Hopes and fears

In this blog post I will be talking about some of my hopes for what I want to achieve post degree and some of the fears I have.

Unlike some of the others on my course my aim isn’t to go into editorial illustration, instead I’m building a brand which has been the goal even before I took this degree. The course has helped me come up with new ways to do this and has also let me see what alternative paths I could have taken. It sounds like I’m just set in my ways but I can tell you I have given each avenue suggested to me plentiful consideration. I have come to the conclusion building my own brand is the best way to get to get my work to its intended audience and maintain my artistic integrity while doing so. With my style of working I can’t wait around for art directors see that my style does have a place in their publications.

 One of my hopes is that I will become a better salesperson; it’s something I will need to work on. The course has helped me build confidence in my work, now I just need to become more socially confident. One of my fears is I could set up my brand in the wrong way since I don’t know much in terms of registering a business and how small businesses are taxed. To remedy this fear I intend to take a short course in business to help me market and properly set up my brand, since I’m not going down a more traditional illustration route there are gaps in my knowledge that need to be filled.

The course has also helped me step out of my comfort zone before I would have been hesitant to email people but now I find it a lot easier and know that the skill will be necessary to contact stockists.  Due to my anxiety I would often catastrophize things like sending an email or asking someone to give me feedback on my work but through repetition it’s getting easier. This takes me onto a fear of mine I’m afraid my anxiety will get in the way of potential opportunities, there are techniques I have learned to help with my anxiety through the past few years which will hopefully help me in this regard.

Another hope of mine is that through my brand I can help de-stigmatize mental illness and work with mental health charities to help fund services for people suffering from mental illness and raise awareness of what people can do to help those who struggle with mental illness. Mental health is a subject I have often brought forth in my practice and I fully intend to continue to do that outside of university.

I think a lot of people leaving art and design courses have a fear of getting sucked into jobs not related to their preferred field, I can say that in my case I’m not scared of having to pick up a day job to support what I want to do. If anything I’m actually looking forward to having that experience. I don’t think I will ever be able to stop making work which is why I don’t feel threatened by having to do other things to get by. Being an illustrator is not a stable job which scared me a lot at the beginning but I’m not limited to just being an illustrator. With that I don’t fear failure because I will never stop trying and that’s the only true way to fail.

The fear I have had is that my direction is a lot more fluid than others; it can come across as me not knowing where I am going because there is not as many boundaries to what I can do. There is no need for me to limit myself to just doing t-shirts, prints or books. The thing about creating a brand is you can explore many different outcomes under that umbrella instead of limiting myself to just illustrating other peoples book or articles. Creating my own content suits me better otherwise most of the time it feels like I’m forcing my style to match up with content that it doesn’t go with.

Final show considerations

I've been thinking more on how I want to brand myself, while looking at places to get my work printed I stumbled across dStudio which is a printing and framing service which offers bamboo paper which is more environmentally friendly www.digitalprintdesign.co.uk/papers/. 

There is also a 20% discount on getting your work printed on Hahnemuhle Bamboo 290gsm paper which is a nice incentive. It says on the website it is especially good for vibrant colours so it should be perfect for my work. 

Visiting Practitioners: Group portfolio feedback

On 20/04/2016 I went to Cake and Doodle and asked if any of the illustrators there could take a look at my portfolio and give me a bit of feedback. Most of my feedback came from Luis Gainzarain who is a Graphic Designer and comic artist from spain and Marta Gonzalez 

Luque who is a freelance photographer who also dabbles in illustration and animation.

Feedback from Luis Gainzarain

You should think a bit on the Why? What? and Where?

Why do you do the work you do? Is it self expressive? Does it have a message? Are you pursuing a stylistic ideal?

What are you going to do to convey what your work is about? What form will best convey what your work is about? What audience do you need to market your work to? (Who will appreciate what it is about).

Where can your artwork go? Where is your audience going to be? Where will your work be seen by the right people?

There isn't a right or wrong answer to these questions you just need to know what your answers are so you can take a step in the right direction.

Reflecting on the feedback

For why I create my work I would say it is primarily self expressive but I would also say I was pursuing a stylistic ideal but I have gotten to a place where I am happy with my style but I still like to play with different mediums it keeps my work fresh and exciting. 

