The Morning After The Year Before

This past friday saw the launch of the Platform 3 exhibition I had decided to get involved with. Named 'The Morning After The Year Before', the exhibition held host to a variety of artists and performers, all exploring the themes of personal trauma and a reaction to said theme. Along with prints and sculpture, the exhibition played host to interactive art and a variety of shrot films, comedy, spoken word and performance pieces. 

Personally, I benefited from the exhibition in terms of some exposure and networking but mainly in terms of my own confidence. I didnt really get the chance to 'network' as such, friends came down to support the exhibition and calm my nerves so I spent my night with them as a pose to networking and meeting new creatives. I do feel a lot more confident in terms of exhibiting though, especially when thinking about showing work outside of the safety of uni. I would be quite interested in getting a few friends together and exploring the idea of setting up an exhibition in a local space/bar, but this is something to look into after christmas possibly. 

Website Hosting Platforms

Squarespace:
Domain 'leahroseillustration.com' - £16/yr
Customizable templates - specfic section for art and design
- Clean, straight lines and adaptive grid layouts

Cargo Collective:
Domain 'leahroseillustration.com' - $15/yr - £11.37/yr
Templates range from clean and direct layouts to more forward and dynamic
Greater flexibility on customization

Carbonmade:
Portfolio hosting website
Not priced by domain, comain would have too be 'leahroseillustration.carbonmade.com'
Start out package - $6/mo or $59/yr
Allows for 10 projects, 100 pieces, extended personalisation, priority support, project archiving, SD video, audio uploads

Exhibition Opportunity with Platform 3

Event Brief 

'We're on the lookout for artists/performers/poets/creatives to get involved in our next project. It will be an evening exhibition, with an emphasis on communication and discussion. We are hoping to provide a friendly environment in which people can comfortably share creative and positive responses to personal experiences, both traumatic and/or formative, little or large. Artists can share as much or as little as they feel comfortable with.

We want work that is a response to personal trauma or an event or experience that has shaped you. 

There will be opportunities for artists to discuss their work if they are comfortable, in an effort to promote a discursive and informal environment. We are hoping that through this both artists and audience can connect with others who have been through similar experiences as well as learning about those they have no previous knowledge of.

Artists must have availability at the end of November.'


After being in touch with Platform 3 after seeing their call-out for exhibitors online, I was sent over a full brief and more event details. I decided to get in touch as I had some pre-existing work that I had been developing that sounded like it would fit the brief well. I've emailed my print over to Emma, one of three that runs the collective and the design has been approved for the exhibition

I was looking over the event page earlier and noticed that it mentions the following:

'As per usual, we encourage no mobile phones. (this is an event about making real human connections away from social media)' 

This statement ties in with my COP project and after my one-to-one feedback session next week I will be emailing Platform 3 to find out more about how they merge creativity and human connection. 

In terms of the exhbition, I will be displaying a print of my work and also selling additional prints on the night. All proceeds from the night will be going to Teenage Cancer Trust. I am hoping to have business cards made by the time the exhibition rolls round which will further tie in with this module and will help with a bit of self-promotion. I'm really excited to be a part of this, it's the first time exhibiting work outside of uni and I'm hoping it'll help push my confidence up and allow me the opportunity to network. 

5 Websites

Tallulah Fontaine: 

- showing work is the main focus

- easy to navigate

- headers lead to different types of work eg. comissioned, personal etc

- clicking on images leads to short description and more images of project 

Manjit Thapp:

- sidebar lists all projects undertaken, easy to see client list and find specific projects 

- divided into sections, commissioned, personal and fashion 

- links to shop, contact page and instagram account - intergrated platforms 

- showing work is the main focus 

Peony Gent: 

- sidebar offers easy navigation 

-seperated into categories again so you can easily find your way through the website 

- clicking on prjects leads to more images and short descriptions of projects

- 'about page' contains contact info, links to social media accounts, and a catalogue of press features 

Harriet-Lee Merrion:

- clean, crisp appearance 

- easy to navigate, projects presented on landing page and filed under different categories eg. editorial, lifestyle, social - easy to find what you're looking for 

- header links to about page, contact page and shop 

Paul Davis: 

