Struggling to get commissioned as an illustrator in 2025? Effectively, sadly, you are not at all alone. Throughout the illustrator neighborhood, we’re seeing a constant sample. Established professionals with years of profitable freelancing behind them are abruptly discovering their inboxes empty, their follow-ups ignored, and their revenue streams drying as much as a trickle.
Neil Stevens, who’s spent over 12 years constructing his illustration profession, places it bluntly. “I’ve formally dusted off the CV and am searching for full-time, paid work once more. I’ve by no means identified something so quiet as this yr. There was a time I’d be incomes £80-90k plus. This yr I will barely make £10k. It is fallen off a cliff.”
Illustrator and animator Daniel Fishel has additionally felt issues change abruptly. “In 2020, I invoiced 77 assignments,” he reveals. “Thus far this yr, I’ve invoiced 22. I am optimistic that I will get it to 30 by the top of the yr.”
For Alex Tomlinson, who graduated in 1989 and has been a full-time illustrator for nearly 30 years, the shift feels seismic. “It has been ebbing away these final three to 4 years, with budgets and deadlines drastically shrinking,” he says. “The place you used to have a fortnight for a job, they now need it in two days. They will say: ‘Do not spend any longer on it; we have not obtained the funds.'”
The ghosting phenomenon
A “ghosting” tradition, too, appears to be taking maintain. Cartoonist and illustrator Lana Grushnik has had no gigs in 2025 in any respect. “I hold listening to ‘you are so good, your work is wonderful’, after which silence,” she explains. “Observe-up results in ghosting. The place are the shoppers who nonetheless rent illustrators? They’re now fully out of attain! Now it is like a non-public member membership.”
Neil agrees. “The ghosting is actual,” he confirms. “There is not any private contact any extra. Simply tumbleweeds.”
Freelancer Jessie Bayliss has earned the identical as earlier years, however solely simply. “I believe the toughest half is the dearth of ordinary enquiries coming by way of,” she notes. “I’ve barely had any new shopper enquiries; it is all been by way of repeat work, which worries me quite a bit for brand spanking new illustrators graduating. The silence feels deafening and miserable, and in addition, so many present shoppers are reducing budgets.”
The AI query
Many illustrators level to AI as a contributing issue. As illustrator and model designer Shruti Singh observes: “Many of the established illustrators have a really particular fashion and when AI can pull that off, it dilutes their work out there.” Lana frames it extra starkly: “AI is reasonable and most people swallows it prefer it’s junk meals. So illustration turns into a tremendous delicacies that is probably not in demand.”
Others level to oversaturation inside the career. As illustrator and printmaker Spencer Wilson notes: “There’s work, however the competitors is stiff, and the sheer quantity of ‘obtainable for rent’ illustrators is big. I dread to suppose what number of graduates there are every year. If I am brutally sincere, it appears like a bubble or Ponzi scheme. This can be why you are seeing extra established individuals providing insights and programs for a price; to diversify their revenue streams.”
Plus, in fact, the broader financial local weather is clearly enjoying a task. In Daniel’s phrases, “budgets are minimize, corporations are shedding workers, and saving cash whereas we’re in a mushy recession with an economic system being held up by AI investments.”
For many who’ve constructed a shopper base through social media, platform modifications pose an additional problem. Illustrator and designer Bulma Vilmante Juozaityte, who began freelancing in 2019, explains: “My Instagram DMs was once filled with inquiries, however this yr has been fully quiet. Every little thing is shifting in the direction of reels, and algorithms prioritise video content material. So it is a lot tougher to rank nicely and be seen to new audiences with nonetheless photos.”
Illustrator and designer Holden Mesk, who began in 2017, shares the same expertise. “I used to have a gentle circulation of shoppers on a regular basis,” he says. “My DMs on Instagram would at all times have somebody inquiring about album covers, merch designs, beer labels, and so on. However this previous yr, it has been a ghost city.”
Survival methods
Confronted with these unprecedented challenges, illustrators are altering ways. Illustrator Rachael Presky has been “speaking to previous shoppers, bugging individuals the place I can and choosing up some design work too”. She’s additionally begun shifting in the direction of tremendous artwork, discovering it “human-focused and pleasant”.
Tim Easley, whose work spans design, artwork route and illustration, took a full-time design place “as a result of there was so little coming in”. And illustrator Tom Parsons made the same pivot. “I misplaced the motivation for being ghosted by potential shoppers and scrambling for cash,” he experiences. “Acquired my educator’s licence final December and have been instructing artwork in 2025.”
Equally, blended media artist and illustrator Nadia Flower has taken up part-time work after 15-plus years of freelancing full time, regardless of having agent illustration. “I’ve had only one stay gig, flown from New Zealand to Germany, and one different fee all yr,” she says, and blames the “international economic system, AI, and algorithms that do not work for small creatives.”
Illustrator and graphic designer Kohenoor Kamal, in the meantime, has been diversifying revenue streams and beginning a brand new enterprise. “I have been lucky to get a bit of little bit of funding,” she experiences, “which has helped complement my revenue from my most important job of illustrating. I undoubtedly see it as the best way ahead with the best way the world’s going.”
Momentary blip or everlasting shift?
For Marcus Marritt, approaching his eleventh yr as knowledgeable illustrator, the conclusion is sobering. “The notion that illustration as a self-discipline will battle again is a lovely dream, however that is all it’s, a dream,” he believes. “2025 is the yr the trade modified, and it’ll by no means return.” Veteran illustrator Peter Grundy concurs. “There have at all times been downturn durations within the inventive career,” he remembers, “however these have normally been linked to financial recession. I concern this one could mark a sea change in inventive attitudes globally.”
Amidst the gloom, although, there are exceptions. Illustrator and inventive studio proprietor Juliana Castro asks: “Is it dangerous that I’m really absolutely booked? The start of the yr was quiet, however the second half has been insane.”
And Rachael’s optimism maybe speaks for a lot of locally. “I believe it is a mixture of AI and the economic system,” she says. “So hopefully the economic system will decide up quickly and folks will realise how yucky AI is.”
In the end, whether or not 2025 represents a short lived downturn or a basic restructuring of the illustration trade stays to be seen. What’s clear is that illustrators are going through their hardest problem in many years, they usually’re having to reinvent their careers to outlive it. So if that is occurring to you, nicely, not less than you are not alone.
