Get custom illustrations directly from remote artists

How did you guys came up with idea for Minty?

About 10 years back, I was part of a London-New York based team working on one of the first iPad apps for magazines and newspapers. It was at the time of first released iPad 1. Andrej Kiszling was at a time, among other things, hiring freelancers in advertising for brands like BBC.

We are a couple, and we liked to talk about everything on a roof terrace of our South London based apartment with a glass of red wine in our hands. One day while having our usual talks we realised one thing from both our worlds – there was a new media world emerging, where a lot of visual content will be needed, because the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. And people will increasingly work remotely.

Today, we are running a platform, where companies and publishers can hire illustrators working remotely, and Minty automatically generates contracts and invoices for each collaboration. It’s kind of like Uber, but instead of calling a cab there is a smiling artist ready to work for you on the other side of the computer.

What about today? What do you consider to be your greatest achievements at Minty?

I am very pleased to collaborate with agencies like Winkreative (agency supplying native advertisements), Japanese Forbes or marketing dept. of Volkswagen. But what I was most surprised about and what I now value the most is the social dimension of the platform. It is moments like when artist writes to me, thank you Petra, this was the first job I worked on after returning from maternity leave.

Is it difficult to work with illustrators? Artists can be bohemians…

Not at all, I probably don’t even have a bad experience. In today’s Internet-connected and competitive world, artists can’t even afford it, it would be a career suicide for them. We have excellent working relationships with our artists that are trusted. I even like to go to openings of their non-commercial projects in my free time.

Do you remember any curious situation? An unconventional request from a client?

Quite curious was to illustrate a portrait of a billionaire who doesn’t publish his photos, and you end up with a blurred photo as big as a fingernail and you have to deliver his portrait on the cover of Forbes. Nobody could judge the result. Maybe the gentleman looks completely different, who knows?

Sometimes it’s hard to fit skin tone when working on portraits. We had a situation with Harvard Business Review. It certainly is a sensitive topic nowadays, and poor illustrator was in despair until she matched the exact shade based on not so great photography.

The Guardian on the other hand shuffled and changed clothes of the wheelchair guy way too many times. They really wanted to show that young man with a disability is a normal guy. He ended up dressed in jeans and Converse trainers.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I enjoy how I developed the ability to describe something visual in words. I like that I can sit in our office in Bratislava, but work for the whole world. The experience of starting your own business is priceless. My job is not only to connect artists with the business world, but also to build and constantly improve our product, bend the business model, set pricing and marketing, attract investors. Every day is different.

Where would you like to move Minty further? Your work dreams?

We currently have 2,500 artists and 1,700 clients from 52 countries on Minty and about 20,000 already drawn pictures for download in stock. Our ambition is to make Minty a place that people think of first when they need to hire an illustrator. My dream is to open a branch in London – the city that shaped my work-life.