Career Growth Advice from Kristina Snyder, Illustration & Animation Leader | Career Tips for Women in Illustration & Animation

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 63
Featuring Kristina Snyder, CEO & Founder of SNYDER

Episode Title: #63 Career Podcast Featuring Kristina Snyder, Representing Artists, Illustrators, Animators and Visual Artists : Women In Business

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Kristina Snyder



Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you. Encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the conversation.

Hi there. Thanks for tuning in. Kristina Snyder is a creative force in the business world as the founder and CEO of SNYDER, and we are so excited to have her here today. She uses her creativity to represent artists, illustrators, animators, and visual artists from around the world. Prior to founding SNYDER, Kristina started two successful companies, both in the field of creativity. Her belief is that creativity is at the core of everything that we do, and it connects us to something higher that can be accessed and used for personal growth. Kristina is a former photographer and travel writer and has meandered through the creative communities in New York City since she arrived from her native Sweden. Her greatest creative expression comes out in her work in the business world, and she believes that it is what has set her apart as a successful entrepreneur. Her vision is derived from her deep connection to nature and expression in the form of art in any form. Kristina, thank you so much for being here.

Kristina Snyder (Guest): Oh, thank you for having me, Mary. I'm so thrilled to be talking to you today.

Mary Killelea: What a great career you have. I feel you have almost like the dream job. I mean, you get to be creative yourself. You get to represent creative people. Tell us about your career journey.

Kristina Snyder: So it's funny that you call it a career because I've never really thought of myself as having a career. I've never been on staff. I've been running as a freelancer for almost all of my life, to be honest. And so, I think of my career as a series of opportunities that I exploited. And I really honed my craft from the very get-go when I arrived in New York City. I was a freelancer and that's a form of entrepreneurship in my mind. So, the creative journey that I started when I came to New York really came out of connecting with other creatives. And so, I had dabbled in writing and I was sort of a wannabe writer. I did photography for all of my life, starting as a child. And I had an aspiration to write serious things, books and such. But here I am as an expat in New York City. And the travel writing came about when my friend Ava, who worked at the biggest travel magazine at the time in Sweden, Race Magazine, she had her editor ask me to do articles and guides about New York City for Race. So, I had a monthly column there for years about cultural events, exhibitions, music shows, restaurants. And I took the pictures for the column as well. So, it was a great way to interact with New York. That was suddenly my second hometown.

So that started my stepping into a space where I understood that I needed to be part of this creative land that sort of was rolled out before me in New York City. So that's how I got started on that. And then it sort of took off from there because I discovered myself as a creative soul. And I hooked up with my husband who also was a creative soul, a very good match. He's a musician. And it was a great experience for me that during the day, I was working as a photo editor and researcher at various magazines, like probably every magazine published in New York, it seemed like. And then at night, I was hanging out with my husband's friends and going to gigs and carrying equipment back and forth. So, it really gave me such an education to arrive suddenly in New York City.

Mary Killelea: That sounds so dreamlike. Is that still possible today?

Kristina Snyder: I don't know, to be honest. It's a great question, Mary, but I had the great fortune of meeting my husband pretty much right away after three days in town, in fact. And with that came security and a place to live. We lived on the East Village, on the Hells Angels block, and we had a tiny basement apartment that cost nothing. So, our lives began when things were cheap in New York City. And I just don't know if that's possible anymore. I think it's too expensive to do what we did, but there are other places, obviously. New York is very different from when I arrived. There were music venues, there were cheap apartments, there was cheap food. And I just, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if that's possible.

Mary Killelea: Well, it sounds just lovely. And I can picture it, actually, because I think it's some what you described was what you see kind of in the movies. It was just kind of that discovery. And I love the way that you don't call it a career. You call it as different opportunities in life. And so, when I ask you about your career journey and how it set you up for success today, how do you look at that if you think of all the different opportunities?

Kristina Snyder: When it started for me was that I really had to have something to do when I arrived in New York. I had worked at a magazine newspaper before I left from Stockholm, where I was living at the time. And so that was a natural thing to seek out work in that field. So, I was freelancing at major magazines, as I mentioned, and that takes a lot of guts, to be a freelancer. And your last job is all you have. And so I was able to establish myself as a good freelancer for magazines, as a researcher for images, and also as a picture editor. And that was such an amazing time in photography in New York City. I edited amazing photography from all these photographers that were covering hotspots around the world. There was a lot of strife at that time in the late 80s, with war happening everywhere, and photography still had a place in magazines. So that was an education for sure. And having to manage a life as a freelancer, hopping around and meeting people, and every assignment was a chance to sort of renew myself or reinvent myself. So, it was an amazing time for me. And I remember, I worked at LIFE magazine, believe it or not, 80 years old. LIFE magazine was incredible. And I remember I snuck down to the archives, you know, there's a Time Life archive that is vast with every single negative and print ever produced for the whole time life at the time it was called that, the whole organization.

