Building a portfolio. -
Find people who inspire you and work for them (if you can)
Be different.
Promote yourself through competitions.
Always be professional.
Invest, spend money to make money. (Finding a way to do it for free is even better.)
Being a massive pain about money is vital. It’s hard to make a living off art, and it’s not helped by those who would avoid paying you altogether! Finding ways to save money and earn a bigger profit requires some underhanded tactics (never illegal or dishonest, though) and study in the field of business. You can even give a client the impression of control by adding in a few mistakes for them to notice and ask you to ammend. This creates a sense of teamwork, which makes a client feel more involved, which means they’re more likely to come back for more.
Business cards may get thrown away, but a sense of trust, friendship and reliability will stick with people. They are, however, much more difficult to hand out on a street corner. A well built website is probably the best compromise on that matter. Making a good impact on people by being friendly, charming, funny, well dressed, polite and impeccably British (Whether in real life or on the internet) is the true key to success. It doesn’t matter how good your art is if you manage to offend everyone’s sensibilities.
You can sell even the most mediocre of things with a compliment and a smile.
Being as professional as possible is the key to a successful career. Always meet deadlines, be polite and courteous. Being friendly and agreeable (up to a point) will usually sell you better than anything else. Even if the work isn’t your best at the time, show your client what you’re doing. They’re paying you to act like their imagination and delivering nothing will look a mile worse than delivering a rough idea of your concept.
Common sense tells us never to act shamefully in our work (or home lives). If your bosses emails to you are quite formal then return them with the same level of formality. Acting too familiar with a client might not be a good idea. Even your best friend becomes your boss when money is involved. Keep it that way and focus on the job at hand.
Most professionals use a personal website to promote their work. Some join with galleries (But never DeviantArt, art goes there to putrefy and die) Depending on where you choose to put your work you might get job offers, critiques or an opportunity to sell merchandise. Publishing work on sites like lulu.com or big cartel is easier than ever these days. It’s probably better not to put all your eggs in one basket. Spread your name around using as many (free) options as possible. Link everything back to whatever site you choose as your central hub. Cross pollinating and making a space for yourself wherever you go can be tiring, but spreading a wider net helps to catch more people who are adrift upon the internet. Drawing them into the heart of your work can be as simple as a button click, but you’ll never get it unless you bait a few hooks.
It’s like building an empire. You must merely march in and declare your presence. Eventually you’ll win over the hearts and minds of the native people (and if not, seek out a more suitable nesting ground, but link it to everything around it instead of letting old accounts go to waste.)
Spreading your name around these days is as simple as signing up to Tumblr, Facebook, linkedin or Twitter. The difficult part is not getting lost amid the noise. So make sure you stay true to yourself, stand out and always handle people with as much professionalism as possible. There will always be someone out there willing to bad mouth you and your work but sinking to their level will only make you look bad.
Monday, 23 April 2012
Andy Cheetman - creative futures.
20x20 visions. (Andy Cheetman)
Difficult briefs. They’re difficult for a reason. We must all learn to take these difficult briefs and bend them to our wills. The rewards for tackling something with high stakes will be much higher than gluing your art to the side of a lampost and hoping for the best. Since most of us aren’t Banksy we’ll have to toughen up our hides and start entering major competitions.
Treat all customers individually and be uplifting. Recycle ideas and pay attention to detail.
We are global learners. Learning globally. Together.
Making advertising that works as people can switch off and walk away due to the technology available to them. A good example of this is the television. A good number of people watch their televisions with a laptop, phone or MP3 player within close reach. Adverts are little more than a break in which to check emails, send a text message or listen to the same song over and over again until the boring thing goes away. (Some people keep sketchbooks, novels or kettles close by, though they’re rather more prone to walking away or hitting mute on the controller.) The trick then has to be to make yourself more interesting than an email, text message or illegally downloaded pop song.
Sop interrupting what people are interested in. BE what they’re interested in. Otherwise they’ll ignore you. Which is bad. Unless what you were advertising was something like ‘cultural distancing of the customer from the advertiser’ which is a silly idea.
The trick to being interesting enough to drag peoples attentions away from their cups of tea, games of minesweeper and reblogged pictures of cats on Tumblr is actually very simple. You meverly need to know what’s out there. How to manipulate it to your advantage and how to present it in just the right way. That’s difficult though. Which is why most adverts merely choose to try and shout at us. Which is a major, killing flaw.
