Where Writing Meets the Art Industry
Are you an artistic journalist with too many assignments going on at once? Perhaps you're an art history student wanting to publish your own book.
When you're busy with creative work, sitting down to write, research, revise, and organize your writing can be such a pain!
And learning about new contemporary art being presented, hunting for those unicorn artists who deserve more of your attention is exhausting. But, when the time finally comes to spend days, perhaps weeks, sitting at your desk with nothing but a laptop and an empty page in front of you, the submission deadline might start to feel a lot closer than it is.
So, who do you call for a helping hand? The Urban Writers!
Creating World Class Products for Your Artistic Vision
Art writers take your artistic concept to the next level.
Different art genres benefit from creative writing that combines artistic visions with literary skills that bring your art closer to the readers' understanding.
You might be a professional in your craft, but indeed, writing is a different animal. If you’re working on a blog, book, or social media presentation, it might just happen that you stumble on words and can’t put all of your deep thoughts into equally captivating sentences.
You're looking at a piece of art, perhaps a conceptual piece, and you're wondering: "Is this unfinished area here a statement or was the artist a bit lazy?" and "what are they trying to say with their choice of color and splatters where one shouldn't expect to see them?"
In situations like these, it may become clear that you need to choose your words wisely as both readers and artists take each others' opinions to heart.
Don’t worry, you’re not alone!
What Makes the Artistic Audience So Special?
Understanding the audience, aside from wielding the rules and knowledge of the artistic industry, is what makes for successful art writing.
In a way, most audiences work in similar ways. They read texts that match their interests and entertain them, but also respond to their unique needs like no other written text can. In that regard, successful artistic writing first demands that the author understand their readers well.
Now, who are the readers of artistic texts, and what are they truly seeking?
The answer to that is simple and it boils down to seeking an immersive experience. Whoever your reader is, whether they’re an industry expert or a potential buyer, an art enthusiast looking for more knowledge to expand their horizons—they need the writing to captivate them and make them forget about everything else, at least for a day.
Familiar Yet New Experience
In a way, each piece of art becomes an interactive tool through which the reader is drawn into a new experience. Compelling art writing must draw from the familiar and journey into the new and strange.
Captivating Tone
Art observers feel the atmosphere of the creative work, no matter its form or shape. A wise writer first thinks about the tone of the piece they’re writing and then about ways in which it will impact the observer.
Trust in the Artist’s Value
Immersing the reader into the philosophy of the art itself requires establishing trust first. Art writers do so by making sure to affirm the artist’s background and emphasizing how their work relates to modern issues.
A Sense of Intimacy
The writer is well aware that, in order to enjoy the work, the reader must discover something profound and deep that relates to their unspoken desires and insecurities. Finding that place where the artist’s drive to step out of their comfort zone meets the observers' secret desire to do so is a subtle pointer to the messaging of the written text.
These unspoken needs apply to all artistic publications, be it on-air interviews with graphic designers or news conferences aimed at delivering news content.
Create Long-Term Relationships With Your Eager Team Player
A person can be a talented sculptor or painter, or even an academic expert in history and philosophy, but still struggle when writing content that’s supposed to please audiences while staying true to themselves. Art writers can help: They’re well-versed in art and have a unique talent for translating visual impressions into written expressions.
They can help you write painting descriptions, art tutorials, and blog posts, and even create an entire how-to book for all art enthusiasts who wish to learn a hobby from you.
Yet, not every skilled freelance writer can become a successful art writer. Art writing includes some very specific talents, including the following:
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Deep understanding of one or more art genres, meaning that art writers should either have a background as visual artists or in fine arts.
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A knack for learning and writing about the history of art and the theory to get a feel of your art direction.
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Awareness of different artistic philosophies, techniques, and methods.
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Knowledge of artistic slang, phrases, and other language nuances is needed for successful art criticism.
The Beauty of Art Writing and How to Enjoy It
Finding the best match for your artistic vision doesn’t have to be a painstaking journey. You might feel nervous about turning in your important publication to someone else and trusting that they’ll come back with a nice-looking manuscript that you’ll be proud to publish. To do that, search for an art writer who prides themselves on the following staples of successful art writing:
Artistic Literacy
Your writer should understand the industry and your audience well. They should be up-to-date with trends, events, and slang. Every audience has their own unique traits, likes, dislikes, and needs. A skilled writer understands what tone and style to use so that your content is well-adjusted to the target audience.