So I remember I snuck down in this dusty archive with millions of drawers of pictures and negatives, and I pulled out this drawer to look for a photography essay that I had seen when I went to photo school in Stockholm. And it was a famous story called A Country Doctor by Eugene Smith, who is an amazing photographer that did so many great assignments. And here I was, I held up the print in front of my face and I looked at it and I couldn't believe it. Like I was so in awe of where I was, connecting with everything that I'd read about and looked at for so many years as a young person in Stockholm. It was incredible.

Mary Killelea: That is incredible. So how would you define the secret to your success?

Kristina Snyder: I had a meeting with a wonderful woman early on when I arrived in New York. She was the only Swede that I knew, a wonderful woman by the name of Aipari Karabouda. We had coffee one day and she was also in photography. She ended up being a director for SIPA Pictures for many, many years in Paris. She gave me a piece of advice that I took to heart in a major way. She said, connect with everybody, just collect people and contacts. Like you never know what's going to be around the corner and who's going to help you. That I think was a very big thing for me because it also has to do with how New York works. Everything is connections in my opinion. But apart from that, I think I've always tried to be humble. And a really big thing for me is to listen to my gut instinct and take my time to feel things out. And making choices that sort of are in line with my ethos and how I see things. The other thing is if something feels a bit scary but really exciting, when you hop up and down and you go, oh my God, oh my God, I can't believe this, that's a good sign. And last but not least, I also believe in failing. And we have a saying at SNYDER that we try to fail fast. You fail, you wrap it up, and then you move on right away. And I think that's really important actually to look at failure as an asset as opposed to a failure failure, if you know what I mean.

Mary Killelea: Absolutely. Tell us about SNYDER.

Kristina Snyder I started wrapping photographers in 2001. And then in 2009, I was a little bit worn out by the intense work that it was to work with photographers. So I decided I would open up a side branch to SNYDER and Company, which is called Snyder and the Swedes. And so that was in 2009. I represented mainly Scandinavian artists and some of them are actually with me to this day at Snyder. So that in turn led to a rebrand, Snyder New York. I opened that in 2013. And then I hooked up with my co-founder who still works with us, Kat Irenajad. And we've been working now for almost nine years together. And we have formed a really strong roster of image makers, illustrators, animators, tactile artists. And we now feel with our rebrand, yet another rebrand that happened in January this year, we're now a true creative powerhouse in the industry. And we represent amazing artists that can do both illustration and animation. We're also female owned and operated. And I'm super proud to say that we have an even gender split on the roster. And yeah, that's it. We are a little agency that can.

Mary Killelea: I love it. I love it.

Kristina Snyder: It recently became a bigger agency. So yeah, that's a little bit about Snyder.

Mary Killelea: Yeah. Your website's fantastic. And I loved looking at all the various artists, but for those listening, can you talk about some of the artists that you represent?

Kristina Snyder: Oh, yes. Yes. I am getting ready to travel to LA next week to meet with Lulu Joao, a Belgo African artist that is presenting her first short film at the LA Shorts Festival. So, Lulu has created a series of shorts about being Belgian in the African diaspora. And she uses roller skating as a form of self-expression in this story that she's telling. The story is titled Fock It Fire. And it's such a cool concept. She's an amazing illustrator and an animator as well. And she's done everything herself. And it's been entered in a bunch of festivals, but it's actually being broadcast at TBS. And then we work with so many talented artists. So, it's hard to pick, select a few. But another artist that stands out to me is Max O'Matic. He's a digital collage artist that is Argentinian, but lives in Barcelona. And his work is always so amazing and so exceptionally well executed. It's not easy to do collage, but he always comes up with new concepts and variations on a collage concept. And it's just terrific. And he is a very popular artist, I'm happy to say. And then I also want to mention a brand new artist for us. His name is Stefano Colferi. And he is an Italian artist that works in what we call claymation. So that's a material called plasticine. And it's combined with stop motion. It's sort of deriving from a style that was developed in the 60s and 70s. And his work is super clever and really fantastic, very funny. And so of the moment. So, we can't wait to start working with him for real. He just came on our roster. So yeah, so that's only a few of our artists. We have so many unique and amazing artists and we love them all.