Self filter - know flaws before the customer has a chance to see them, so you can explain yourself.
“Why is that fellow merely shouting about insurance in the advert?” the big business tycoon asks as he leans over his frappichino, staring at the unkempt art director before him.
The art director merely smiles and waves his hand nonchalantly through the air. He wishes he had a frappichino too, but alas he is too poor. “That’s very simple sir,” he remarks, suddenly aware that the business tycoon is perched upon a chair made from panda fur. “We did some research. People shouting is what the teen demographic are into.”
“Really?” The tycoon cocks his well plucked brow and looking rather cynical about this whole ridiculous lapse into narrative. “Are you sure?”
The art director nods. “Shouting and cat videos make up over ten percent of the internet.”
This doesn’t please the tycoon at all, and he leers at his subordinate. Chair creaking as he leans forward. “Is that all?”
“Well, the rest of it is made of porn and we’re not allowed to show that during the Top of the Pops.”
The big business tycoon considers this before nodding. “Alright then,” he takes a long drink from his mug. “Make the advert about a shouting cat instead.”
EDIT EDIT EDIT. Which the plucky art director did in order to keep his job (And I may have to do to this entry…). Editing will save your skin and help trim unrequited edges away.
To have a good reputation, don’t steal or plagiarise, common sense, and have strong ideas that relate back to your core theme - Use colours to enhance emotions, repeat patterns and pronounce important details. The key to a good theme is simplicity, hidden behind a veil of cleverness.
Which is perhaps something I should invest in more.
Difficult briefs. They’re difficult for a reason. We must all learn to take these difficult briefs and bend them to our wills. The rewards for tackling something with high stakes will be much higher than gluing your art to the side of a lampost and hoping for the best. Since most of us aren’t Banksy we’ll have to toughen up our hides and start entering major competitions.
Treat all customers individually and be uplifting. Recycle ideas and pay attention to detail.
We are global learners. Learning globally. Together.
Making advertising that works as people can switch off and walk away due to the technology available to them. A good example of this is the television. A good number of people watch their televisions with a laptop, phone or MP3 player within close reach. Adverts are little more than a break in which to check emails, send a text message or listen to the same song over and over again until the boring thing goes away. (Some people keep sketchbooks, novels or kettles close by, though they’re rather more prone to walking away or hitting mute on the controller.) The trick then has to be to make yourself more interesting than an email, text message or illegally downloaded pop song.
Sop interrupting what people are interested in. BE what they’re interested in. Otherwise they’ll ignore you. Which is bad. Unless what you were advertising was something like ‘cultural distancing of the customer from the advertiser’ which is a silly idea.
The trick to being interesting enough to drag peoples attentions away from their cups of tea, games of minesweeper and reblogged pictures of cats on Tumblr is actually very simple. You meverly need to know what’s out there. How to manipulate it to your advantage and how to present it in just the right way. That’s difficult though. Which is why most adverts merely choose to try and shout at us. Which is a major, killing flaw.
Self filter - know flaws before the customer has a chance to see them, so you can explain yourself.
“Why is that fellow merely shouting about insurance in the advert?” the big business tycoon asks as he leans over his frappichino, staring at the unkempt art director before him.
The art director merely smiles and waves his hand nonchalantly through the air. He wishes he had a frappichino too, but alas he is too poor. “That’s very simple sir,” he remarks, suddenly aware that the business tycoon is perched upon a chair made from panda fur. “We did some research. People shouting is what the teen demographic are into.”
“Really?” The tycoon cocks his well plucked brow and looking rather cynical about this whole ridiculous lapse into narrative. “Are you sure?”
The art director nods. “Shouting and cat videos make up over ten percent of the internet.”
This doesn’t please the tycoon at all, and he leers at his subordinate. Chair creaking as he leans forward. “Is that all?”
“Well, the rest of it is made of porn and we’re not allowed to show that during the Top of the Pops.”
The big business tycoon considers this before nodding. “Alright then,” he takes a long drink from his mug. “Make the advert about a shouting cat instead.”
EDIT EDIT EDIT. Which the plucky art director did in order to keep his job (And I may have to do to this entry…). Editing will save your skin and help trim unrequited edges away.
To have a good reputation, don’t steal or plagiarise, common sense, and have strong ideas that relate back to your core theme - Use colours to enhance emotions, repeat patterns and pronounce important details. The key to a good theme is simplicity, hidden behind a veil of cleverness.