- interactive landing page

- different to typical website landing pages

- clicking on different shapes takes you to different sections of the practicioners work 

- sidebar lists different projects, easy to navigate 

- contact page lists different agents for different areas of the world 

Notes from research: 

- work should be the main focus, find a layout that emphasises the work 

- sidebars are handy for navigation, should be clear and concise, split into sections 

- contact and about pages should be kept short, nothing too lengthy

- white backgrounds seem to be popular 

- link to other social media sistes as long as it's relevant and up to date 

Notes from PP3 Seminar - 6/11/17

Representation of identity:
- Send letters - mailers, zines, badges, stickers, postcards
- Buisness cards - moo, print at uni
- Online presence - website, blog, tumblr - all link together - visually consistent
- Just turn up - visit people, ask questions

Web presence:
- Wordpress, Wix, Squarespace, Cargo
- Keep it simple
- 'Shop window' - show what you're good at - global - personality
- Consider -first impressions
- Communicate - buisness/hire me, personality, concise inofmation, fresh and refreshed, show off, get reccommended, tone of voice, show full range of practice
- Be yourself
- Be available
- Linkedin, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram - concise - CV should not be on website

Task 3:
Look at yourself and your work
Talk to others, what do they think?
Own personal evaluation - does this match with what other people think?
Design a communication that conveys my identity and explains rationale

Task 3.1:
5 websites you think work
Blog about them

Mission Statement

The main aim of my practice is to communicate emotion and feeling to an audience. Wether this is done via subject matter, process or presentation is open to interpretation but I would like to be able to make someone F E E L something when they look at my work, make a connection between the illustration and their own human experience.

I believe my work holds an honesty too it, incorporated with a bold, graphic style that combines both digital and hand-drawn processes. I am disocvering the importance of colour palettes and how these can emphasise a specific feeling or emotion and make the message easier to convey to the viewer. This is a part of my practice that I have begun to explore in an attempt to be more hoenst with myself as a practicioner and less wary of how others may view my work.

This is a new way of working for me but one that I feel happy and content with, I'm excited to explore this part of my practice more.

End of Module Evaluation

PPP Final Presentation

Script: 

Introudction 

How was level 4? –  looking back at level four, I didn’t enjoy it that much, I found a lot of the tasks we were set were aimed at making ‘fun’, ‘playful’ work, I felt like I was making things that were quite childlike and struggled to engage with the course, my attendance was shitty, I left everything till last minute and I left first year feeling like I hadn’t really made anything that I was proud of

What did I expect from second year? – Busy busy busy, working all the time. I expected to have a much larger workload than I did in first year and too be under a lot more pressure. I expected that I’d be able to expand on the things I’d learnt in first year as well as learning some new stuff like print methods and more digital skills. I was also expecting that there’d be guidance on how to start presenting ourselves as proffessionals, how to start making contacts and begin to learn about things like pricing, contracts and all that other buissness stuff. My personal aims for second year included keeping on top of blogging, doing cop when I was supposed to do it, become more involved in the studio space, try and develop my digital skills and also start to define my practice abit more in terms of its content and tone of voice.

504 helped a lot in terms of the print proccesses I was introduced too. Mono printing and lino printing are something that I’m really keen on working with more, both proccess allow for professional quality finishes whilst still mainting character, personality, tone of voice, texture. I feel print has benefited my practice because it allows me to include an authentic, handmade feel to my practice that I’ve always been worried that I’ll loose if I move away from hand-drawn methods of image-making.

My digital skills have also drastically improved this year. I didn’t attend photoshop/illustrator sessions last year so felt quite behind in terms of that when I started second year. I started just playing around with colour and adding that to pencil drawings I’d done, before moving on to buying some of the kyle webster brushes and using a wacom tablet for the first time. I feel that using the brushes and tablet can still allow me to have a hand-made authentic look to my work whilst mainting a level of professionalism. I still don’t like vectors though.

