with these challenges in his own way. “They’re offset by some pretty wicked plus sides – I don’t have to wear pants if I’m not inclined, and I can nick off to buy some sneakers whenever I feel like it.”



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