hullo, Noemi. it's a pleasure to have you here at Craftpreneur Files. do tell us a little about yourself and about your work.
My name is Noemi Manalang and I am an illustrator. I just graduated fashion design in ESMOD Jakarta a year ago and now continuing my passion in fashion illustration. I own an online shop in Etsy where I sell my original illustrations, prints, cards and I also do private freelance commisions.
how did you start going about your craft business?
It started on a long summer break during college. During that time my best friend introduced me to this site called Etsy. I was so fascinated by the creative and crafty things people were selling there that I wanted to start my own thing too. So I convinced my mom to help me out with etsy's credit card thing and just started the shop.
lucky you to have a very supporting mom not to mention being so successful at young age. but where do you draw inspiration from?
For years I enjoyed having painting lessons ever since I was small. Back then I painted more in oil landscapes and still life. Then I got pretty busy with fashion illustration in fashion school. I used to watch clips by this famous fashion designer named Isaac Mizrahi do live fashion sketches in his online site. He was my inspiration and still, to this day in making something out of fashion illustration.
well i can't blame you for loving Isaac Mizrahi, i'm also look up to him for his works and not to mention his humor! you mentioned that you have a shop on Etsy. how's it been doing so far?
It's been a very exciting experience selling my art. But what I love the most is having the opportunity to show my art to a wide audience and making friends in the Etsy community. I actually haven't experienced selling locally since I've spent most of my life in Indonesia. Now that I am currently in the Philippines, I get to see the art scene here and know what's around. I'd love to give it a try.
i could see that your shop's got quite a lot of admirers and sales on Etsy, kudos to that! but were there any drawbacks you encountered especially when you were just starting out?
At first I was pretty skeptical and had issues on shipping original art internationally because it is very far away. Well, it has been going good so far. So researching beforehand about shipping and customs would saved me a lot of time in online selling. There I made sure to let customers know in my policy that shipping would take some time and to plan for some worse case scenarios too. I'm also learning to balance my time in doing different things in my business.
Every art project has been memorable to me. One in particular was just recently when someone emailed me to request a custom illustration for her first book cover. The publishing is still ongoing so I may not provide some details here yet. It's new to us both and we're excited for the outcome!
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| all artwork by Noemi Manalang |
we're excited to know more about it too! we hope you'll be able to share it with us through your blog once it's done. any last words for aspiring craftpreneurs?
Always be resourceful. Make the best of what you have and keep improving. I think it brings up the creativity in you.
thank you for the insights you shared with us, Noemi! i'm sure many will be looking up to you someday, as you looked up to Isaac Mizrahi.
for more of Noemi's works, you can visit her wonderful blog Noomiedoodles, and her etsy shop of the same name here.
