Inside the Creative Mind: An Interview with Freelance Digital Artist John Sheehan

Inside Football Media
5 min readJan 27, 2025

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Hi John, thanks for taking the time to speak to us today. As a full-time freelance digital artist, what does a normal week look like for you?

I guess it would depend what’s on my docket at the time. I go through periods of having a few projects on the go, followed by quiet periods. The busy periods involve lots of focus, coffee, and time management because I very rarely get a deadline that’s over a week away. Quiet periods involve dog walks, EA FC, and pints. I’ll also constantly be sending out feelers and emails to try and find the next project during these less active times.

I try to keep consistent trips to the gym too throughout busy and quiet periods because it really helps mentally and allows the creativity to keep flowing.

What are the most enjoyable and difficult parts of your role?

The most enjoyable aspect of my job would have to be the freedom. Managing my own time and having no-one to answer to. I’ve been on stag parties where I can stay an extra couple days and set up my laptop in pubs and cafes when everyone else rushes back to their offices. I think that element of freedom really helps with creativity as I don’t think it’s something you can just turn on at 9am and off at 5pm — Being able to just say ‘don’t really feel like doing this right now, I’ll do it later’ really helps managing any burnout.

The most difficult part would definitely be the way companies structure their payments to freelancers. You’ll send an invoice and be promised payment in 30 days, 30 days pass and you reach out to ask what the problem is and then they’ll begin asking for various bits of info that could have been sorted while you were doing the work. There’s an apathy towards paying freelancers on time, and it sometimes makes the job near impossible.

As our focus is on supporting freelancers in the football media landscape, we believe our newsletter is an excellent resource for finding work. How do you go about finding work/clients?

I started out just making business cards for people on Gumtree — logos, flyers, posters, things like that. When I got on Twitter and began following a bunch of creatives that worked in the sports industry, I made it my goal to work in sports. So, I’d search the name of a football team or sports brand and hit the ‘people’ tab. That gave me direct access to profiles of people who worked for these brands and I’d just DM anyone I could. That’s basically how I get all my work.

Your work has been featured by some high-profile clients in sport such as Manchester United, Adidas and Borussia Dortmund. Any standout pieces of work or projects you’re proud of and would like to share here with our readers?

I’ve grown up as a Man Utd fan, so getting to work with the club was an absolute dream come true. This project might be my favourite project I’ve worked on, both because of the outcome and because I was given total free reign to create the art I wanted to. I really feel that it speaks to my core visual style.

Who are your favourite artists at the moment and what do you think it is that makes them so brilliant?

Some of my favourite artists are Jon Burgerman, Gian Galang, Scott McRoy, Dan Leydon, and I’m probably forgetting a lot more. I’ve always been a bit bad at analysing what it is about a piece of art that makes me like it. Composition, colours, obviously, but I feel like these guys create pieces that are so unique and give off such a playful, dynamic vibe.

What tools/software would you recommend to aspiring digital artists?

It would depend on what you’d like to achieve. I create illustrations as well as graphic design pieces, so I use the Adobe creative quite a bit and a Microsoft Surface Book - does the job for me. Many artists use an iPad and Porcreate, or a tablet and Adobe Fresco/Photoshop/Illustrator. These days there are lots of options.

What general advice would you give to those individuals looking to pursue a career in design, specifically focused on sports? What are the key skills required?

I jumped straight into freelance and never worked for an agency or team, so I can’t really advise on how to get a job in the sports industry. In terms of freelance, I was extremely lucky in that I began pursuing this while I was just out of college and living with my parents. I was able to gradually build up a name for myself by creating artwork and posting on social media. Eventually my work was seen by the right people and I was asked by BT Sports (now TNT Sports) to create some artwork to promote their coverage of UFC 200. Year on year I’ve built up a pretty good portfolio that I can show to potential clients.

I would advise anyone trying to get into the sports design industry to study the creative output of some top sports brands and get a feel for the landscape of contemporary visual design. Then try and see where you can imprint your own visual style and stand out among what’s out there, rather than just trying to replicate what’s already out there. Easier said than done, of course.

What do you do to switch off outside of work? Any hobbies?

I like watching sports (big surprise!), football, MMA, pro wrestling among my favourites. Love music — I’d always have a gig or two lined up. Reading — my NY Resolution is to read more books and I’m keeping up with it so far. I’m also learning how to play guitar so that’s taking up a lot of time too.

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Inside Football Media
Inside Football Media

Written by Inside Football Media

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