Module 6 / Lesson 6.1: Hosting an Instagram challenge
Hosting an Instagram Challenge
It’s not as hard as it seems, I promise. Also, remember that you do NOT need to have tons of followers to create and host your own Instagram challenge. Although, if you play your cards right, you probably will gain some followers and friends from your challenge! In this lesson, I will tell you how I came up with the Pattern Challenge and how you could create your own challenge too. It can be so rewarding to do so and will definitely push your work in a wonderful (and sometimes unexpected!) direction.
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The Pattern Challenge
I explained a little bit about this challenge in Module 1 but let me tell you the story again. I originally didn’t intend to create an Instagram challenge. Back in 2020, I remember feeling a bit uninspired and depleted when the pandemic hit (weren’t we all). To get the creative juices flowing, I thought it would be nice to give myself prompts to create something everyday. Because I love patterns, I decided to make a list of prompts which would then become illustrated patterns. I was very excited about it and knew I wanted to share my illustrations on Instagram as soon as I started. A day or two before I was meant to start, I realised that some of my fellow illustrators/followers might find this fun too, maybe even useful to get their creative juices flowing as well! That’s when I decided to open my challenge to everyone and call it: The Pattern Challenge.
It was a success in the sense that a lot of people took part and had lots of fun creating patterns and pushing themselves to create all month long. I was getting so much positive feedback, everybody was enjoying it and creating truly wonderful work. After the challenge ended, a lot of illustrators ended up getting pattern design requests, launching online shops with prints of their patterns or simply getting more work because of it. It was a real success because it benefited everyone. Personally, I get so much joy seeing people thrive and create stuff they truly love. Of course, I wasn’t going to stop there! I hosted another Pattern Challenge last summer and it went SO well that I decided to turn the result into a physical object: The Pattern Paper. A paper dedicated to shine a light on wonderful (often unknown) illustrators by showcasing the patterns they create during the challenges. I’ll talk about The Pattern Paper much more in the next lesson, so hold your horses!
Host a challenge as a team or go at it alone
I have seen illustrators team up to host a challenge and I think it’s a wonderful idea! Apart from the fact that it’ll strengthen your bond with fellow illustrators, it will also help reach out to more illustrators who could potentially take part in the challenge. It also means you can figure out prompts together, brainstorm ideas and motivate each other. Doing it together can make the whole thing feel a little bit less daunting.
The other way is to do it alone…which is great too because it means you decide everything (and if you’re like me, a bit of a control-freak, that’s always nice ;). Seriously though, doing it alone doesn’t change too much from doing it as team. You’ll just have to spend more time sharing people’s artworks, commenting and engaging with what everybody else is doing. I personally love it. The most exciting part is always seeing the amazing artworks created from your prompts.
The idea for YOUR challenge
Are you interested in hosting your own Instagram challenge? Although it will be a bit of work on your end, it could benefit you tremendously. What’s important is that you find a challenge that YOU are excited to do, because, well, you’ll be the first one to create for it. You also need to figure out if you’re going to go at it alone or if you’ll team up for it. Like I said above, if you team up, you’ll be able to discuss concepts, ideas and prompts with fellow illustrators. If you go at it alone, you’ll have to figure out what you want to do and come up with the prompts yourself.
What will the challenge look like?
Let’s say you want to do it alone. You first need to figure out what type of challenge you want to host. Will it be a pattern challenge? A draw faces only challenge? A character challenge? And then you want to maybe give it a theme? Some illustrators have hosted Christmas Challenges for example or there’s the famous Inktober which is very autumnal. You can do anything you like and you can make it as specific or not as you wish. My Pattern Challenge for instance doesn’t have a theme, except maybe Winter or Summer. I like to keep it relatively open so that each illustrator can interpret the prompts as they see fit.
When will it start and for how long will it run?
It’s important that you decide when the challenge will start and how long it’ll last. This will of course help you define how many prompts you need to come up with. It doesn’t have to be a month-long challenge, it can last only a week or two if you want. Or it can be a month long, except people will have a couple of days for each prompts, so 15 prompts and not 30 if that makes sense, which a lot of illustrators appreciate because 30 prompts can feel very daunting!
A name and a hashtag
Once you know what you want to do, it’s time to give your challenge a name as well as creating a hashtag for it. It’s a good idea to find one that is quite “original” so there’s nothing under the hashtag yet. This will make it easier for you and everybody else to see all the artworks at once. When you’ve got all this ready, create a nice artwork to announce the challenge on social media!
Making the challenge public!
When you announce the challenge online, make sure to explain your “rules” so people know how they can join in! For instance, tell them to use the hashtag you made, tell them if they have to use a specific medium or if they can do what they want, or again, tell them if it’s ok for them to do only a few prompts depending on how they feel. You make the rules!
Ideas for fun challenges…
•An ocean-related challenge
•A challenge focusing on one colour
• A challenge where you have to use only one medium
•A challenge where you can only use your weak hand
•A challenge where you have to film yourself creating
And so much more! You have to think about what rocks YOUR boat and go from there…