The Artist Doesnt Always Know Best

Artist and author Nikolas Allen shares his experience with crowdsourcing, and the insights it can provide.

Artists often create work in a vacuum, then put it on display and hope their audience likes it. For the most part, this works fine because, while we value the opinions of our audience, it’s not like we want them in our studio guiding the creative process.

However, there are times when our own opinion isn’t enough; when we need to reach out to others for feedback that will help guide our direction. In those instances, crowdsourcing can prove invaluable.

Typically, crowdsourcing is used to gather ideas, designs or solutions from a group of people. It can also be used to gather opinions, which helps artists determine which course of action will resonate most with their audience. I’m pretty sure we can all understand the value in that.

A Lesson in Crowdsourcing

In 2013, when I was preparing to publish my art marketing book, “Death to the Starving Artist,” I wasn’t sure if the cover should have an orange background, or a green one. I posted both versions to Facebook, and got the most engagement I had seen in a long time.

People came out of the woodwork to chime in on their favorite colorway. Plenty offered unsolicited design advice also because, well, that’s what people do. A side note: Hearing something once is an opinion, which can often be ignored. Hearing the same thing six or more times is a trend, which should probably be addressed.

The green vs. orange color battle ended in a tie. Since the opinions were split right down the middle, I got to make the final choice. However, this was now an informed choice rather than a guessing game.

Fast forward two years. I’m currently writing my first novel. While I have designed my own covers for the two marketing books I’ve published, I was curious to see how another artist might interpret the cover of my debut novel.

I hired three designers to present designs. One of them missed the mark completely. Two of them were quite good, but I wasn’t sure if either one of them was THE ONE. I decided to go against my initial instincts and create a design of my own.

Of course, I loved the result (yes, my opinion may have been biased). I was confident that I had a winning design on my hands, and I should know because the artist knows best, right?

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