Mary Killelea: It's like kids, you can't pick your favorite, right?

Kristina Snyder: Exactly. Well, I just did kind of. No, not really. I love them all. They're all incredible. These are just, it's just a choice that I made because it sort of popped up in my head. So yeah.

Mary Killelea: Sure. So there's a big shift in marketing for brands focusing more in working with creators to help reach their own markets. So how do you leverage these artists today?

Kristina Snyder: Well, yeah, exactly. We noticed the shift during COVID when everybody was very nervous about like what's going to happen during COVID. We actually noticed that people were turning to us to execute their messages. All of a sudden there were so many messages that had to be sent out like about COVID itself and how companies would operate in this new time. And there were messages to send about like vaccines and safety and masking, et cetera. So working with creators became a really good way for brands and clients to work with us. And so, we have a lot to offer. I was very happy about this, of course, because we, like I said, we were a bit nervous. We didn't know what was going to happen, but how we leverage, I want to say honestly, we just do what we always have done. We produce great work with our artists. We support them and we find great clients that match their particular sensibility for the best outcome. And I think we get a lot of interest because of our focus on creative output rather than the brand connection, because we work with big brands and I don't want to mention any particular ones, but they're big, global brands. We also work with smaller brands and for each of them, I think that people are really open to working with creators, which we love, of course, it's been a really, really good experience.

Mary Killelea: I think creators are somewhat different than influencers because I think creators have the creativity within them. Like they are creating unique content, which I think is different than influencers. I don't know if you agree or disagree.

Kristina Snyder: Yeah, I do agree. I mean, I follow influencers, of course, and we get, our artists have been asked to work as influencers and often the two things are confused. I think if you're an influencer, you have to be willing to sell something and that's not really what we do. What we sell, we don't sell access to our biggest artists in terms of followers. We have artists that are very a bit high followers, like almost a hundred thousand, but we don't really sell that. What we sell is their creativity and what they do. So we've had inquiries, a few really amazing inquiries and a lot of inquiries, but we always end up where we feel we would rather do work for the brand that they're asking us to push. So yeah, it's not really something that we're really interested in doing. I think it's a different discipline or a different category, to be honest.

Mary Killelea: Yeah, no, I agree. Let's talk NFTs and I don't know a lot about them and I know it's a hot topic, new topic. How are artists using NFTs to protect their work?

Kristina Snyder: Yeah, I'll be really honest and say, like, I am not an expert. We discussed it at the agency and I'm looking at it now going, ah, this is really stuck. This is stuck. We were thinking that it wouldn't really stick. You know, a year and a half ago we were kind of, well, this is really going to become something. But in the work that Snyder does, it's not really something that we do with our artists, that it tends to be the artists doing that NFT work on their own. And we've had some very successful, I mean, some of our artists have been really successful. And what they do is they hook up with an agency specifically for selling NFTs. But what we do actually do is we get inquiries from clients or advertising agencies that have clients that want a custom NFT made for a brand, like a car brand or for a beer brand. And so, we have worked on that. And that's just like a regular assignment, really, it's like a commission that we make and they get to sell it to their client, or it's made for the client and the client gets to take advantage. But the NFT space itself, it's not really something that we focus on. It's more of an extra for an artist that wants to do it on their own.

Mary Killelea: It's so interesting to think about this, because, you know, it is relatively new and people are still getting their head around it. And like you said, wondering if it was going to stick. I mean, if we were to flash forward 10 years, who knows what we'll be dealing with? So I mean, that's what I love about technology and what it can do to the art industry. So we might have to circle back and meet up again.

Kristina Snyder: We may have to do that. But in general, SNYDER, we're really interested in being future forward. And I'm really interested in what's going to happen. What's going to be the big thing in five years? Because I want to start thinking about that now. And so we try, it's just that NFTs are, there's in my mind, all kinds of problems with it. Like, what is it for? Is it environmentally sustainable? Is it the right thing to do? It just seems like a…it seems like a flash in the pan to make money. And that may be the problem that we have with it. Like, really, what is it for? Other than making money? Is it self-expression? Doesn't really seem that way. Like one of the biggest artists, I won't say his name, but he just puts out artwork that looks weird and it's not very nice to look at. So that's some of the things that we think about. Like for us to get involved with an NFT, it would have to be for a good cause, for charity or for something that we can stand behind, because we have very strong opinions on what we can stand up for, if you know what I mean.

Mary Killelea: Absolutely. Those are great considerations. So how do you consider whether or not you'd represent an artist?