OUIL505
getting to grips with photoshop allowed me to begin working digitally which is what I did for 505. combining photoshop brushes and printed textures from 504 allowed me to create work that had depth and personality and I finally feel like I’m heading in a direction that I enjoy working in. it also Allowed me to combine my personal interests with a uni module for once – construction of my own brief and proposal – time and project management (not too great) – digital media – first project using all digital techniques and image making – application – allows me to imagine what my work looks like in context – also allows me to develop more of an idea about where my work fits – cohesive imagery – I feel like I’m quite good at figuring out how I want things to look and then applying that aesthetic to the rest of the project.

Collaborative – I chose to work with a friend, I shouldn’t have, we did actually get on okay, we had one argument but sorted that out quickly but time management was an issue for both of us. I also find it quite hard to voie my ideas and opinions in a group setting, I’m not that confident sometimes so if someone’s a little overpowering with what they’re saying I tend to back down. A lot of was me not enjoying working around someone else. I can see some positives of collaborating but I feel that if I tried to do this again, I’d need to carefully choose who I was working with, and make sure it was someone who maybe had a similar style of work or similar intersts/proccesses.

Time management has been another big issue this year. At the end of last year I said I’d get on top of my time management but I haven’t at all. I feel that juggling a part-time job alongside the course hasn’t helped with this much but in a way its made me value my time in the studio more as I know that’s really the only time I have to work on things. I’ve left a few things till last minute this year, including the whole of cop, again. I feel that I’d have maybe done better in some modules if I’d managed my time better and this is something I want to get on top of next year, I definitley need to be more organised and have a more structured way of working.

Responsive. I have a love/hate relationship with responsive. I don’t hate it, but I don’t really want it to happen again. I did enjoy some of the briefs I chose to work on such as Batsford and the ohhdeer brief. I was really excited to work on secret 7, so it was a shame when they decided not to run it this year. Illustration Friday was slightly pointless but allowed me to experiment with different media, in particular, get to grips with digital much. I didn’t mid the penguin brief but I did struggle to engage with it a little bit. I feel like the worst part about responsive is juggling so many different deadlines at once, all the competitions want work in for different dates and in different formats so it’s hard to keep on track of what you’re doing. Responsive did teach me how to fully understand briefs that were set externally. I feel a lot more comfortable dissecting a brief and figuring out exactly what they’re asking of you now and feel that this will help when It comes to getting briefs from clients.

The Creative Report was a highlight of my year. Tallulah Fontaine is an illustrator I’ve admired for a few years now, I spoke about her in my presentation last year so I was really happy when I got the chance to ask her a few questions and learn a little bit more about her and her practice. I think one of the most valuable pieces of advice I got from this was to be patient with yourself. I feel like it’s easy on this kind of course to become frustrated with your work and your progress and that being patient with yourself is key to letting your practice develop.

Reflecting on the past two years I can see how I have progressed. I feel like in first year, you just float around abit and try out a few different things and just settle into the course. Second year has been completley different. Everything was lovely before christmas and then it go so stressful and busy when we came back from christmaas break. I feel like dealing with so many modules that run at the same time as each other and then dealing with all your deadlines being so close to each other, It’s difficult and it feels like you’re drowning under all the work and stress but I do feel like it kind of set’s you up for third year and whats expected. I’m hoping third year will be alot more enjoyable, I’m looking forward to working on more things and pushing my practice further and developing a professional identity for my practice.

Thanks for watching - any questions? 

Creative Report - Tallulah Fontaine

Lifes A Pitch Presentation

Thoughts On Presentation

What have I done this year?

• Print Print Print. Print processes and experimentation in 504, learning new thigns, re-discovering old things, figuring out how to make it work together, learning how to package things up and make them look super professional 
• Learnt how to drag my own interests into my uni work. This is something I kept seperate last year as I was worried about wether or not my work would appeal to other people. I used 505 as an excuse to explore imagery that I enjoyed and that I was interested in
• Stopped giving a fuck what other people think. I am past caring about whether my work is trendy, shape based, fun, playful nonsense. My work is what it is, and I am who I am. I'm not going to shape my practice around whats 'in' at the minute, whats the point? Where's the fun in that? 
• MADE CONTACT WITH A BABE. Tallulah Fontaine has been my go to gal for inspiration for a few years now, we might not neccesarily have the same style of illustration BUT i love her tone of voice, her iamges provoke emotion and feeling, they have depth and substance and i got a chance to ask her about her work!! Imagine that!!
• I came into uni. Last year my attendance was at 30%. This year I haven't got a single attendance letter. Surely thats an improvement? I've engaged with the course, I've engaged with my peers, I've tried to engage more with the creative community but I've still a little shy and low in confidence so maybe that needs pushing 
• Went to some print fairs, spent too much money, had a great time looking at cool work

What went right/What did I enjoy? 

