Why Artists Should Work at Their Own Pace

And Other Tips From Spoonflower Artist Caleb Luke Lin

Edited: May 17, 2022

To many aspiring artists and illustrators, Caleb Luke Lin is living the dream. He’s built a successful career in Brooklyn as a freelance artist with clients like Graft Cider and Anthropologie, just to name a few. When he’s not busy designing deeply cool cider labels, scarves, pillows and more, Caleb spends time building up his Spoonflower shop, seeking inspiration from our weekly design challenges.

On a recent visit to Brooklyn, the Spoonflower team sat down with Caleb to learn more about how he runs his creative business, while managing to stay connected to his fellow artist community, well organized and inspired along the way.

A patchwork of dark green, light green, Kelly green and yellow fields dot this pattern design as if seen from above. Small red farm buildings with white roofs dot the scene, and dark green and gray streets divide some fields from others. Some fields are planted with crops, and have white rows, small dark green or white dots or are broken down into thin strips.

Featured design: Fields Forever by caleblukelin, an entry in the Bird’s-Eye View Design Challenge.

A design with a peach background with various cultural elements from Japan throughout, featuring postage stamps, some with white-and-gray birds, some with a large snow-capped mountain; a cherry blossom branch; turquoise teapots; bamboo branches; bicycles with baskets; mounds a rice; cameras; passports and more.

Featured design: Passport to Japan by caleblukelin

How do you define success as an artist?

For me, the most basic thing is being able to pay my bills. I feel like that’s the benchmark, but, you know, for some people that’s a very low benchmark, but for others, you’re not there yet. I think for me that’s kind of where I’m at for the most part. Other than that, it’s doing work that doesn’t make me miserable!

Are you a part of any creative organizations or groups that keep you inspired? How do you connect with other artists?

As far as organized groups, not really. Thankfully, because I went to art school, I have a lot of friends who are, if not illustrators, various kinds of artists. Keeping connected with them and then, fairly basic and straightforward, is following artists I like on Instagram. Occasionally, I’ll follow hashtags for something in particular. Right now, I’m following #36daysoftype, which has got me inspired to do lettering.

Light orange roller skates with blue laces and dark orange wheels lay on a cream blanket with green, pink, yellow and blue stripes. A white cat with brown accents lays to the top left of the skates licking its front left paw. On the roller skates, small pieces of paper have been cut out and stuck to them. A red tomato, pink strawberry and two leaves are on the skate to the left and a pink cloud with three rain drops coming from it and two small lines representing closed downcast eyes are on the skate to the right.

A design by Caleb Luke Lin is up on a computer monitor and also on a displayed scarf to the bottom left of the monitor and a folded scarf to the bottom right. The design has a red background and in a lighter red circle in the center of the design, a range of extinct animals, from birds to beasts to aquatic creatures. A drawing of different snakes is on a piece of paper in black ink by the computer’s keyboard.

What’s your favorite art supply?

I work predominantly digitally, so it would just be my computer and my Wacom. As far as traditional media goes, I hilariously just work with mechanical pencil on printer paper because I don’t want to be too precious with my drawings. If I don’t like where something’s going, I don’t need to worry about it, I just throw it right out.

What do you enjoy most about working with Spoonflower?

Spoonflower is great for my workflow since I work primarily freelance. Sometimes I’ve got a lot of stuff to do, and sometimes there’s a lull. When there’s a lull, I ask myself, what is it that I want to do? I can look at Spoonflower, see if there’s a design challenge that inspires me, and just kind of doing it at a personal pace and getting my stuff out there, and letting people appreciate it.

What is the most difficult part about running your creative business?

For me, one of the hardest things about being a freelance illustrator is keeping track of my hours. I know that there are apps where you can clock in, clock out, but I think it’s odd in that when you work an office-type job, you take breaks, go to the bathroom, etc., it’s all part of your work. But when I’m working (for myself), what counts as working time and what doesn’t count as working time? If I’m in an artist’s rut and aimlessly scrolling through Pinterest or Wikipedia or Instagram, is that working? That’s a difficult question to answer and one I have to discuss with other artists or with clients about that kind of balance.

An illustrated map of Baltimore by Caleb Luke Lin. The map of Baltimore shows off the green space in the city with streets drawn in white and bodies of water represented in blue. Small red numbered circles correspond with small boxes around the periphery of the map highlighting and describing significant places in the city.

Caleb’s illustrated map of Baltimore. See Flickr for full version.

A close up of the illustrated map of Baltimore by Caleb Luke Lin, showing Federal Hill Park, the Patapsco River running through the city in turquoise and dark blue and Little Italy. Baltimore street names are written on the white lines indicating streets in black text.

A close up of Caleb’s illustrated map of Baltimore.

Tell us about a time when you had a project that failed. What happened and what did you learn from it?

It’s a really long time ago, but I had a major failure in high school. It was early on, I was kind of full of myself, and thought I could hit the ground running. I started a clothing brand, got a bunch of shirts made and sold a handful out of hundreds. So that was just a waste of money. Unfortunately, I think it made me really scared to do anything like that in the entrepreneur sense for a long time. It wasn’t until a few years later, in my senior year of college, that I made these maps of Baltimore. It was a passion project, but I thought that they could sell and I went to a place where the minimum order was 1,000.