Kristina Snyder: Aha, that's a great question. We get a lot of inquiries like every day. We have a special mailbox for that so that we can sort of look through everything. We'll look at everything that comes in, every inquiry asking for, will you look at my work? Will you consider me? But the artists that we choose to talk to and consider and or consider, they have to have a couple of things. And one very important factor is a unique point of view. So that you see what an artist is about, what they think and what they care about, what they regard as important or the style. So a point of view is numero uno, I would say. The other one is a style that is current and relevant to what we do. So, we recommend that artists go to our site and look at who we work with and see if the work fits into the roster. I mean, we get a lot of inquiries from children's books, illustrators, and it's not really what we do. So, it's important that the artist is sort of current, relevant, and has a style that fits into the other artists on the roster. And the last and most important thing, I think, is having a keen understanding of what it actually takes to be a working artist in the commercial field today. I think that it's underestimated by many, many illustrators, the amount of work that you have to put into it. Because sometimes we get emails and inquiries that are kind of like, I'm a great artist, but I don't know how to sell myself. And that is kind of like a cringey thing for us to read, because if you don't know how to sell yourself, that means that you don't know who you are, and you don't know what you want to say. So how can we actually take that and make something of it? So, I would say maturity is very important, that you know that getting an agent will not make you automatically successful, because the hard work really begins when you sign with an agent, you could say. But I mean, there's exceptions to the rule, always. We have had artists right out of art school, actually, that have signed with us because they were exceptional. And they have hit it big right away. So you just never know. But I would say maturity is very important and having a balanced view of what an agent does.

Mary Killelea: What words of wisdom do you have for young artists trying to build a successful business from creativity?

Kristina Snyder: Aha, it's funny you should ask. I hope it's okay that I mentioned this. We're actually developing a course for this exact purpose for Domestika. And Domestika is a Spanish company that is leading in the world for creative tutorials. So, this course that we're creating for them will give insights to the process of creating a portfolio that would catch the eye of an agent. And with an agent, hopefully that can help you in your career. So, it's also meant to give an artist like information about how agents work and sort of what we do and what we don't do. So that is coming this year, hopefully. But I would say, apart from that, I think being bold and fearless and develop that unique point of view that will tell the world like how you see things, work on your narrative skills and be really honest in your pursuit of this self-expression that is such an amazing tool to have for a creative. There is no formula in creativity, I think. It's a delicate process. So you can't really break it down. If you do this, this, and this, you will be successful. I think it's a thorough self-examination on what you want to do, a commitment to the process, and a commitment to pursuing every avenue and not sort of be a bit lazy about it. So you can be a creative at any age and at any stage, in my opinion.

I look to my father, Torvald, as an example of this, and I am super inspired by him to this day. He started painting when he was 50 years old, and he really went after his lifelong dream of becoming a painter. So, he did some very good work, and he had lots of exhibitions, and he sold this work. He traveled to Italy to paint, and he developed a really beautiful sense of color, form, and content. He was self-taught, and he worked really hard because he loved it so much. It gave him so much pleasure. So, you could argue this man, starting in his 50s, was he successful? And I think he was. He was very successful. His work is not in museums, but he was a successful artist. So I think just a dedication and energy given will give results.

Mary Killelea: That is so great that your father started late in life. Do you think that he was inspired by you and what you did or do?

Kristina Snyder: No, I think it's actually the opposite. I am very inspired by his journey because I am not a young woman anymore, but I feel very inspired when I think about him starting at 50 years old. It's never, ever too late. Creativity has been with me all of my life, and I'm still exploring.

Mary Killelea: I love it. What are the pros and cons of working with some of the various artists?

Kristina Snyder: Oh, the pros. That's a long list, but the one thing that I think about is that it's awesome to have a tiny part in an artist's creative process, to develop an artist and see possibilities and sort of an arc build. So, I love that part of the job. It's an inspiring thing, talking to artists and just being part of that creative process and seeing the results of hooking them up with great clients and making them realize what they can do and also help them to make money. To be a part of another person creating something is an incredibly rewarding experience. So that's just one of the pros.

The cons, I would say, artists are people, and people are complicated. Sometimes working with an artist is a little stressful because of what is going on in their lives, perhaps. We're not always privy to reasons that an artist may do less brilliant work for a client, maybe be late on a call or not respond in a timely manner. It's just a fact of life, really. So it's not really a con. But I will say that trying to motivate an artist to be creative is very hard, and that's a very big con, in my opinion, because that's not really our job. We cannot teach our artists to be creative. We can only make suggestions and try to revive them if they sort of get off track. But if the creativity itself is lacking, that is sometimes a bummer. I will be honest about that.