• 504 LET ME PRINT. I was eager to print all through first year and disheartened that we didn't actually print things that much. 504 was aimed around printing, I loved it, I enjoy how theraputic it can be at times. I dont enjoy setting up screens though, that takes a long long time and doesnt always go right. 
• 505 LET ME DO WHAT I ENJOY. I always struggled with bringing my personal interests into uni work. The opportunity to make some weird slightly creepy stuff was great! I felt really passionate about what I was working on and feel that my enthusiasm for the subject helped be develop my work to a more professional level. 
• OHHDEER GREETINGS CARD COMPETITION. I didn't win BUT I really like ohhdeer, and their ethics and their shop and their products so it was cool to make something that could have potentially been one of their products. It also opened my eyes to some of the ways my work could sit within different illustrative fields

What went wrong/What didn't I enjoy? 

• COP WENT WRONG IT WENT ALL KINDS OF WRONG 
• COLLABORATION IS A NIGHTMARE, LET ME WORK ON MY OWN FOREVER 
• RESPONSIVE IS A SOUL SUCKING MODULE THAT MADE ME WANT TO CRY
• MY TIME MANAGEMENT IS AWFUL
• DO NOT TRY BALANCE A PART TIME JOB WITH A FULL TIME COURSE, IT WILL BREAK YOU 
• I STILL DONT KEEP ON TOP OF BLOGGING

Where was I last year?

• A nervous wreck
• Little to no confidence in my own abilities - I feel that coming into an art school environement, you're constantly surrounded by really talented people, there's a lot of pressure to try and keep up to that standard and it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking your work's shit and you're not good enough for the course etc etc
• Not happy with my work - I had a rough time last year, I left a lot of thigns till last minute, I rpoduced a lot of shit work, really really shit work. Partially because I didnt manage my time, partially because I kept trying to make work I thought other people would like rather than making work I like and that I'm interested in
• Scared of computers/photoshop/illustrator/vectors/print dungeon/anything digital 
• Not sure what I was doing

Where am I now?

• Still a little shy but way more confident - I've really found my feet this year, I've managed to stand up on my own and really involve myself with my modules and different aspects of the course, this has made me more confident in myself and my work and I'm starting to believe that maybe i am good enough to be doing this 
• I am no longer terrified of photoshop, in fact, i love it, it's a gift from the gods, get ya'self a wacom tablet and some sweet sweet brushes and life is peachy. Vectors and Illustrator can still go fuck themselves though
• I've identified areas of Illustration that I might be interested in - adult publishing, editiorial, printmaking, freelance - I'm kind of getting to grips with where I want to be, I'm not all the way there yet but I feel that I'm taking the right steps towards having a clearer idea of where i 'live'. Saying that, I don't feel that is neccessary for me to be able to say at the end of this year/next year 'i am leah and i am an editorial illustrator', fuck that, play around, explore different areas illustration can exist, be flexible and adaptable, do an illustration for a newspaper article one week, do work on a book cover the next. Why should we stick to one thing?? 
• I feel slightly more professional? I can see my work developing and I think it's come on in leaps since last year. I feel like further fine-tuning my image making will help me pin down the tone of voice i want my work to have. 

