HERMÈS, BVLGARI, PARFOIS: Meet Maria Francesca Melis, the illustrator every luxury brand is hiring right now

How do you go from taking on small freelance commissions to creating campaigns for Hermès and Bvlgari? For illustrator Maria Francesca Melis, there wasn’t that one big break. It was a gradual process of developing a distinctive visual language, building the right portfolio, learning how to work with clients and understanding the business behind a creative career.

Born in Sardinia and now splitting her time between Italy and New Zealand, Maria’s work is shaped by nature, folklore, traditional craft and a strong interest in visual storytelling. That perspective has developed into a richly detailed illustration style that now appears across editorial, publishing and major international brand campaigns.

In this interview, Maria breaks down how she built an international illustration career, how clients started finding her, what helped her land major commercial projects, how she approaches pricing and licensing, and what she believes emerging illustrators should focus on if they want to make a living from their work.

Your career has developed incredibly quickly over the past few years. Looking back, what were the key turning points that took you from studying graphic design and taking on freelance commissions to working with major international clients?

I think there were several turning points rather than one single moment. Studying graphic design gave me a strong foundation, but it also made me realise that illustration was the part of the process I was most drawn to. I started taking on small freelance commissions and gradually began developing a visual language that felt more personal to me.

I also started working with musicians and festivals, which gave me a lot of opportunities to experiment and put my work out into the world. From the outside, perhaps it looks like everything happened very quickly, but for a long time I was doing many different jobs on the side before my career developed to the point where I could make a full-time living from illustration.

In fact, I think working in customer service and hospitality taught me a lot that has been useful in my illustration career: people skills, kindness, how to receive feedback and, perhaps most importantly, how to communicate with a client. Another very important turning point was simply deciding to take myself seriously and give illustration a real go. For a long time, lots of people around me told me I could do it, but I didn't feel ready. I had to believe in myself and decide to try. Then, slowly, bigger projects brought more projects. It became a bit like a rolling ball. Looking back, I think the biggest change was becoming more intentional about who I wanted to be as an illustrator and what I wanted to say through my work.

There is often a big gap between being good at illustration and actually building a sustainable career from it. What do you think helped you cross that gap?

Probably understanding that being an illustrator is two jobs: you have to be an artist, but you also have to run a business.

Making good work is obviously fundamental, but it isn't enough on its own. You have to understand communication, deadlines, contracts, pricing, licensing, presentation and relationships. You also need to be able to explain what you do and why your work is relevant to a particular client.

I also think consistency was important. I kept making work even when there wasn't a commission attached to it. That personal work eventually became the reason some clients reached out.

And I learned to say yes to opportunities that were perhaps slightly outside my comfort zone. The projects that, at the beginning, make me a little bit scared are still the most exciting because I know they're going to teach me something. Every project has taught me something, technically, creatively or commercially, and those lessons have accumulated over time.

How did clients initially start finding you? Was it mainly through social media and your portfolio, direct outreach, referrals, awards, representation or something else entirely? And has that changed as your career has grown?

In the beginning it was definitely a mixture of social media, my website, portfolio platforms and word of mouth. Instagram was particularly useful because art directors could discover the work very quickly and get a sense of the person behind it. There was also a lot of organic growth. Someone would see something I had made, contact me, and then that project would lead to another contact. In my personal experience, almost every project has brought me more projects afterwards. But I think the foundation was always the work itself and the relationships that developed around it.

For an illustrator who has a strong body of work but isn't getting commissioned yet, what would you recommend focusing on first? Is there anything you see younger illustrators spending too much time on?

I would focus first on the portfolio. Not necessarily making it bigger, but making it clearer.

If someone looks at your work for thirty seconds, they should understand what makes you interesting and what you could bring to a project. A strong portfolio doesn't need to show everything you're capable of; sometimes showing too much actually makes it harder to understand your point of view. I also think personal projects are incredibly valuable. If you want to illustrate book covers, make book covers of your favourite books. If you want to work with fashion brands, create work that demonstrates how your visual language could exist in that world. Don't wait for the commission to give you permission to make the work.

Younger illustrators sometimes spend a huge amount of energy worrying about algorithms, followers and equipment. Those things have a place, but I would always put the majority of the energy into making the work and finding your own voice.

Earlier this year you worked with Hermès on the Beijing Sanlitun campaign, developing not only the illustrations but the visual direction across billboards, street flags, hoardings and social content. How did a project of that scale come to you, and what do you think Hermès saw in your work that made you the right artist for it?

