Visit from Craig Oldham: Music Design Agency

 At the beginning of November we had we had a visiting lecture from Craig Oldham, who works for a design agency called MUSIC.


 http://www.designbymusic.com/




Craig was a very entertaining guy and I loved his enthusiasm, it was really nice to see a genuine down to earth person from industry, (as I've previously found some people a bit pretentious)!! During his visit he spoke mainly about the relationship between art directors and illustrators. 


Craig went through 3 or 4 projects that MUSIC have completed working with illustrators, and explained in some detail about these jobs. He spoke about the difficulties he has faced when illustrators do not get it quite right, and so he would have to look around for someone else to finish the job. He spoke about managing his budget, and said he still had to pay illustrators even if he didn't end up using their work. He spoke from his point of view, and it seemed like his job could be frustrating at times. He explained that it's hard to find us (illustrators), and advised us to have websites and do as much self-promotion as possible. However, you could sense his excitement when he was talking about successful projects, and working with compatible illustrators. He clearly has respect for illustrators, which was apparent when he was speaking about them. 


One project that Music completed was 'The Big Four'. These were a set of posters promoting Manchester City Football Club.

Craig gave us advise about negotiating money when we are working, and told us to ask what the budget is. Other advise he gave was to make sure that any e-mails we send to people within industry, are personal and to not send generic e-mails. Always address who you are talking to by their name, otherwise they most probably will not respond! 

This was a very interesting and eye-opening talk!

Hopes, Fears and Opportunities

We were asked to have a discussion about our hopes, fears and opportunities, for the final year at university, and after becoming a design graduate. 

I think we all had high hopes for our final year and we all wanted to do well obviously. For myself it was about really finding my niche and progressing with my own style. I wanted to learn how to further my process, and have been doing a lot of research and have found lots of new inspirations to help with this. I wanted to learn a lot more about photography and lighting, which I feel so much more confident with now, and every time I complete a project I feel I have gained that little bit more experience with using the equipment. One thing I really wanted to do was to learn more skills on the computer, such as Illustrator and also how to make animations, I have not achieved  this yet. I do not want this to be my downfall! My main hope was to have a portfolio that I am proud of which I feel I have achieved, and I have had great feedback about my work which makes it all worth while!

My fears, well I have a few! Firstly it's time, I am a mum and studying at the same time which is real hard work with having such a huge responsibility. Juggling my personal life and professional life is a challenge to say the least. I feared I would struggle with deadlines, but I think is more a confidence issue and not trusting in my ideas at the beginnings of projects is what has sometimes got me behind. I fear that I may not be able to think of ideas when I am in industry, and I work much better when given a specific brief. I am not keen on open briefs that we have been given and I think that's where the problems start! Once I have started a project and I feel my idea is strong I throw myself into it and I really enjoy myself, I just hope I don't hit certain hurdles in future. Other fears I have are to do with technology! I am not a computer whizz and I don't want to be but sometimes I am lacking a few skills, but I am slowly learning through the help of my kind class mates! I feared that I would miss some important meetings at uni due to having to be elsewhere, which sadly has happened. I did not have the opportunity to meet my graphic guru and felt I missed out. 

My aim for my future is simple, I want to be a successful illustrator! Managing my time effectively will enable this and so university is great for preparing me for industry. I would love to further my style, try new things, be daring and experiment. I recently had a portfolio visit and there may be an opportunity to show my work to exhibition and events organisers who manage stage sets. It would be amazing if I was given the opportunity to design a set! I would love to see my work in a magazine one day, or to design window installations would be a dream! I know after graduating it is going to be a struggle to say the least with all the competition out there, but I feel artists who hand-make their art works have a slight edge, it's different and genuine and requires skill. It's only my opinion and I respect illustrators who work digitally but for me you can't beat hand-made! It is so versatile and can be applied in many different ways. I may like to make my own things to sell which is something I have thought about too. I think I'd like to work as a collective or have a studio space with other creatives around me to keep the inspirations flowing! For my final major project I really want to push myself and my ideas and move up a notch. I want to work bigger, I'd like to create something that can be experienced. Working on a larger scale will enable people to walk into my work, which I want to be about taking them back to childhood and creating a sense of nostalgia. I am currently thinking of a theme for this and will carry on with my research for ideas and inspiration.   

Website Research

The next thing I need to do is set up a website so people know I am here! I have been a little put off as me and technology are not the best of friends, but I am advised that there are simple ways of creating your own website. 

In the meantime I have been researching other illustrators/designers websites and deciding how I would like mine to look and function. I obviously want it to be easy to use and quite simple so my work can be the main focus.

I discovered an artist called Laura Heit who does some lovely work involving experimental animation and puppet films, and I really like her website. It is easy to use, and it's fun as she has incorporated some animation into it. It has a really friendly feel to it which makes it user friendly. I like how you are able to see thumbnails of her work before having to click and scroll through. There are clear headings separating illustration, puppetry and animation which is great and makes it easy to locate what you are looking for. 

http://www.lauraheit.com/

Another website I like is Kate Slater's. It's clear and easy to navigate around. Kate has headings for her blog, facebook, twitter, shop, info and contact. Each piece of her work is displayed on the homepage and can be viewed by simply clicking onto it. I would like my website to be very similar to this. 

http://www.kateslaterillustration.com/

I think I will most probably have headings such as portfolio, about, contact, blog, and when I set up a facebook profile that is specifically for professional use, I will have that on there too. I would like my homepage to represent me so I will create something new for the design, something appealing to grab interest. 

