PLAN No. 454. A COMMERCIAL ART BUREAU
A young artist and a salesman joined forces and established an art bureau, along commercial lines, and made it a success.
The artist could not have secured business by personal solicitation had his life depended upon it, but he could draw—anything—anywhere. The hustler made no pretensions of being an artist, but he could get business whenever there was any, and very often where there wasn’t any, to a casual observer. Therefore, they made a strong team.
Their first specialty was the drawing of designs for doctors, lawyers and other professional men, the drawing containing the name of the person, some special emblem or symbol of his calling, or any other distinguishing feature he might select. From these drawings he could have an engraving made and as many copies printed as he required for bookmarks or other purposes. For these designs they charged from $10 up and did a good business.
Then they began a systematic course of commercial art work, embracing illustrations for advertisements, thus adding greatly to the attractiveness of advertisements. This feature they extended to all lines of business, and before long the advertising columns of the local newspapers looked very much like a picture gallery, while the ads. were eagerly looked for and carefully studied. They also made illustrations for the works of young authors.
Within a year or two they had all the work they could do.