Mary Killelea: So your company, obviously quite successful. And when you hire someone to come work for you, what are some qualities that you look for from an employee?

Kristina Snyder: I think we look for somebody who can be expressive and understanding about an artist's process, and to be into it, to love the creativity part of it. Because it's not just sort of carrying information back and forth. We give a lot in our jobs. We give a lot to the artist, we give a lot to the client. We really put ourselves into it. And with our combined experience, we are six people, including me at the agency, that work with the artists. And our combined experience is like, I don't know, 100 years, perhaps. So, we have a lot of experience, and we've sort of been around the block a few times. I look for somebody who has passion for art, but is also extremely expressive, and has good communication skills, can deal with pressure, and can deal with the production side of things too. So it's hard to find, but we've been really lucky. Really, really lucky so far. The agents that are on the team are all amazing. They are all amazing.

Mary Killelea: Are any two days ever the same?

Kristina Snyder: No, it's never the same. I start my day at five o'clock. No, I'm just kidding. I start early on email, and I sort of get a feel for what the day is going to be like. But it's never the same. And that is actually the coolest thing about the job, because you don't know who's going to get reached out to you that day. We may get a call from the biggest dream client in the world. And that's an incredible feeling. And then there might be crises that happen during the day that we have to deal with. There might be an artist that reaches out that we are super impressed by. So it's a really, really rewarding job, I have to say.

Mary Killelea: I love it. Okay, we're winding down our interview with just a couple final questions. Throughout your career, you've had to have career resilience. I think of it as the ability to carry on when you have a failure to move forward and to continually drive for the duration. So any words of advice to others on having career resilience?

Kristina Snyder: Yeah, I love that expression, actually. Career resilience. I do consider myself having a lot of career resilience, because boy, have I ever failed. I have failed in my life. I bounced right up and got up on the horse again. But I think for me, everything centers around letting go of the fear and daring to have bad ideas. Because bad ideas can lead to better ideas, and that in turn can lead to good ideas. So I think the words of wisdom should really be like, be brave about your failings and try again. And then the usual stuff that we talk about a lot, like trust your instincts, trust your gut feeling. Most often, you feel like you were right about things if you have second misgivings about something. So I also want to say that my own resilience comes from really having no real other options, Mary. I don't feel I fit well in a corporate structure, for instance, and New York is a very corporate town. In fact, I know I don't fit in there. So, my option that I had, the option that I thought that I had, and it turned out to be right for me, was to create something from that insight and from that knowledge. And it seems much more fun to try to do something. So as a creative entrepreneur, I laugh and jokingly call myself an entrepreneur with creative tendencies, because I've been creative all my life. But it just seemed more fun to try. And I always thought, why not? What's the worst that can happen? There have been very scary moments in my creative entrepreneurship. But most of the time, it's led to something beautiful. Insight is beautiful. And right now, what I created starting in 2009, or even 2002 has led to Snyder, which is such a beautiful, beautiful team and organization. And thank you for your compliments on our site, by the way, we love it. It's such an amazing upgrade for us.

Mary Killelea: Last question. And I asked all my guests this, what does to be bolder mean to you?

Kristina Snyder: And may I say that I love the title of your podcast to be bolder, I think it's great. So that means to me, when I look back at my life, and what I did, I've just done things, I mean, I haven't really thought much about it. To be honest, sometimes like I met my husband that way, I didn't think about it. We just like met. And that was it. I moved to New York. And all of a sudden, I was an expat. We bought our house that way, just sort of why not? And as I said before, like, what's the worst that can happen? Of course, you can make really grave mistakes. But bold to me means confidence in yourself, that no matter what happens, you can fix it, you can do something. I'm really very comfortable in the space of trying something out to see what would happen. And I have ideas that pop up all the time. So to be bolder is to be okay with failing, and be totally open to change in any form, and open to learning new things. That's what I think.

Mary Killelea: I love that. What is the best way for people to connect with you?

Kristina Snyder: Well, you should check out the Snyder site. The website is we are Snyder.com and Snyder is spelled snyder. Our Instagram handle is we are Snyder underscore. And my personal Instagram handle is aka underscore Kristina Snyder. And that's Christina with a K.

Mary Killelea: Awesome. I will include all of that in the show notes. Thank you, Christina, for being here. It's truly a pleasure.

Kristina Snyder: Oh, thank you, Mary. It was terrific to talk to you. Thanks so much.

Mary Killelea: Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guest. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to, please go check out our website at 2bbolder.com. That's the number 2, little b, bolder.com.