Where do I want to be? Plans for summer and level 6 

• BRANDING - I want to look into this over summer and at least have some idea of how i want to portray myself as a professional when I come back in september. 
• TAKE MORE OPPORTUNITES - go to craft fairs, go to exhibitions, get more involved with the creative community around me, meet people, make contacts, make friends - granted this has been tough to do this year, most days I'm in uni from 9 till 5 and then I go straight to work until 10 and then straight home for food and bed. I dont have a lot of free time, I should probably quit my job, but y'know, gotta pay those bills
• GET OUT OF LEEDS, TAKE A BREAK, CLEAR YOUR HEAD, IT'S GOOD FOR THE SOUL
• DO COP WHEN YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO COP - DO NOT LEAVE IT TILL LAST MINUTE AGAIN - (keeping on top of cop was something i mentioned in my first year presentation as an ambition for second year, HAHAHA, that did not happen)
• LEARN HOW TO MAKE QUICK DECISIONS - people aren't going to wait around for you to make your mind up on something, stop taking months to decide on the direction of a project, jsut go with your gut

Tallulah's Responses

After I emailed Tallulah my questions, I didn't get a reply from her. About a month afterwards I sent her another email just asking if shed recieved them, thankfully she replied and sent her answers to my questions along with it!

She asked me to clarify the first question I had put on the list so I rephrased it to "who/what is currently inspiring you?". She promptly repleid with the following answer. 

I'm really pleased with the answers she provided, I feel like I've now got a little bit of an insight to how she works and who she is as a person. I'm excited to start writing the project report and was hoping that I could make some sort of zine to send over too her? I don't know if I'll be able to get this done in time for PPP submission, but maybe it's something that I can look into getting done over summer? I feel like sending her a physical copy of something would help solidify the contact that I've already made and show my appreciation for the time shes taken to talk to me. 

New Ways Of Working

Recently I've started working with the Kyle Webster Photoshop Brushes and I'm really impressed with the work I'm managing to produce with them! I've never been a fan of digital work, thinking that it takes away personality and character from illustrative work at times. Things can start to appear quite flat and and dull, without much texture and expression. The different varieties of photoshop brushes allow for more texture, depth and personality to be injected into the work.

I've been using his brush packs across modules, mainly in 505 and a little bit in responsive. I do feel that they add another level of professionalism too my work, and allow for me to experiment with colour and texture alot more than I usually would. It also makes me feel a little less 'precious' about my work. I feel like when I'm creating things that are hand-drawn, using analogue media, theres a certain pressure I put on myself for everything too be perfect. Working digitally, I don't really feel this pressure as much, I don't know why but I feel alot more confident with my work being a little messy or a little less perfect.

I've still got a lot more experimenting and exploring to do in terms of working this way, but I am really happy in the direction it seems to be taking my practice.

Northern Craft Fair

The other weekend me and a friend from work headed down to Northern Craft Fair at Northern Monk Brewery. I always enjoy going to craft fairs, it's helpful to see the variety of work that people have on display and how they present themselves as professionals. I picked up a few goodies whilst I was there including the new issue of Ladyfuzz and also a few funky prints from illustrator Dick Vincent. I also had a quick chat with one of the girls that organises the fairs. She said that when they start putting plans together to organise an event they send an email out asking for people to hold stalls and bring their work down to sell, I gave her my email address so that when the next one comes around maybe I can get some of my own work together and a few other people from the course and we could all go down and hold a stall together! I had a stall at a craft fair/event last year and found it a really valuable, confidence building experience. It's a shame I havent managed to get down to any this year but hopefully I'll be able to keep an eye out for any that are happening over summer/later this year!

How Has Responsive Influenced My Practice?

I'm not going to try and lie and say that I enjoyed responsive or found it really impacted my practice because it hasn't. I feel like maybe I've understood a little more how to approach externally set briefs BUT as a whole I found it pointless. I feel for the most part its just a way for the college to get recognition in the off chance that one of us wins a competition. I found myself working on briefs i wasn't interested in, for companies I wasn't interested in producing work for. I also found it hypocritical that at the same time as being told we had to do competition briefs, we were also being told to not work for free. This is irritating when it comes to competition briefs such as YCN and D&AD who offer little in terms of prize's for the winners and who also expect participants to pay for their own entry and own award if they win, it seems like bullshit. It's not really something thats up my street.

I did have a chance to work on the ohhdeer greetings card competition and this was pretty cool. I like ohhdeer, they sell funky stuff, provide a platform for a range of illustrators to sell and promote their work and seem like overall chill, down-to-earth people. I enjoyed working with a greetings card format and feel that it opened up another possibility for me. I hadn't really thought about applying my work to stationary as such, and producing work for this brief made me see that it IS something that I COULD actually do.