It was an incredibly exciting project because it allowed the illustrations to exist at a completely different scale. I was already working with one of the Hermès art directors on a smaller project, and she then proposed me for this project. I think what connected with Hermès was probably the combination of a decorative, handcrafted quality with a strong sense of storytelling. My work often draws from nature and cultural references, and I think that gave the project a warmth and richness that could coexist with the very strong Hermès identity.

The challenge was also making sure the work could function across completely different formats, from a large-scale billboard to street flags and social content, while still feeling like one visual world.

My background in graphic design was also really useful here. I wasn't only illustrating; I was thinking about resizing, composition, typography and looking after a part of the graphic design side of the campaign as well. I think that was a nice example of how the different parts of my background can come together.

And more recently, you created a beautiful series for Bvlgari Kaleidos. Can you take us behind the scenes of that project? What was the initial brief, and how did you develop the final idea?

The starting point was to create illustrations that could represent the Bvlgari Kaleidos exhibition and the story behind it, a journey through Bvlgari’s heritage and the different places and exhibitions, from Rome through Tokyo and then to Shanghai this year.

The idea was to create something that could communicate that journey while also inviting the viewer to look more closely and enter into the different worlds within the exhibition. We decided on a continuous loop, which felt like a beautiful way to represent the idea of travelling through different places, periods and pieces of Bvlgari’s history.

Rather than illustrating one single moment, the idea was to create a visual journey that could bring together the different parts of the exhibition and allow the viewer to go deeper into the story and the key heritage pieces. The idea developed through sharing, talking, trying things out and receiving feedback from the whole team involved in the project. I don’t think an idea is ever really developed by just one person. It’s a process of everyone bringing their perspective, discussing things, trying different possibilities and building on each other’s ideas. That’s actually one of the things I love most about this job, working with other people, being part of a team and creating something together that you probably wouldn’t have arrived at on your own

When working with brands that have such strong visual identities, how do you make sure the result still feels unmistakably yours rather than simply adapting yourself to the brand?

I think the key is understanding the brand deeply without trying to imitate it. A brand like Hermès or Bvlgari already has an incredibly strong visual universe, so the role of the illustrator isn’t to recreate that universe. It’s to bring our interpretation to it and show how we see it.

I try to identify the elements of my own language that are most relevant to the brief:  the way I draw, my use of detail, composition, texture, references to nature or decorative traditions, and then find a meeting point with the brand. The best collaborations, for me, are the ones where you can recognise both sides and neither overshadows the other. It should feel like the brand, but you should also be able to tell who made it.

Looking across your career so far, which project has taught you the most and what did you learn from it?

I don’t think I could choose one single project, because different projects have taught me completely different things. The larger commercial projects have taught me a lot about scale, collaboration and communication. When an image is going to appear on a billboard, a building or across an international campaign, you have to think very differently from when you’re making a small illustration. The creative part is only one part of the job. Learning how to receive feedback, present ideas, manage revisions and protect the core of an idea is just as important. Illustrating my first children’s book, for example, has taught me patience and storytelling. You have to think about a sequence of images and how they communicate together, rather than relying on one image alone.

I’ve found that whether it’s editorial, packaging, publishing or a large commercial campaign, every different context teaches you to think about your work in a slightly different way

Pricing is one of the least transparent parts of the creative industry. How did you learn what your work was worth, and what would you recommend younger illustrators consider when pricing commercial work?

I learned mostly through experience, conversations with other creatives and gradually understanding the commercial value of what I was producing. And I am of course still learning! I think that it’s important to remember that you’re not only charging for the hours spent drawing, but also for all the hours and years you have spent learning and practising. You’re charging for your experience, your visual language, the creative thinking behind the work, and the client’s right to use that work.

Usage is particularly important. Where will the image appear? For how long? In how many countries? Is it advertising, packaging, editorial, social media, a product or an installation? All of those things can affect the value of a commission.

I would encourage younger illustrators not to simply calculate an hourly rate and multiply it by the number of hours they expect to draw. Think about the value and scope of the entire project. And don’t be afraid to ask questions before giving a quote. You can’t price something properly if you don’t know what the client is going to do with it.

As the scale of your commissions has grown, has your creative process changed too? Are there parts of your process that you deliberately protect, no matter how tight the deadline or how large the client?

My process has definitely become more structured as the projects have become larger, but the beginning of the process is still quite intuitive.