Which is perhaps something I should invest in more.
Childrens Illustration - Creative futures.
Children’s Illustration - Helen Papworth.
To get into children’s illustration it helps if you love books, drawing and writing and desire to work from home, with a flexible work schedule. These are things that everybody wants. But remember to always keep a tight eye on your finances. It also helps if you stop eating for a while. A little hard work and soon your efforts will pay off, and you can eat all the decadent chocolates you desire. The best way to achieve this level of chocolate saturation is through effectively getting your name out there. This can be done in many ways. Entering high stakes competitions, submitting to magazines, slapping your name on a billboard or even more effective than that, use the internet.
IllustrationFriday.com is one of many art based websites that allows artists (and those pesky art lovers) to view each others work. It offers a weekly theme to work around if you so desire. But it is also open and free to use for everyone who wishes to. There’s no pressure or heavy criticism and offers everyone a chance to put themselves out there and meet others with similar tastes and interests. Places such as conceptart.org is very similar, but with much higher stakes. A place for professionals to submit work and get hard cutting critiques on their work. It has to be said however that getting your work torn to shreds is quite common. I’ve never been brave enough to venture forth.
Books can be produced on a small laptop, so use what resources you have. Self publishing and marketing is getting easier every day. But with that comes the threat of over saturation of the market. Make sure your work is as polished and professional as it can be. Standing out and offering up a good product will always work in your favour. It’s very rare that doing something badly will take off, but there are exceptions. Stephanie Meyers ‘Twilight’ series is popular for a reason. A good layer of polish can even sell an item that might otherwise be avoided.
The research will usually be more interesting than the illustration you produce and the facts of any given research will usually be much more bizarre. The best work we can ever do will educate people and make them want to learn and research the subject you’ve told them about. Make it interesting, fun and memorable. If a person becomes a fan of something because you’ve pointed them in the right direction, they will likely be interested in other things you can offer them. For instance, if you draw a children’s book about the wild west, presenting it in such a way that sparks off an interest in research, then that person might possibly be as interested in those other Cowboy children books you’ve written, and that history of America and the field guide to horses you illustrated. Good research will always shine through in your work. If you’re lucky, you’ll give others the research fever and make some choice comrades and customers out of it.
Keep ideas stored away, they might not work now but might be useful in the future and be sure to share them. Allowing ideas to cross pollinate and evolve stops them from becoming stale. Refer back to them, add to them and edit them. Never leave ideas to fester completely. Even a bad idea can come good in the end if you give it some care and attention, allow the context of it to shift and adapt to the projects you come across or the media you find.
Capture images and collect information. Being educated in as much as possible is never bad. Never stop at just the things you enjoy, dip your toe into subjects that challenge you, that you disagree with or find objectionable. You may feel uncomfortable but at least you will have learned something and become aware of just how many things truly exist. Sometimes you might even stumble across something you never knew existed by doing so.
Use local information, especially if you’re directing a piece of work at an audience. Remember you can tell a story without using words, which makes it easier for a story to cross cultures. But always use a beta when possible.
It’s hard to copy styles.
Always study the context. Then you can make a change in culture.
To get into children’s illustration it helps if you love books, drawing and writing and desire to work from home, with a flexible work schedule. These are things that everybody wants. But remember to always keep a tight eye on your finances. It also helps if you stop eating for a while. A little hard work and soon your efforts will pay off, and you can eat all the decadent chocolates you desire. The best way to achieve this level of chocolate saturation is through effectively getting your name out there. This can be done in many ways. Entering high stakes competitions, submitting to magazines, slapping your name on a billboard or even more effective than that, use the internet.
IllustrationFriday.com is one of many art based websites that allows artists (and those pesky art lovers) to view each others work. It offers a weekly theme to work around if you so desire. But it is also open and free to use for everyone who wishes to. There’s no pressure or heavy criticism and offers everyone a chance to put themselves out there and meet others with similar tastes and interests. Places such as conceptart.org is very similar, but with much higher stakes. A place for professionals to submit work and get hard cutting critiques on their work. It has to be said however that getting your work torn to shreds is quite common. I’ve never been brave enough to venture forth.
Books can be produced on a small laptop, so use what resources you have. Self publishing and marketing is getting easier every day. But with that comes the threat of over saturation of the market. Make sure your work is as polished and professional as it can be. Standing out and offering up a good product will always work in your favour. It’s very rare that doing something badly will take off, but there are exceptions. Stephanie Meyers ‘Twilight’ series is popular for a reason. A good layer of polish can even sell an item that might otherwise be avoided.