Not all my work has a message behind it and I've come to terms with that. I think in the illustration world right now creating decorative work is frowned upon and seen as fluff in a way. But maybe I just want to create bright and cheerful work sometimes that doesn't particularly have a hard hitting message behind it, I don't think it is wrong to do. There is a Japanese principle called "ma" and I think ma can explain why I do my work the way I do. Ma is the space inbetween the action, if you want to see ma in practice Studio Ghibli is a great example. So my work which is mostly for decoration is my ma as you will, it is the break I need from my hard hitting work. In terms of studio ghibli ma comes after important parts of the story to help the information sink in and to transition to the next plot point. Ma comes in the form of mundane details for example a girl has a hard day at school lots of bizarre things happen. The ma could be she goes home and runs a bath and just goes about her normal routine before she is thrown into the next set of ordeals.

 But I do also create work that does have meaning to it, I mostly focus on mental health and opening up that conversation and making the whole subject less taboo. That work is often very introspective and it takes a lot of energy to translate it into an image.

The what for me it to make prints, to make stories and t-shirts, I basically want to make the topic of mental health as accessible as possible. The more people are exposed to it the easier it becomes to talk about it. And I want to approach my decorative work in the same way, if someone wants to wear my designs doesn't want to wear a t-shirt about mental health instead they want something a bit lighter in tone I can also supply my customers that option. My main audience is 13-25 I think the younger end of my audience will like my work for it's style and the older end will appreciate the message behind some of my pieces.

I think in terms of where I could sell or display my work I think there is quite a few pathways I can explore. Comic conventions are where I have had the most success up till now and I think with me producing t-shirt they are going to continue to be one of the best places to sell. I've had varying levels of success when it comes to selling my work locally, children and teenagers are my main buyers when I sell locally. I have recently started to see a raise in street artists taking an interest in my work and I feel like paste up's might be a good way to reach that audience. I think selling my work online could work if I concentrate on actively advertising, as of now I have had no success with it but I think that is all down to me not giving my etsy and redbubble enough exposure.

Marta Gonzalez

Sometimes you need to experiment with platforms and what you are creating, the best thing you could do is just try things to see what is a viable option or not. And I would recommend just getting a regular job first because it helps you develop as a person and helps you gain confidence.

(when I mentioned Fig Taylor and her feedback regarding my work) Even professionals can give bad advice sometimes, just because one person tells you something won't work for you doesn't mean they are right. I don't see why you couldn't do editorial illustration for more alternative magazines. Don't let one person tell you what you can or can't do.

What might be unpopular now might be popular next week or next month, trends change so don't base your decision on where you want to go with your work on what is popular right now. What is selling now might fade out of fashion in a few months, what has faded out of fashion a few mouths or years ago might have a resurgence. If it is selling even if it's not selling much keep doing it, if it isn't selling at all that's when you need to consider shaking things up a bit. Just keep doing what you love doing and keep developing it.

Reflecting on the feedback

I think Marta really helped me realise that just because my style isn't popular with art directors at the moment it doesn't mean it never will, and maybe it's not worth worrying about how popular or unpopular my style is. Sometimes you just need to go with the flow.

Other thoughts

When I mentioned Fig Taylor I quickly found the people who did know of or have encountered her have a rather low opinion of her. One woman said when she was a student Fig Taylor gave her feedback and she said it was useless to her and ended up being completely off. She said Fig had been out of the industry for too long and didn't really have much of a grasp on what is currently popular. and to take what she had to say about my work and what direction I should take it with a pinch of salt She also said Fig was the one approaching universities to do these feedback sessions not the otherway round which it's a very good sign. 

Business card designs and considerations

I started thinking about my business cards back in February, I started by ordering a sample pack from Moo and deciding on their minicards. I loved the feel and look of the luxe minicards but because I wanted to attach a plush character (I call him Clarence) to the cards it would mean having to punch a hole. Even though I really like the luxe it would have probably been to thick to punch a hole through. So I ended up going for the original matte minicards.

Upon further feedback I have decided to match the characters bow to the colouring of the card design, and I have decided to only make 10 cards with plushies attached and to make sure the designs can hold their own.

