Mural artwork by Mulga the Artist in Kings Cross, Sydney, 2022, for Coca-Cola as part of its nationwide advertising campaign. Image: Courtesy the artist.

These days it’s not uncommon to see an artist who’s working with a brand promoted under the guise of 'artist x brand' – with the 'x' used as a cool-style code for both parties’ affinity with each other.

These partnerships are indeed convivial collaborations and have neat creative potential. But they are also hard-nosed business deals for both artist and brand and, as such, there is a lot at stake.

Exactly how much can be gained or lost from these deals often comes down to the pulling power of the artist versus the brand. (One wonders whether Louis Vuitton would have collaborated with Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami or Richard Prince if these artists weren’t already an art world superstars.)

This leads to an interesting question: if you’re an artist who doesn’t have instant worldwide recognition, how do you score these deals with corporate giants? And what happens after you sign on the dotted line?

To find out, ArtsHub spoke to three artists who’ve travelled down this road with brands like Nike, Samsung and Coca-Cola. Their experiences reveal some vital need-to-know pointers for artists entering this space.

Hieu Nguyen (kelogsloops) and Magic: The Gathering (MTG)

Hieu Nguyen, who works under the moniker kelogsloops, is a Melbourne-based watercolourist and digital artist best known for his finely-drawn surrealist portraits on paper.

The artist’s signature style reveals his intricate skills as an illustrator, and his talents have led to an impressive social media following. (Nguyen currently has 1.3 million followers on Instagram and almost a million on YouTube.)

While he has made a living from his art since around 2015 – selling prints of his work and teaching art – Nguyen tells ArtsHub he has been wary of doing deals with corporate companies interested in using his work for their merchandise.

"I’ve mostly declined these kinds of offers because the fees offered were too low, or because the rights – or lack of rights – I would have over that work have not seemed right to me," Nguyen explains.

However, in 2021, an email arrived from a company that swiftly changed the artist’s mind. It was from global card game sensation Magic: The Gathering (MTG)  which expressed interest in using Nguyen’s artwork for a series of its trading cards.

"I’m still unsure how they found me," Nguyen tells ArtsHub. "I assume it was from Instagram. And when I got their email, it felt different to other offers I’d previously received. It was clear they were artist-minded."

What Nguyen didn’t realise at the time was that MTG is the world’s largest trading card game, with a colossal international customer base, particularly in the US.

"It’s pretty funny that I didn’t know about their huge global reach at the time," Nguyen laughs. "When I realised they are on the scale of Pokémon… Yeah, that was a strange feeling."

Aside from being one of the world’s most popular trading card games, MTG is known for showcasing the work of talented artists around the world in different 'guest artist' card drops. Late in 2021, MTG invited Nguyen to design four special trading cards, which the company would launch or 'drop' to its fans in June 2022.

"I was excited but also nervous," Nguyen recalls. "I think I was nervous mostly because the brief was for landscape-theme cards and I’m a portrait artist, so artistically it was going to be a challenge.

"But once I got the courage to start a dialogue with MTG about my ideas it worked out really well.

"They have been incredibly supportive at all steps of the process and really good to work with," Nguyen says, adding that it was a well-paid opportunity and MTG has even allowed him to use the works he has created for them independently for other purposes.

"Even though I was paid a set fee to create the works and they own the copyright of the cards with my work on them, I still have the freedom to sell those artworks through my own means at any time," Nguyen explains.

"This is rare for a deal like this, and it’s something I really respect them for. It shows they are aware of how artists make a living and want to support that."

Mulga the Artist (Joel Moore) and Coca-Cola, Samsung, TikTok and more

While Nguyen’s collaboration with MTG was a first for him, Sydney-based muralist and painter Mulga (aka Joel Moore) is an old hand at working with global brands.

Over the years, Moore has made work for the likes of Coca-Cola, Speedo, Microsoft, Samsung and most recently TikTok – all of which have used his colourful graphic style for branded murals, fashion designs and other products.

