End of Module Evaluation

PPP Presentation

Creative Industries Report

Life's a Pitch

Here is the final presentation for our Life's a Pitch brief. We chose to look at a couple of different aspects of creative industries- setting up a collective and putting on an exhibition. The brief was good fun and the group worked well together, we've also decided to actually make a go of the collective and will hopefully be taking part in group briefs in the future and especially over the summer.

Illustration in Advertising + Marketing

I wanted to look at how illustration is used in marketing and advertising so I scoured the web for a few examples of illustrated advertising campaigns. I came across a few that I wasn't necessarily a fan of the illustrations, but the idea remains- big companies want illustrators.

I was unsure at first weather this was something I really wanted to move towards, as I thought the work could be slow. But it seems there's load of opportunity for work as an illustrator, which is pretty exciting.

OUIL505

505 was a real eye-opener for me. I knew I had an interest in marketin gand advertising, but this brief really pushed me to explore this, and I really enjoyed this. I definitely think this fireld is something I would like to move into in the future, and I will begin looking for this type of work.

I like the blend of graphic design and illustration in the field, and the thought process behind the images needs to be a lot more in depth, application, colour and composition are incredibly important.

Here are a few images from 505 that I like the most, I think they best reflect where I want my practice to go in the future.

Brush Design- Shopify

So now that I've had a few briefs under my belt with the brush design, I am starting to gather quite a bit of custom from both amateur and professional illustrators/ artist/ graphic designers. The work load is steady, about 3 clients a week, which usually equates to around 50GBP a week. However, none of the brushes are exclusive to the client, which means I am allowed to sell them externally to others at my will.

The biggest issue I'm having with them is finding a 'shop' to sell them at. My housemate works in a similar way, selling digital products online, and having spoken to him about what formats to use he recommended shopify.com- a website that allows you to make customised shop fronts for selling products. He explained that it's relatively cheap, and makes the payment process incredibly easy.

I'l hopefully look to start setting this up over the summer, and hopefully look to turn it into an actual business.

https://www.shopify.com/plus/enterprise-ecommerce?term=shopify&Network=Search&SiteTarget=&mt=e&adid=188476595030&adpos=1t1&CampaignId=788843419&branded_enterprise=1&BOID=brand&gclid=CObd0sqv79MCFeGw7QodSKoCFw

Creative Industries Report

My main goal with this report was to explore the boundaries between graphic design and illustration, and where the two meet and possibly contrast, as well as considering the types of clients I may encounter and how I might encounter them. I chose to interview Patrick Jackson- a graphic designer who's work is quite illustrative and who has a background in illustration.

I wanted to explore what lead him to his individual practices and where he sees his practice at the moment. In our interview Patrick said 'My current practice is heavily dictated by the client; I guess if you make work that people like the 'graphic design' element of, you will probably get more work as a graphic designer, and it probably works both ways with illustrators as well'. When questioned about the lines between graphic design and illustration, Patrick responded by saying 'I personally think the two blend relatively seamlessly, a lot of it is about portraying and image or mood, and both the applications have their place. If you can do both then brilliant, you've basically doubled your potential clients'. I think what Patrick said about both applications having their place makes sense, that each has an appropriate use and it will probably depend heavily on where the client wants it to go.

I then asked Patrick weather he struggle with wanting to add in illustrative elements to his graphic design projects, he stated that 'not every brief is the same, some clients will allow you to get away with putting your own stamp on a project but others will have none of it; it's totally dependant on what the client wants- you have to be assertive in what you think should be done, because you're the professional, but there's also an element of arse-kissing, cause they're essentially the ones paying the bills'.

Patrick told me that 'it's hard to find work as an illustrator if you're mainly doing graphic design work', explaining that 'it's like telling everyone you're the best portrait photographer in the world, and then wondering why no one is asking you to paint their portrait- they're the same but totally different, but I don't think they're exclusive in that you can't do both, you've just got to be shit hot at both'.

I also asked Patrick about how he finds clients, or if clients find him, he replied saying the majority of his clients 'have either worked with or know someone who's worked with' his agency before, and 'often the work falls into our laps', but that 'a lot of the work we [Patrick's agency] do is very similar- clients know what we do well and that's because we do a lot of it'. He explains 'I don't find much use for Instagram as a graphic designer, it's not very often I get that kind of work through social media, I think it's the corporate world and those types of clients we get just don't look at those kinds of interactions.

