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.