First draft 

First Draft and Second Draft

Final Clarences (without bows)

For my final Clarences I switched the handmade pom poms out for pre-made ones, making the process a lot faster and the final outcome a lot neater.

For the cards I choose two designs from work I had already done, the design on the left was for my research project but the version put into my research project has been edited further to be a better fit. The second design is from my personal work and I added the purple to make the design fit in more with the other design.

Graduate panel

Back in January we had a panel discussion with Chris Madden, Barney Ibbotson and Emma Reynolds.

It wasn't all that useful in terms of advice for me personally because my work isn't really suited to editorial illustration. They didn't have much experience selling online and were rather negative about selling online. It left me feeling panicked about what I can do with my art.

On a positive note they brought some events to my attention, cake and doodle being one of them along with draw northwest. And attending cake and doodle made me aware of exhibitions and other events which are taking place.

Cake and Doodle 17/02/16

After the Chris Madden, Barney Ibbotson and Emma Reynolds talk (which will be detailed in my next post) I looked into Draw Northwest and some of the other artistic gatherings which take place in Manchester, this lead me to Cake and Doodle.

This week I decided I would attend the Cake and Doodle gathering. It takes place every Wednesday at Ziferblat on Edge Street at 7:30pm, Ziferblat is a unique venue in the fact that tea, coffee, cake, soft drinks, juice, biscuits, cereal etc is free you are charged based on how much time you spend. The rate is 6p a minute so that's £3.60 an hour. So if you are planning on attending keep in mind you will be charged for your time spent.

The gathering is a good way to make industry contacts in fact one of the women who attended works with Emma Reynolds. It's a very open environment and you will often be asked what you are working on and given advice and critique if you express you are open to it. It's a very relaxed and friendly atmosphere. And in addition it's a great way to find out about exhibitions and events around Manchester and it isn't just limited to illustration. Through this weeks Cake and Doodle I learned about O!PLA 2015 which is a night of polish animation on Friday 4th March 7:30 -9:30pm at Ada house, 77 Thompson Street, Manchester. It requires a ticket since seats are limited.

I would definitely recommend attending Cake and Doodle not many attend every week so just come along if you happen to have a free evening.

Gallery Visit: Richard Goodall Gallery

Yesterday I visited the Richard Goodall Gallery in Manchester. I was really impressed by the work on display and I could see my work fitting in there. They sold work from a range of artists and my parents ended up purchasing a print.

I discovered two new artists the first being Jay Ryan.

Jay Ryan is an American artist specializing in screen printed posters for rock bands and concerts. I love the quirkiness of his characters, they are cute but not overly cute and it inspires me that he has actually produced artwork for bands and he has even produced album artwork and track illustrations. Being a big fan of music I would love to produce work for bands.

The second artist I discovered goes by the name of Daniel Danger.

Daniel Danger is based in the New England region of America, I love his use of colour and the subject matter of his work. I have recently discovered that I find old abandoned buildings absolutely fascinating so his work instantly appealed to me. His work is almost akin to documentation, you will find many urban explorers love to document abandoned buildings before they get demolished and are gone for good. By the looks of his instagram @tinymediaempire he does dabble in urban exploration. 

   

Hattie Newman visit

I'll start this off by saying Hattie Newman's practice and mine have very little in common but her talk was still interesting and there were still things I took away from it.

One of the things she does that I am quite curious about is window displays, I won't go as far as say it is something I am going to do but it does interest me. She has also dabbled in animation which again is an interest but not particularly something I'm going to pursue. But she did talk about fashion which I am interested in getting into but in Hattie's case it was advertising for fashion companies where as I want to design my own fabric and design t-shirts.

Some things which inspired Hattie was the Muppets and Thunderbirds which are things I remember quite fondly from my own childhood.

She mainly does editorial stuff which Fig Taylor advised me against so a lot of what she talked about in regards to that didn't really strike a cord.

She told us when it comes to clients they like to see you are always pushing your work in new directions and that you never stop pursuing to develop further as an artist. And she stressed the importance of making connections within the industry. 

Her work was fascinating, she made her sculptures from paper each taking her weeks or months to create.

This was her design for The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park map, she said this was one of the most challenging projects she had ever worked one because everything had to be in exactly the right place where in other projects she could get away with things being a bit inaccurate.