Creative Industries Report Questions

For my creative report, I want to discuss the boundaries between graphic design and illustration. My practice seems to be moving somewhere between the two, so I wanted to discuss the differences with practitioners who do the same.

OUIL505 Evaluation

Planning my Presentation

Last year's presentation didn't go too badly. I actually don't mind presenting. I'm not doing anything fancy with my presentation, just straight up talking. Hopefully the rarity of me actually being in uni and talking to people will create enough interest... Probably not.

Last year I think I ran out of things to say, that's probably because the presentation took 20 minutes to make and I rehearsed it exactly 0 times. This year I will. I think 20 sides should keep me busy enough, and hopefully the regular change in slides will keep people awake. I'll look at the 20 slides consisting of the following:

1- Intro to me and my practice (quick)

2- Where my practice is moveing (marketing and advertising)

3- Where this move has taken my work (aesthetic + content)

4- Change in process

5- Focus on advertising 

6- Examples of work and discription of brief

7- Change in approach to my work

8- Creative concerns surrounding marketing

9- Maketing Industry 

10- Thomas Danthony- LA

11- Thomas Danthony- Process

12- Malika Favre- Fuertaventura

13  Malika Favre- Process

14- Aims- Marketing work (product and location)

15- 16- What I want to know more about

-Phychology

-Techniques

-Working in the industry

-Publishing + Copyrighting

- Agents etc

17- Brush Design- Intro
18- Where I am and where I want to take it.
19- Next year
- Do more briefs
- Develop my practice
- Work with more retailers+ small businesses
20- Summary
21- Questions?

OUIL501 Evaluation

Following on form OUIL401, I was fairly nervous about getting started with COP this year. Essay writing is not something I have ever been very good at so I was a little bit apprehensive about considering a research question. However, once I got started, I found that the research and my discoveries were influencing the direction of my work really well, and that I wasn't struggling with being stunted or stalled by obstacles, the process ran really smoothly. I found that from the discovery of new information, I was constantly changing the title and direction of my essay as I was trying to fit in other parts of information and trying to make them relevant to my essay. Having spoken to some other students about this issue, I decided to just stick with the title I had, and only include information that was relevant to that question. This made the process much easier, and I found myself working much more efficiently.

I think he essay is by far the weakest part of my submission- as stated, written work is not something I have ever been good at, and structuring an essay was one of the most difficult parts of the module for me. However I think it provided a strong basis for investigation, allowing me to follow up on theories through exploration all work in my visual journal. This has definitely shown me the importance of context within my practise, and that academic research can be as important to my own practice as visual research is. I have really enjoyed allowing my learnings to influence my practice and I think it has lead to me using more collage and including satirical elements into my work.

Using satire is not something I have really done before, and it wasn't something I was ever really that interested in before. However, after working with satire during SB2, I found that I really enjoy making that type of work and it's hopefully something that I will look to include in my practice a lot more, and possible work with in COP3.

I really enjoyed working within the visual journal this year; I wanted to really expand on my work in SB1 and I think my visual work has evolved quite far from it, whilst still keeping with the theme of the essay. This was something I was quite worried about towards the start of SB2, I thought my visual journal was starting to stray a bit too far from my investigation in SB1 however having spoken to my tutor, they explained that it was good that my Visual work is taking on an identity of its own and that I am able to explore as many ideas as possible. For me, my exploration with collage has been a real learning curve. Having never really worked with collage before properly, I wanted to explore this ,ethos as fully as I can within this module and I feel that some of my outcomes have been really successful. I will hopefully start to use certain elements of collage in my practice in future and think it will definitely help to benefit my style of working.

I think something that held me back during the module was my attendance to the workshops and sessions. Towards the start of the year I was attending the seminars etc but towards Christmas I seemed to lose sight of the value of attending the sessions and therefore stopped attending. I feel that my essay could definitely have benefitted from having some guidance through my tutors a bit more. However, I think I benefitted from the freedom of being able to explore visually on my own, without much outside influence as this is usually how I prefer to work.

Looking back at the module, I feel like I have invested my time somewhat badly. I placed a lot of importance on the essay and academic side of it; focussing on constructing an academically impressive piece of work rather than focussing on what I think COP should be about- allowing the context behind the work to influence and evolve my own personal practice. If I were to do the module again, I would look at investigating visually at the same time as producing the essay and allowing the two to work harmoniously rather than using a finished essay to influence a body of work. I think this way of working would allow me to be much more reactive and also allow me to respond more reactive;y to ideas and theories.