I need time to research, collect references, sketch and let an idea develop before I start refining it. I try not to skip that stage just because the deadline is tight. I also try to protect the actual drawing time. Once I know what I want to make, I need a stretch of uninterrupted time to really get into the work and let the drawing develop. With larger projects, there are naturally more meetings, feedback rounds and practical considerations, so that uninterrupted time becomes even more important. There’s something slightly counterintuitive about it: the bigger the project becomes, the more valuable those quiet moments of just drawing actually are.

Illustration is going through a strange period right now, partly because of generative AI. From your perspective as a working illustrator, what has actually changed over the last year — in client briefs, budgets, timelines or what clients expect from artists? And do generative AI tools have any place in your own process today?

AI has definitely changed the conversation around illustration. Clients are more aware of what can be generated quickly, and I think that has made some people question what they actually need an illustrator for. But it has also made the value of a distinctive artistic voice more obvious to me. If the brief is simply “we need an image”, there are now many ways of producing an image.

If the brief is “we want this particular artist’s way of seeing, thinking and making”, that’s a very different thing. I’ve also noticed that clients can expect ideas and iterations to happen faster because of what they see technology doing. That can create pressure around timelines.

Personally, I don’t currently use generative AI as a substitute for my illustration process. The slow development of an idea, the research, the drawing and even the imperfections are part of what makes the work mine. And personally, I’m not too scared of it. There is a lot of stress and uncertainty around AI at the moment, but I do think AI needs humans to function. It needs ideas, and ideas come from us. I also believe that relevant clients still want to work with real artists and value the relationship and thinking behind the work.

At the same time, illustration is expanding beyond the static image into animation, motion and interactive work. Do you think illustrators entering the industry today need a broader technical skill set than when you started? Which new skills or technologies do you think are genuinely worth learning?

I think having a broader understanding is definitely useful, but I don’t think we can, or necessarily need to, learn how to do everything. There are so many talented illustrators who are also brilliant animators, for example, and I really admire that. In my own case, I’d love to learn more about animation and other areas one day, but I also believe there’s a lot of value in concentrating on what you know how to do best and doing it really, really well.

I also think there’s a point where you have to stop thinking about the rules and just make the work. Learning the theory is important, but once you understand it, I think it’s healthy to forget about it sometimes and give yourself the freedom to experiment and let your imagination take over. Otherwise, you can spend so much time thinking about what you should know that you lose the instinct to create. And I don’t think you have to do everything yourself. If animation can really elevate an illustration, I’d much rather work with a great animator and bring their expertise into the project than try to become an expert in animation myself. For me, it’s about knowing where your strengths are, staying curious, and learning enough to collaborate well with other people. You can keep expanding your skills without feeling that you have to master every possible tool or discipline.

Your work is incredibly detailed and rooted in observation, nature and culture — things that require time and attention. How do you protect that slower, more considered way of working in an industry that increasingly asks creatives to produce more, faster?

It’s something I have to consciously protect. The details are not really decoration for me,  they’re part of the storytelling. They come from looking closely at things, researching, drawing and allowing the image to develop. If I rush that part, I lose something essential. Of course there are deadlines, and I’ve become much better at working efficiently. But efficiency doesn’t necessarily mean rushing. It means knowing which parts of the process need time and which parts can be streamlined. I also try to maintain creativity outside of illustration. Spending time in nature is very important to me, and I also do things like crochet and other creative activities that have nothing to do with a client or a deadline. They give my brain a different way of working and help me stay motivated. And I take breaks. Sometimes stepping away from a drawing is actually part of the creative process. When you come back to it, you can see things differently.

Finally, if you could speak to yourself at the very beginning of your illustration career, what would you tell her about building a career, making money from creative work and finding your place in this industry?

I’d tell her not to wait until she feels ready,  and also not to worry so much.

I spent a lot of time worrying and thinking I wasn’t good enough. I think I would tell myself to trust the process a little more. I spent a lot of time trying to understand what the “right” path was, but there isn’t really one. You build it project by project, relationship by relationship, and sometimes by taking opportunities that you couldn’t have planned for. I’d also tell her that it’s okay to want to make money from creative work. You can love what you do and still treat it as a business. Being professional, understanding your value and wanting to be paid fairly doesn’t make you less of an artist.

And probably most importantly, I’d tell her not to compare the speed of her career with anyone else’s. Everyone’s path looks different from the inside.

Keep making the work that only you can make. Be professional. Be curious. Work hard. Be kind to people. And keep going, even during the periods when it feels like nothing is happening. A lot of the time, things are happening quietly before you can see them.