A fed-up pair of artists took to Twitter to collect quotes and illustrate imagined portraits of bosses who refuse to pay creatives for their work.
‘Hi Bryan, could you write something up for me really quickly?’
This is a request I sometimes get from casual acquaintances: write a blurb for their website, edit a CV, generate a script for someone’s video project. Do them a favour.
Of course, for friends and family, I’m happy to help.
But if such a request came from a complete stranger, offering not payment but exposure, my answer would be an emphatic no – this is my trade, and exposure doesn’t pay the bills.
Unfortunately for people working in the creative industries, requests to work for exposure are all too common – to have a client or publication interested in your work, but not interested enough to pay real money for it.
Frustration over that injustice inspired South Korea-based cartoonist Ryan Estrada to take action.
In 2013, he created a Twitter account to highlight this ongoing battle. Called @forexposure_txt, it asks readers to submit some of the most ridiculous responses from clients they’ve received once they raise the issue of payment.