The research will usually be more interesting than the illustration you produce and the facts of any given research will usually be much more bizarre. The best work we can ever do will educate people and make them want to learn and research the subject you’ve told them about. Make it interesting, fun and memorable. If a person becomes a fan of something because you’ve pointed them in the right direction, they will likely be interested in other things you can offer them. For instance, if you draw a children’s book about the wild west, presenting it in such a way that sparks off an interest in research, then that person might possibly be as interested in those other Cowboy children books you’ve written, and that history of America and the field guide to horses you illustrated. Good research will always shine through in your work. If you’re lucky, you’ll give others the research fever and make some choice comrades and customers out of it.
Keep ideas stored away, they might not work now but might be useful in the future and be sure to share them. Allowing ideas to cross pollinate and evolve stops them from becoming stale. Refer back to them, add to them and edit them. Never leave ideas to fester completely. Even a bad idea can come good in the end if you give it some care and attention, allow the context of it to shift and adapt to the projects you come across or the media you find.
Capture images and collect information. Being educated in as much as possible is never bad. Never stop at just the things you enjoy, dip your toe into subjects that challenge you, that you disagree with or find objectionable. You may feel uncomfortable but at least you will have learned something and become aware of just how many things truly exist. Sometimes you might even stumble across something you never knew existed by doing so.
Use local information, especially if you’re directing a piece of work at an audience. Remember you can tell a story without using words, which makes it easier for a story to cross cultures. But always use a beta when possible.
It’s hard to copy styles.
Always study the context. Then you can make a change in culture.
BBC Wales. - Creative futures.
BBC (How to get a job at,)
There's alot more to the BBC than just Top Gear, Doctor Who, Antiques Roadshows and endless shows about celebrities who dance. There are also a multitude of talented men and women who work on and off screen to supply Britain (and now, the world) with programmes. Each one of them driven by the motto the BBC was first founded upon 'Educate and Entertain.' Although a good number of them simply do it for the money, which is perfectly reasonable working for the BBC would be a fantastic honour. A way of representing our country and feeling part of something large.
The chance to meet Stephen Fry is also a bonus.
The way to apply for a job and be successful is to take every opportunity presented to you and to be flexible. The BBC as a corporation hires around twenty thousand people annually for a range of jobs but it’s a global market, so competition is huge. I am kind of interested in jobs involving writing, and should look into doing courses for creative writing and screen plays? The BBC hires twelve production trainees a year and to apply for their design training they will require to see a portfolio of work.
To work for the BBC you have to be creative and interested, and you can apply at BBC.co.uk/jobs. Work experience can also be applied for, and lasts for 1 to 2 weeks.
The interview is competency based, drawn from life experiences but not necessarily from work based experience, so long as it’s relevant to the job in question. Always be concise. Like I just was there. Thousands of people will be competing, make your point and save peoples time. It helps to stand out by being different, interested, experienced with similar work and involved with similar projects. A level of flexibility and the capacity to multitask will also work well in your favour.
All new technology should be embraced in order to supply the most up to date skillsets and content available but there will always be down to earth jobs that need doing too. The trick is to be as useful as possible, so that not having you around causes a great deal of discomfort.
Never forget that the BBC is meant to invoke a sense of national pride.
There's alot more to the BBC than just Top Gear, Doctor Who, Antiques Roadshows and endless shows about celebrities who dance. There are also a multitude of talented men and women who work on and off screen to supply Britain (and now, the world) with programmes. Each one of them driven by the motto the BBC was first founded upon 'Educate and Entertain.' Although a good number of them simply do it for the money, which is perfectly reasonable working for the BBC would be a fantastic honour. A way of representing our country and feeling part of something large.
The chance to meet Stephen Fry is also a bonus.
The way to apply for a job and be successful is to take every opportunity presented to you and to be flexible. The BBC as a corporation hires around twenty thousand people annually for a range of jobs but it’s a global market, so competition is huge. I am kind of interested in jobs involving writing, and should look into doing courses for creative writing and screen plays? The BBC hires twelve production trainees a year and to apply for their design training they will require to see a portfolio of work.
To work for the BBC you have to be creative and interested, and you can apply at BBC.co.uk/jobs. Work experience can also be applied for, and lasts for 1 to 2 weeks.