Mega To Do List

PPP

- Wait for Tallulah's response
- 500 word report on interview
- Life's A Pitch - preperation, presentation
- End of Module Presentation
- Life's a Pitch blogging
- Presentation Slides
- Blogging

COP

- Decide on an essay theme
- Essay research
- Write the essay
- Visual journal

505

- Draw, draw, draw
- Decide on a context
- How can illustrations work on product/packaging?
- Design boards for hand in

503

 - Catch up on collaborative blogging
- A few more Illustration Friday submissions?
- Project Report
- Boards for Collaborative Brief
- Boards for Individual Brief
- Boards for small briefs
- End of Module Evaluation

I think thats everything???????

Cop's definitley an area that I've not been paying attention too and I really want to start putting a bit more effort into it, I kind of need to, the deadlines really close. I think 503 is nearly done, I just need to get the design boards done which in all honesty shouldn't take too long to sort out, it's just finding the time to fit it in. PPP also isn't such a big worry now that I've heard back from the illustrator I've chosen to interview. Life's A Pitch is a big stress, I'm slightly irritated that it's been introduced so late on in the course. Presenting isn't my strong point so to be told I have to present with only a week to prepare the content and prepare myself mentally is a big struggle for me.
I'm really disappointed that I can't have some more time on 505 as well, it's taking a backseat at the minute which is a shame because I think I'd be more engaged with it if there wasn't so many deadlines looming.

(I'm going to start crossing these off as I get them done so I can keep track of my life)

A Response!

I've finally had an email back from the wonderful Tallulah Fontaine! I'm really excited about having the opportunity to ask her a few questions and find out more about her and her practice, the only thing is, now I have to think of some interesting questions to send over! I want to try and respond to her today so that she doesn't forget about me and so that I don't come across as unorganised/uninterested

Possible Questions:

- What inspires you?

- Are there certain themes or ideas that you enjoying working around and how do you combine this into your practice? 

- I struggle with figuring out where my work 'lives' within illustration (publishing, editorial, etc) did you ever have this struggle, and if so, how did you overcome it? 

- What do you most enjoy working on? 

- You have a fairly consistent way of making images, is this something that has come naturally, or a style that has grown and developed over your career?

- Any tips for a young illustrator on the edge of trying to figure out the real world?

- You've previously collaborated with Stay Home Club, how do you find working with other people? Is it something you enjoy or do you prefer working independently? 

Slightly more interesting questions (to spice things up a bit)

- If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be? 

- Whats your favourite thing to do when you're not working on arty things? 

- Cats or dogs?

- Who is your biggest inspiration in life and why?

- What song never fails to cheer you up? 

I'm really excited to hear back from her, I feel like I've asked pretty good questions and ones that will help me out with my own practice when she replies. Fingers crossed she gets back to me again! 

Life's A Pitch

Today me and a group of 4 other girls got together for the life's a pitch studio brief. We decided to work together because we have similar core values, an interest in selling and promoting our work and overlapping illustrative styles.

- Light-hearted design

- Aim to resonate with people and to evoke emotions (happiness, sadness, laughter)

- Addressing everyday events with humour

- Playful

- Relatable

- Delicate & subtle 

- Want to gain exposure and experience in the industry

We identified our individual creative skills and started to think about how these can work to our advantage as a group. We also started to think about the things we wanted our presentation to cover, such as our rationale, platforms we would use (social media, etc), our individual and collective skills, and also existing collectives that inspire us and aspirations for the collective as a whole. 

Leah - people skills, selling, print processes

Polly - logistic knowledge, digital marketplaces + websites, branding

Molly - organisation, project management, written communciation, character design

Shelly - extrovert skills, communication skills, customer service, typography, branding

Megan - finances, secretarial jobs like organising and communications, colour, composition

Working as a collective gives us the opportunity to reach a larger target audience, and in turn promote ourselves both as a collective and as individuals. For me, being part of creating a collective means being part of a group of like-minded individuals who support each other and create a welcoming creative environment that we can build upon as the collective gains momentum. 