There are many freelance contributors out there who are enthusiasts in art, but let's face it—their vocabulary is just too scarce for your needs. A quality freelance art writer must be able to critique and associate compositions, color choices, and the atmosphere of an art piece with the eloquence of an art historian or a museum curator.
Unique Insight
An art project is a world within itself. Writing a how-to manual is different than writing an autobiography, a monograph, or a collection of painting descriptions. Look for writers who have experience with the type of work you need done.
You'll need different written artistic magic if you're working on news summaries than you'd look for in art blog content and writing.
News summaries, for example, require a writer who's up-to-date with cultural events, to fill your blog or website with interesting, optimized content—making it an entirely different skillset. Know what you are looking for and be clear when you request your art writer.
Testimonials
Your writer should be proud to produce references, testimonials, and feedback from previous clients. That way, you know that you can trust them to write the kind of content you need. Ultimately, you can check the writer's samples, which we allow on our Platform, to see if their style and tone, demonstrated news knowledge, or literary mastery will create the kind of content you need.
What Does Art Writing Look Like for Freelance Content Writers?
Your freelance art writer is a peer in so many ways. You're both pursuing your creative passion with a lot at stake regarding time, effort, and resources, and there are so many unknown variables beyond your control.
To understand what freelance art writing is, you can reflect on your own creative endeavors and see the similarities. Much like any other creative, an artistic writer carries a love and curiosity for art of all kinds. They keep an open mind, carefully weighing philosophical insights against industrial standards that permeate the market.
With this in mind, each successful artistic writer blends different sides of the industry:
Artistic and Philosophical Knowledge
Whether academic or self-taught, every artist values the history of art and its development. Resources that every creative and experienced writer uses, even in contemporary art, most often come from the past.
Each art piece sends a message, and symbols used to convey that message are bound to come from already created patterns in artistic expression. Historically speaking, art was used to either affirm or provoke.
The works of the past most often don't reflect the reality of the associated historic period. Instead, they expressed the artist's yearning for change, the introduction of something new, or an untouched passion.
So we see bold works from times in history that were nothing but confining and conservative from social and political stances. The artist's sculptures and paintings that merely depicted human nature as perceived, free from censorship, were a brave gamble as one could so easily fall out of the authorities' grace and find themselves accused.
A true art writer has a deep appreciation for the statement that a piece makes, one that doesn't have to limit their perspective or make their work less modern. Rules are meant to be broken, and more often than not, true art is created by individuals who decide to take the leap into the forbidden.
Yet, successful boundary pushing with art writing first requires that an art writer has thorough historic and theoretical knowledge. Knowledge gives richness and dimension to their work. Building digital content, if you want it to be truly authentic, demands that a writer look into your idea and recognize where it can be associated with important influences.
A Creative Drive for Exploration and Authenticity
On the previous note, a true art writer never settles for stating the obvious. They scratch beneath the surface of your work and use fine strategies to bring your unique perspective to life.
Technical Aspects of the Industry
On the topic of stating the obvious, art is an industry like all others. It has its own rules, principles, trends, users, and competitors. To pretend that being your true self is enough for an artist to succeed would be futile.
The art industry has its own structure, principles, and decorum that a successful writer understands well. Meaning, they will write your description with mindfulness of what readers, critics, agencies, or reviewers will think.
Marketing Leads and Consumer Awareness
Lastly, all creation is a product with a unique purpose and an ideal consumer. The terms might sound cold, but wait until your writer starts wondering:
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"Who would enjoy this work the most?"
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"Who'd find it most valuable?"
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"Who is the person who'd look at this art and spend hours studying it?"
Answering questions like these allows your writer to see the person they're writing for and understand what they need and like.
And thanks to the possibilities of market research and statistical analysis, our writers can easily delve into the data. In a matter of hours, your writer can come up with the exact age segments, locations, professions, and income levels of the people who are most likely to enjoy your art and benefit from your project. With this in mind, the writer then combines your author persona with the tone and language used by the target audience.
Building digital content in this fashion attracts critics most likely to appreciate you, reviewers who'll write an entire editorial on your collection, and buyers who'll starve for months just to have your artwork sitting in their living room.
Marketing, in particular, is a point in which art meets science, and a successful arts writer knows how to tread lightly around data so that they provide the best targeting for their client projects.