The interview is competency based, drawn from life experiences but not necessarily from work based experience, so long as it’s relevant to the job in question. Always be concise. Like I just was there. Thousands of people will be competing, make your point and save peoples time. It helps to stand out by being different, interested, experienced with similar work and involved with similar projects. A level of flexibility and the capacity to multitask will also work well in your favour.
All new technology should be embraced in order to supply the most up to date skillsets and content available but there will always be down to earth jobs that need doing too. The trick is to be as useful as possible, so that not having you around causes a great deal of discomfort.
Never forget that the BBC is meant to invoke a sense of national pride.
Character design - Jonathan Edwards.
Character design - Jonathan Edwards.
Jonathon Edwards designed a character named Inspector Cumulus, a character he worked on and got turned into a collectible toy. It took a lot of refining and input to be sent to the factory to get it done. But the figure looked very good when it was complete, which is good. The final product was all down to working along side designers and being very sure about what he wanted. Being confident enough to tell people exactly how things should be takes some real guts and I admire that.
Tips that Jonathan Edwards gave to the students included, Never wait to be asked when it comes to collaborative work, if you feel like you want to work with somebody ask them -politely if you can- and if they say no then it’s their loss and all that. If you have any problems, attempt to ask somebody who will know how to resolve the problem, and possibly do it for you out of sympathy and pity.
Try and do it right. If you can’t do it right. Try harder to do it right the next time. (Rinse and repeat.)
Theming, repeat colours, shapes and ideas to sew your projects together. A theme can be as simple as basing everything around circles and colours but can expand out infinitely. We can theme around the culture we live in (Britishness) or use colours to theme around certain emotions. A theme is merely a core idea that grows out and embraces the things around it. That’s why research is so invaluable. To understand the core system your project hinges upon will help to simplify and condense your work. Make it stronger and more palatable.
Remember that things can change quickly and to always ground things in reality. And keep a sketchbook.
Jonathon Edwards designed a character named Inspector Cumulus, a character he worked on and got turned into a collectible toy. It took a lot of refining and input to be sent to the factory to get it done. But the figure looked very good when it was complete, which is good. The final product was all down to working along side designers and being very sure about what he wanted. Being confident enough to tell people exactly how things should be takes some real guts and I admire that.
Tips that Jonathan Edwards gave to the students included, Never wait to be asked when it comes to collaborative work, if you feel like you want to work with somebody ask them -politely if you can- and if they say no then it’s their loss and all that. If you have any problems, attempt to ask somebody who will know how to resolve the problem, and possibly do it for you out of sympathy and pity.
Try and do it right. If you can’t do it right. Try harder to do it right the next time. (Rinse and repeat.)
Theming, repeat colours, shapes and ideas to sew your projects together. A theme can be as simple as basing everything around circles and colours but can expand out infinitely. We can theme around the culture we live in (Britishness) or use colours to theme around certain emotions. A theme is merely a core idea that grows out and embraces the things around it. That’s why research is so invaluable. To understand the core system your project hinges upon will help to simplify and condense your work. Make it stronger and more palatable.
Remember that things can change quickly and to always ground things in reality. And keep a sketchbook.
Karen Cheung. creative Futures.
KAREN CHEUNG
BA(Hons) Natural Sciences (Zoology)
University of the West of England, Bristol
BA(Hons) Illustration 1st 2002-2003
Pembroke College, Cambridge University
MA Cantab. 2003-2006
Cheung states that she is obsessed with freaks, weirdos, outsiders and mythological beings.
Karen Cheung started out in zoology before she moved onto illustration due to being more interested in the doodles she would do while listening to her lecturers. She won the Macmillan prize for children’s picture book illustration in 2006 and has worked for many clients including Virgin Media, Paramount comedy and penguin books. As well as illustration Karen Cheung specialises in animation, winning the BBC new animator runners up prize in 2005.
Karen Cheung is represented by her agent, Jelly, who helps her track down work and stay productive. An agent takes a cut from the pay on offer, but you are more likely to find work using one.
Karen Cheung offers the advice that we should all:
Learn to take rejection. (Thicken our skin)
Be as versatile and reliable.
To always trust yourself.
Never take anything personally.
Do your Tax returns.
In the event that you want to get into editorial publishing then one should draw people, and check the roster of the company you are interested in, making sure to check that your style will fit in with the house style of anyone you might want to work with.
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