We will be meeting up in the following days in order to disucss our plans further and start to create an identity for our collective. We will all be partaking in adding to the pitch and I'm looking forward to seeing how we all work together. 

Making More Contact

It's only been a few days since I emailed Manjit Thapp with hope to ask her a few questions, but as of yet I haven't heard anything back from her. I'm slightly stressed that I haven't managed to interview anyone yet and that the deadline for PPP isn't too far away so I'm just going to send a few more emails round to some more people and hope that at least one of them gets back to me.

Today I emailed Tallulah Fontaine, an illustrator that I've been a fan of for a couple of years now, her work is super pretty and has some of the nicest colour schemes. She also uses quite interesting composition in some of her work and I'm particularly a fan of the work she did for Purity Ring (look how magic these posters are).

Here's a copy of the email I sent to Tallulah, hopefully I'll here back from her at some point, it'd be really lovely to talk to her and get a little insight into the process behind her work. 

Making Contact

I've decided to bite the bullet and try contact one of my chosen Illustrators.

I decided to email Manjit Thapp, an illustrator who's use of colour and hand-rendered images are an ongoing inspiration to me. I feel it'd be really interesting to have an opportunity to talk with her about her practice and how she found where her practice sits within the creative industries.

I tried to keep the email formal but relaxed, I was struggling with what to put in it but I'm hoping I made a good impression. Hopefully I'll get a reply and I'll have the opportunity to ask her a few questions!

Looking Into Branding

I've been spending a little bit of time thinking about how I would go about branding myself as a professional. I feel that this is something that's going to be really important to my overall practice and professional appearance. I regret not spending time on this throughout the year as I feel I could have planned and developed my own branding and started to present myself more cohesively. Some of the things I've been thinking about is the tone of voice I need to convey through my own branding. I need to be able to encompass my practice and personality clearly so that this is something that is communicated to potential clients immediately. I've also been thinking about how branding can work across different platforms and what kind of social media/promotional materials I could use. This could include:
- business cards
- website
- professional instagram page
- Facebook page
- online store
- letterheads
- promotional mailing packages

I feel I would benefit from looking at examples of other illustrators branding and i feel this research is something that I will be undertaking over summer so that I can begin to develop my own identity. I remember going to the AOI talk earlier this year and the information we got from that in terms of self-promotion was really useful. They mentioned creating little mailer packs that you can send to studios/clients in order to get their attention. I've ordered some A6 postcards of my work in order to be able to start creating these little packages to send out to people. This is something I will be building on and developing more over the summer.

Presentation Skills Lecture

I fucking hate presentations

So I went to the presentation skills workshop to try and not hate presentations so much

It was useful, but I still hate presentations.

I got a few useful things from this talk such as how to structure a presentation and how to use things like book-ending to pull a presentation together and splitting the presentation into three sections and introducing these sections at the start of your talk so that both you and the audience can keep track of how far through your presentation you are. There were also a few things about behaviour during a presentation that i thought were quite useful, such as the speed and pitch that your talking at and giving yourself pauses between words and sentences.

Like I said, there were a few things that I found useful and I feel like they'd be easy to apply to my own presentations IF I wasn't so nervous and anxious about presenting in the first place. I feel like for me I could have done with more tips and tricks and how to stay calm and how to mentally prepare before delivering a presentation because I know as soon as I get up in front of people, I'm that much of a mess that I don't give a second thought to hand gestures or the pitch of my voice, focusing on things like that when I'm already ridiculously stressed has just made me more worried throughout the whole thing.

Association of Illustrators Talk

Self Promotion:

Website - image based, simple. functional. professional, blog and keep up to date, contact details easily available on website. Another idea might be to start a collective, get work as a collective and help each other get work individually

Keep A Blog - update regularly, creative but professional, don't be too inspired by current trends/creatives, nurtures self-initiated projects and ongoing ideas, do it right or don't do it at all

Social Media - Keep professional, either separate your personal profile from your professional one or transition your personal profile into your professional profile. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are viable routes of commissioners. Bechance is good for keeping on online portfolio and showing process.