It was really scary going into that, but I was able to recoup my costs within a month and then make profit off it for another 10 years, which was really nice. Now I go for things a little bit slower, reserving my expectations knowing it could go any which way. Of course, you try to predict how people are going to respond, but you never know. Thankfully a lot of my self-motivated projects in the past few years have had at least moderate success where I was at least happy with it.

A design featuring lesser-known dinosaurs in bright blue, green, pink and hot pink on a black background. A pink polacanthus with a black underbelly and white spots on its back and white spikes looks to the left. A green-outlined deinoncychus looks to the right and has white spiky accents on its back, legs and back of the head. A blue pentaceratops looks straight at the viewer with black lined accents, a white outlined underbelly and legs and white spikes on its head and face.

Featured design: B-List Dinosaurs by caleblukelin

A design with a pink background featuring small square patchwork pieces in hot pink, light blue, yellow, green and more, as if on a quilted land. Some patches are striped, some have geometric shapes, some look as if made of tiny small bricks. Dotted throughout are small red farmhouses, water towers and people doing everyday things like flying kites and fishing, but there are also large cats, bowling pins, giant flowers a cupcake with white icing, and an orange slice.

Featured design: Strange Lands by caleblukelin

How do you stay organized?

I’m relatively organized, I think, since so much of my stuff is digital. It’s just folders, I just put stuff in folders! With my art supplies, because I’m in a small Brooklyn apartment, they’re just tucked into random corners and then I forget where certain brushes and paints and supplies are.

What’s your advice to someone just starting on their surface pattern design journey?

My advice would be to go at your own pace because I think when I first started out, I felt a lot of pressure to do a home run right out the gate or come out with a whole line of things. The nice thing about Spoonflower is you can make one design at your speed, upload it, see how the reaction is and, honestly, don’t expect that much. After you get a few pieces out, you might see, oh, this is working, that people react to this. Don’t get discouraged! Just do your thing, get some stuff out there and then read how everything is received.

Pro tip

Being an illustrator on one end you want to have a specific style, a brand that people recognize so they hire you know what they’re getting. On the flip side, I have different interests, hobbies and styles that I like that I want to explore. For me, the middle ground is settling on a family of styles. It’s not just one thing: some stuff all-digital, some line work, some more playful. And it helps keep me fresh so I’m not doing the same thing over and over again.

A throw blanket is displayed in front of some tall green shrubs. The top right half has a white background and the bottom left half has a blue background. The top right half features a person sitting on a rock in an orange bikini, a pink deer, a blue heron-like bird flying in the air, green branches, an alligator and more. A small stream starts in the top right-hand corner and pools down into the bottom left-hand side, where a mermaid swims with kelp, a seal, fish and small ocean wildlife.

Read more about Caleb’s throw blanket on Instagram.

A close up of a throw blanket showing a section with a cream background, a pink deer, a stream of blue water coming from the top right side, a small brown animal with a black fish in its mouth, green leaves and more.

Any exciting plans in the works for the future?

As far as specific projects I don’t think I have anything very flushed out in my mind. I do want to do another throw blanket because I did one this past winter that was received pretty well. I might do another blanket in the fall or winter because this was a really fun project to do!

On the inspiration front, I’m going to London and on the docket, me and my friend we’re going to Liberty to check out some of those patterns and we’re also going to go to the William Morris Gallery. So we’re definitely going to just be taking in some classics, as far as textile design, pattern design and I presume I’m going to be inspired by that.

Shop Caleb's designs

A whole flock of ducks are on the go, all swimming to the left on a dark blue body of water, some are brown, some are gray, some are brown and gray with green heads.

Duck, Duck… Duck
by caleblukelin

Various taco elements float through a pink background, including avocado slices, grilled shrimp, a radish breaking out into slices, bits of onion, cilantro and more.

Taco Rosa
by caleblukelin

Small black-and-white striped snakes slither through a dark blue background amidst orange and dark orange flowers and small purple branches with dark blue berries.

Prettiest Poisons
by caleblukelin

Want to read more insider artist tips?

Check out our artist spotlight posts

About the Interviewee

Caleb Luke Lin

Caleb's Spoonflower shop

Caleb Luke Lin is a freelance illustrator living in Brooklyn, by way of California, North Carolina and Maryland. His artwork draws on inspiration from biodiversity, mythology, and cartography, and aims to instill a sense of backstory and lore. Outside of drawing, he spends his time listening to trap rap, reading wikipedia, and playing accordion. In 2012, he graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in illustration. You can find out more about Caleb and his work at caleblukelin.com.

About the Author

Theresa Rizzuto

Shop Theresa's favorite Spoonflower designs

When she’s not immersed in all-things content in her role at Spoonflower, Theresa currently spends evenings pursuing her Master’s degree at UNC Chapel Hill. She also makes time to watch and paint birds, sew her own clothes, garden, and eat pasta as often as possible in her home city of Durham, NC.

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