Professional Skills
Every art writing expert is a professional in their own right. As such, the same standards apply to them as they do to other service providers:
Qualifications
While not all freelance writers need a Bachelor's or a Master's degree for successful work, it's still necessary to manage freelance contributors' backgrounds so that you have qualified candidates on your team.
While some of our writers have traditional educational backgrounds in art, others have completed our in-house training to equip them for successful writing in the niche.
Organizational Skills
Time management, planning and organizing projects, and knowing how to share ideas and feedback with the client are all included in our in-house learning and upskilling process.
Highly Specialized Artists
For some projects, it's necessary that the writer carry out all the responsibilities of the original author. Organizational skills again play a crucial role as they allow the writer to plan and see through research, interviewing, and writing while staying on top of deadlines.
For example, writing scripts for a classical music radio station means that the writer must have a strong background in the history of music, plus the communication skills to write lightweight scripts that will entertain the target audience.
Have an Art History Job? Freelance Writer to the Rescue!
In many ways, the success of your art writing depends on the freelancer that you choose to hire. Your goal is to match with a writer who understands what your project is about and uses the tone and style that are the best fit. To find the best, you should present your job in the right way, by creating a job post that gives the information about:
Project Size
Your art writer needs information about the project scope first and foremost. What's the amount of content that you need the writer to produce? How complex should the writing be? The complexity of a project includes the topic that you wish the writer to cover and the resources that you want them to use.
Don't forget to emphasize if you expect the writer to do their own research, or if you already have the source materials. Although our writers can research on their own, we always prefer having authentic source material provided by the client because it helps capture the unique author persona and perspective. This might require more prep work on your end, but also helps the writer create a more unique vision.
Project Length
Think about the timeline of your project, mainly regarding when to start the project and the deadline by which you want to receive the finished work. We know, putting timelines on creative work is so hard!
Our artistic writers enjoy taking feedback from clients and pitching their own ideas as well. Having a timeline in mind helps keep your project on track and prevents unnecessary delays.
Project Background
Your writer needs as much information as possible from your in-house design team to make their writing consistent with your brand, voice, and vision.
Your unique artistic style, philosophical views, and art genre all create an unrepeatable artist persona whose voice should be reflected in the writing. Luckily, your freelance art writer won't need more than your basic background and business information, your value proposition, and some samples from the brand design team (if you have one).
Information like this shows the writer how their work fits into the bigger picture of your publishing strategy. If you're planning on searching for a writer via a job description, company overview is a must.
Budget
While not all artistic projects are driven by profits, most do take the budget into account when planning. Your budget will affect the size and length of your project and the time a writer will invest in it.
What Being an Equal Opportunity Employer Means
Your project budget, unsurprisingly, touches on the topic of art funding and how it affects industry accessibility across the globe. If there's anything that puts an artist from the US on the same page with their peers in India, China, or Germany, it is the need to create rewarding opportunities for a larger number of artists.
The fact that we've chosen to be an equal opportunity employer means that we've put a uniform price point on our packages that only vary by the choice of services and project size. That way, we create rewarding opportunities for both clients and our freelancers, whether you're working with a freelance editor, writer, or designer. Our price list ensures that a freelance art writer chooses a project solely based on creative drive and interest.
When a freelance editor or writer receives the latest job alert on our Platform, they first overview the full job description to check if they have the time to commit to a certain task. Rest assured that we have a writer who'd be thrilled to work on your project, but they need a full job description to decide if the project works for their skillset and timetable.
Hire a Creative and Experienced Writer With The Urban Writers!
If you're looking for a freelance writer who is equally passionate about your project as you are, look no further. Our highly specialized artists eagerly await the opportunity to collaborate on your project.
The steps for creating your first job post are the following:
Choose Your Writing, Editing, And Design Package
Choose among the many packages that we offer, and get the services that match your project type and size.
Send Out a Job Alert
Fill out your art writing requirements and share your outline, notes, and art samples so that your future writer has everything they need to start writing. Once you complete the necessary steps, all eligible writers will receive a job alert and begin applying for your project.
Shortlist and Select the Right Candidate
Writers responded to your job alert, but who to hire? Make sure to browse different writer profiles to make sure that the selected freelance writer supports your viewpoint and understands what your project is about.
For this, you can view their complete portfolio and pick the freelance writer that you like best.
Start Your Project!
Once you're sure you have the qualified candidates on board, assign your project to them and enjoy watching your content being created.
