Milking The Pro's - Part 2

Craig Yoe is the head of one of the world's leading entertainment design studios, whose plethora of clients include Disney, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. Visit him at www.yoe.com, and check out his new book at www.arflovers.com.

JF: What's the hardest thing about running a design studio for the entertainment industry?

CY: Shrinking budgets. And many companies now have their own large in-house art departments, not so when we started.

JF: What's the biggest perk?

CY: It's a lot more fun working with cartoon characters, movies, etc. than doing a brochure for a bank. At least I think it is. We once hired a freelancer work that HATED the kind of work we do and thought it was beneath him. He longed to do annual reports. What-EVER! (We kicked out his sorry ass).

JF: Why did you choose to do what you're doing?

CY: It probably chose me. I've been interested in professionally doing things like comic books, toys, kid books and the like for as long as I can remember.

JF: How do I get to be where you are now?

CY: The best route is to sleep your way to the top-- that's how I did it! If you want to try an alternative route I might suggest that number one, don't ever let yourself get discouraged, then compulsively study hard the work of the past, collect tons of that work, draw constantly (especially from life), eat healthy, don't think about the money, go for the experience especially when you are young, pray to God and praise God for the gift of life, try and get to meet as many of your heroes as you can and pick their brain (not their nose), especially try and meet old farts, believe in yourself, I mean really cultivate a very strong self-esteem, spend some of your time doing volunteer work to help less fortunate people, draw more, read books on positive thinking, work really, really hard! Or, again, sleep your way to the top!