He says he has generally had good experiences with big-end-of-town companies, which have often approached him after seeing his murals in popular precincts around town.

Mulga also says the processes behind these jobs are usually straightforward due to most brands’ preference for working with smaller local creative agencies who act as the go-betweens and project managers on the ground.

"I rarely deal with the people at the companies themselves," he explains. "It’s most often done through a creative agency that does regular work for the brand. So in that way, it feels like a routine kind of job."

But doesn’t the artist feel the pressure of working with corporate giants and their global reach and expectations?

The decidedly easy-going Mulga responds to this question without hesitation. "As long as you have a professional approach, and you do what you say you’re going to do, and you deliver the work on time – it’s actually pretty simple."

That said, he admits to having consistently sharp eyes over the business end of his deals.

"I’m always careful to read their contracts before I sign so I’m certain about what they are asking of me," Mulga says. "I especially want to make sure that the work I’m doing for them is licensed for a particular purpose and for a specific period of time, rather than me giving my work over to them for their use forever.

"Maybe not all artists would care about that, but it’s important to me to maintain ownership over all my work in the long term."

The artist adds that in all his many projects with brands he has never had pushback from them on his requests to alter those intellectual property conditions in his contracts.

"Oh, actually no, there was one time when the company didn’t agree to change it," Mulga remembers. "But then I said, 'OK, well then we’re going to have to renegotiate the price'. At which point they came back and said. "Oh, no it’s OK, we can change that clause’," he laughs.

Ultimately, Mulga says he enjoys the artistic challenge of brand collaborations, particularly when they come to him with a clear brief that he can respond to.

"I prefer it when they have the idea worked out and they come to me to deliver it. There’s nothing worse than a client who hasn’t given you a clear brief, so you spend hours brainstorming different concepts for them, only to have them come back and say. 'No, we want you to do it like this.' I feel like they could have told me that from the start and saved me a lot of time and energy," he says.

Olana Janfa and Nike

Like Mulga, Melbourne-based artist Olana Janfa has recently spent hours at the drawing board for a recent brand partnership. But unlike much of Mulga’s commercial work, Janfa’s first deal with a global mega-brand has had a surprisingly grassroots focus.

Self-taught artist Janfa was recently engaged by global sports and fashion brand Nike to design artwork for an inner city Melbourne housing estate’s community basketball court and play area. Part of Nike’s ‘Never Done Rising’ campaign, the project was delivered in partnership with Melbourne’s Yarra Council and the Victorian Department of Housing and is an extension of Nike’s ongoing support for youth soccer and basketball clubs in the area.

Janfa, who considers himself an emerging artist in the Australian art scene (he was born in Ethiopia, moved to Norway as a teenager and relocated to Australia in 2015), saw the chance to work with Nike on the basketball court’s main mural feature as an important opportunity – both professionally and personally.

"I was already familiar with the community there, and my background is similar to many of the kids living there, so I felt lucky to be able to create a work that was meaningful and inspiring," he tells ArtsHub.

Janfa adds that he was offered the commission through Melbourne-based creative agency SouthSouthWest, which has an existing relationship with Nike.

"I think [SouthSouthWest] knew my work from Instagram," he says. "And once I started on my concept, the process was very supportive."

Janfa describes the fee paid by Nike for the commission as fitting for an artist with his level of experience and said the process of delivering the work was "very collaborative, though quite a bit longer than I was used to, due to the number of different stakeholders involved, such as the residents’ advisory committee, the local council, the Department of Housing and, of course, Nike.

"The nice thing about this brand collaboration is that my work is now a permanent fixture for the Atherton Gardens community," Janfa continues. "Even though the process was quite involved, I learned a lot and I’m really glad we got it right, because I can see how much joy it brings the locals – especially the kids.

"That is the most important part for me – that the local kids feel seen and feel proud of who they are and where they live," the artist concludes.

This article was first published by our friends at ArtsHub Australia.

Written by Jo Pickup.