Study the industry, research the client
AOI client directories
Bikinilists.com

Physical Mailers - A6/A5
Email - Attach imagers, spell their name right, first impressions count

Invest in yourself - Print things

Keep own registered business - register for income tax (after 3 months of steady work), up to date accounts, retain all claimable receipts, keep paperwork involved with every job

Tax Returns - four times a year (use apps zero and quickbooks)


Copyright and Licensing:

- Does not require registration or a copyright symbol
- Licensing - lending to a client
- Property right - automatic when doing work
- There is no copyright in an idea/style
- Copying substantial part of a work infringes copyright
- Copying key image from the work could infringe

Copyright is assigned by you to a client, strongly advised not to do this because of money, loss of control and clients

Moral rights - automatic but can be waived
- Right to paternity
- Right to integrity
- Falsely attributed

Rights online
- low res files 72dpi and name as file name
- use copyright symbol on everything
- terms and conditions of website/social media use/filenames

Contracts can be written (formal) or verbal (informal)

Accept commission in writing before starting any work
"WHO is going to do WHAT by WHEN"

cancellation fees
rejection fees

Acceptance of commission form on the AOI website


Pricing

DO NOT WORK FOR FREE

- Quote accuratley
- Don't work on a day fee
- Find out everything (clear briefs)
- License is separate to selling an original artwork/prints
- Re-license
- Actual uses rather than potential usage
- Allows for additional negotiations and fees for additional usages

Above the line advertising - publicity
- Print - magazines, posters, out of home
- Digital - social media, adverts, banners etc

Below the line advertising
- Not paid space
- Fliers, direct mailing

Editiorial - circulation - abc.org.uk
client, usage, territory, duration

Packaging - usage, territory, duration

Buyouts - can mean copyright assignment

AOI INFO

Student membership
- access to members only section
- support via email and phone
- varoom magazine subscription

@theaoi


I found the AOI talk really useful but also overwhelming, I don't think I fully realised how much consideration had to go into how you manage yourself as a business and how you interact with clients and present yourself online. I'm really wanting to look more into my professional image and start to consider how I can attract the attention of potential clients. I think my downfall is that I don't really take myself seriously as a 'professional' and don't feel I have the skills or abilities to be asking for money, but this is just a confidence issue that I'm sure I'll get over at some point! Anyway, this was really useful, I'm definitely interested in joining up when I have a bit more money spare!

Rachel Denti

Rachel Denti is an Illustrator and Graphic Designer I have recently discovered. I found some work of hers that she created for z in that focused on how the world looks to a person that suffers from anxiety, 'where everyday elements become constant reminders of bitter insecurities'. Although not my usual preferred style of work, I really love the simple shape and line based illustrations and the use of halftones to add depth and texture. I also really like the incorporation of text into her images. This is something that i occasionally like using in my work. I know that maybe you should be able to communicate a message using purely image, I do feel that incorporating text can further push that message and enhance what you are trying to communicate, especially with things that may be a little more abstract.

Print Processes

504 really taught me a lot about how to use print as a way to enhance my work. I spent a lot of first year trying to produce things that were 'handmade'. I know realise that this can encompass printing as well as just drawing and trying to produce work in that sense. I'm really keen on all of the different print processes I encountered in 504, monotype, lino and screen printing, and started to clearly see how I can work across these processes in order to push my work a little further.

I like the messiness of monotype, it gives off a raw, busy kind of vibe. It links up a lot with the hand drawn, line based imagery that is a part of my practice. The only thing is it's a little difficult too do. It's hard drawing things backwards, the paper moves a lot, finger prints are inevitable. BUT I feel that this adds to the uniqueness of this style of printing. It is messy, it is kind of spontaneous. I feel that it's something I'd like to explore a little more, and possibly see how I can cross this method of printing into others, such as screen printing.

Lino Printing has also been something that I've been really drawn too. I like the sharpness of the lines, the precision and the texture that can be achieved via different ways of printing the lino. I also like the kind of woodcut/etched style that comes along with printing lino. Don't get me wrong, printing lino with colour looks great but I love just solid black lino printing. It's so bold. This coupled with screen printing your end results allows for overprinting, the addition of colour, and other elements to further add to the end image. 

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