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. 

Client list part 1

The Wire Magazine

Music magazine often has photographic covers but strikes me as being quite experimental.

Art Director: Ben Weaver

Creative Boom Online Magazine

Online magazine showcasing graphic design, photography and illustration.

Founding Editor: Katy Cowan
(No specialised art director)

The Skinny

And independent culture, music, art magazine.

Doesn't have a specialised art director but does have artist showcases and emerging artists segment.

Fused Magazine

Art, music, fashion magazine.

Features some quite unique artwork looks like the most promising publication so far.

No details on who to contact on their website but they do have a Facebook page.

Hedonist Magazine

Independent magazine focusing on street art, Street style, photography etc.

No specialised art director contact via website.

The Hundreds

2-part lifestyle project that houses both a clothing line and online-magazine. Co-founded by Ben and Bobby Hundreds in 2003, both ends of The Hundreds incorporate our trademark attitude and personal perspective on street subculture, with an emphasis on people over product.

Unfortunately if they are interested they'll come to you not the other way round.

Thoughts so far, I'm finding it really difficult to find where my art would fit in an editorial situation. I thought independent magazines would be the way to go but they either don't have art directors or work on a "we approach you, you don't approach us basis".

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.

   

Feedback from Fig Taylor

Yesterday Fig Taylor came in to have a look at out work and suggest directions we could go in.

First she gave a talk on finding clients. She talked about having a strong style with diverse subject matter is what art directors might look for in a portfolio, if an art director can't see in your portfolio you draw cats for example they won't hire you to draw cats. She warned us against buying mailing lists of clients and sending out generic copy and paste emails because it is a fast track to being blacklisted by those clients. She told us to only target clients who you think will be interested in your work, if you are contacting a client who is the wrong fit you are basically just wasting your time.

Fig talked to us about two different illustration pathways

Mainstream which is editorial which has a fast turnover, book publishing where your designs will be heavily shaped by the retailer, and advertising which is where you can make a lot of money but it has to go through a lot of people who will demand a lot of changes.

Gift industry which more about making products like greetings cards, wrapping paper and I assume things like t-shirts and apparel etc.


Fig's Feedback

After the talk she sat down with groups of us and gave us some quick feedback on where we could go with our work.

When she got to my work I couldn't help but feel she didn't know what to really suggest, she told me that art directors don't like manga influenced styles but she didn't know why that's the case because it is rising in popularity with consumers. So pretty much editorial would be hard for me to get into but there maybe some more quirky children's magazines like Aqila I could try. She kept wavering on if my style would be a good fit for children or would be better aimed a tweens and teens.

She suggested I could try and get into character design and if I was to include some of my roughs in my portfolio but otherwise stick with finished pieces. She also suggested I could try selling my work for tattoo flash.

Her biggest suggestion was for to try and sell my work online on sites like etsy and redbubble. But she also said hardly any artists get popular selling online.

My Thoughts

I don't think Fig Taylor seemed to grasp my work and it's audience. I have most success selling to people aged 11-25 yet Fig kept telling me my work was only for children, tweens and early teens. She didn't explicitly say I should go into the gift industry even though that seems to be the obvious best fit for my work. The whole experience was very de-motivating for me but I have to keep in mind my work is a bit out there and is very niche so I can't expect everyone to understand it.