Contact with industry

I have recently been trying to set up portfolio visits within industry to get any advice that I can! I have already had a portfolio viewing in Manchester's Northern Quarter at 'Taylor O'Brien', which was very helpful and gave me an insight into industry.

I have contacted a few illustrators that work mainly with paper as I think they can answer more specific questions I have about my working process, and I'd also like to know what sort of clients and jobs they tend to get, and what I should be aiming for. 

I have had recent correspondence with Hattie Newman who has invited me for a visit in the new year, which I am very excited about! 

I hope the other artists I have contacted have time to see me as it would be very interesting and beneficial..I will keep you updated with any visits!

Rob Ryan

I love this new and exciting piece of work by Rob Ryan. He has deigned a window display for Coutts Bank, it is on display right opposite Charing Cross train station in London. 

Rob Ryan is raising money for an organisation called Kids Company. Incorporated into his design are items such as a stuffed elephant, a dolls house and a rocking horse which will be auctioned off to raise money.

I am really growing fond of this large scale work I see becoming more and more popular. It makes it feel more like you are having an experience viewing it, rather than just looking at something on a piece of paper. I would imagine the design has been laser cut which I have experimented with for my Zine Brief, but I would like to expand on this and experiment further. I will be taking part in a workshop in Manchester to learn skills in the very near future!

I am realising that many artists that work with paper as their main medium tend to do installation work, and I am really keen to try this. I take photos of my paper cutouts but you can not quite capture the magic as much in a photo, it is totally different when you are in the studio with the lights off and it's lit up, there's something nice about it, something nostalgic. Having the freedom to move around and view the piece from different angles gives it a whole different aspect.

Bug Project for The Manchester Museum

We recently visited The Manchester Museum and was briefed on our new project. The museum are holding an event on Saturday 28th January where our work will be on display and there will be activities for children to enjoy.

http://events.manchester.ac.uk/event/event:b1j-gv2iyhr3-dff5z1/

The brief was to illustrate bugs for children. We were asked to create an A2 poster correctly illustrating our chosen bug, for educational purposes. We were also asked to create an activity surrounding our chosen bug, other options were to create a book or 3D models.  

Before choosing which bug we wanted to illustrate, we were shown the museums amazing bug collection! I fell in love with the butterfly wings! ..But I wasn't keen on the spiders I have to say!

Below are some photo's I took.

Obviously my chosen insect was the butterfly! I chose to work using the same method I had adopted for other briefs. I found this brief challenging because we are trying to educate children and so the insects had to be atomically correct, which made me feel a little restricted. Also I was trying to show the life cycle of a butterfly, and so instead of cutting out a million butterflies and suspending them and photographing them..(which is what I would of loved to do!!)..I had to make sure I had things in the right place and it was starting to feel more like a diagram. However, I did my best and I have my poster!

For my activity I am creating butterfly masks that can be cut out, and decorated with bits n bobs such as sequins and other nice things! 

       

Visit from Lord Whitney

A few weeks ago we had a visiting lecture from Lord Whitney. 

Lord Whitney are a collaboration between Amy Lord and Rebekah Whitney, They are two university graduates that have set up business together and they do some very exciting work! They are playful and inspired by all things wonderful! They have created work for a wide variety of events from festivals to exhibitions, they enjoy creating magical environments. One particular festival they continue to work on is the 'Just So' festival, it looks wonderful! 

http://www.justsofestival.org.uk/

http://www.lordwhitney.co.uk/

They have so many amazing pieces of work, I have posted a few of my favourites above. I think I can relate to them as I work with cutouts and suspending elements. They tend to work with a 3D aspect and on a much larger scale which I feel is the next progression within my own work. 

They spoke about their journey from being graduates to how they have got where they are now, and reassured us that it can be a struggle but to persevere. There doesn't seem to be any set path but to just try new things and knock on a lot of doors! They advised to begin by doing work for free, this is great exposure, but also warned us not to let people take advantage.

 I asked the girls what  working in a partnership is like, and wondered what would happen if they had different ideas on a project, but they said they seem to cope with this fine and tend to agree on the same things and make decisions together. It made me realise that I would like to work alongside someone but it would have to be someone I fully trust with decision making, and someone who has similar ideas and ways of working as myself.

After the lecture Lord Whitney visited us in our studio and set us a quick brief. The brief was entitled 'Compound Nouns'. We had to mix two words together that wouldn't usually be associated, and then create whatever we wanted to illustrate this.

I worked with Emma Thorpe, we started by writing words on pieces of paper and picked them out of a mug! The compound nouns we had were 'jam river' , 'spoon moustache', 'ribbon tree' and 'cutlery tent'. We decided to create 'cutlery tent'.

We had so much fun on this brief and got stuck in straight away, we had almost completed the brief by that afternoon! We learnt we worked well together and there wasn't so much pressure on yourself when you have two peoples ideas and two peoples input. 

Here are a few pictures of our creation!

       

We would like to continue this brief if we can find the time! It was very enjoyable and I think we could create some great work!