Summative position statement

Dear John,

I'm not entirely sure who I am as a practitioner right now, I used to think I was character and narrative based but I don't ever really want to put the narrative in and my characters rarely get to a professional standard. I think I need to learn quickly what it is I want to do with my characters and to push them forward if I want to keep doing them. On Instagram I  mainly follow great character illustrators so I should start looking properly into what makes their characters better but more importantly I should look at their portfolios to see where their characters go in the real world, beyond Instagram.

I think I'm moving into applied pattern as I find it a lot easier to see what I could do with it, which makes more excited to push it forward. However I think Fred was right when he said that I can't just work therapeutically, which is what I do with pattern. He also said that he think I do it to find an easy resolution. This could also be true so I'd like to work with character and pattern equally. This should make my practice more rounded and professional.

I'm going to apply for another Hallmark placement so that they really remember me and to get some more solidified experience. For this I'm going to make work that I can direct at them, more applied pattern and mocked up cards with my characters.

I'll also be going onto do Thought Bubble in november so I'll be making fan art and product based work for a while. This should help me figure out what it is I want to do within my field and it should keep me working on illustration while I get a boring day job.

In my long term, pie in the sky style plans are to eventually make a children's book for flying eye books  and to design all new characters/mascots for the Sea Life and the merchandise to accompany it.

Summative evaluation

Dear John,
I have frequently viewed this module as something I have to do over the three years and not something that I've enjoyed or felt was necessary. However looking back, particularly over last year and the this year, I can see how it was necessary for me and allowed me to slowly absorb the more professional side without just being told what to do when we leave.

Through this module I have branding, promotional material and an online presence that I can be happy to show to professionals. Without it I wouldn't have any idea of how to make these thing to a professional standard and they would have ended up being an after thought.

As well as this I also applied for and got a placement at Hallmark. This would have never happened otherwise as if I hadn't had to contact people, I wouldn't have wanted to bother my friend about it. At Hallmark I really learnt that I could actually do this as a job, I loved just sitting and working on my illustrations as a task in an office, it was strangely exciting. I also learnt that while I think of myself as the awkward teenager that I used to be who could barely talk to most people, I'm actually fine around people. That I actually like meeting new people and that most likely everyone will be lovely and will want to help. This was really important for me as I persuade myself out of doing things that put me in situations that I can't control, it showed me that it can all be ok.

 While I didn't really get many replies from contacting people, I did gain the confidence to do it. I've learnt that the worst thing they will do is ignore you and I can easily live with that and try to persuade them to pay attention to me.

I'd like it if this module actually got a little more focus as I really enjoyed making work for fun and for exhibitions but I hardly ever had time with my other briefs going on. This is what I miss about visual narrative (Matt's class) in first year, you were reminded every week that illustration can be fun as well as work. I think PPP could also do this if it was given more time.

I should have spent more time on PPP over the year but I got a bit caught up with feeling bad and stressed for a long time so I ignored it. I knew this was likely to happen from the start though so I started out strong and was able to get on top of it a little bit.

Presentation

Dear John, First thing is that I have to tell you that I've had to take my hallmark slides out for my blog as I'm not allowed to post the work I did there online but I will be submitting the foiled samples I made there. With this presentation I overcompensated as the past two years, I didn't have enough and I ran through it really quickly because I was nervous. I also had to lean into the chatty side to be able to stand up there, this would be fine if I had managed to keep an eye on how long I'd been talking for but I was also trying to avoid standing in the corner and hiding. I should have allotted more time to making this as I ending up making a whole thing about my three years here. However to me it's hard to separate the progress that I've made as an illustrator and becoming professional. I would have liked to have condensed the progress though so I had more time for the business section as I really had to speed through it in the presentation. Unfortunately for me, rehearsals rarely play like the real thing, even when I make a script or detailed notes (like I did for this) I can't guarantee that's what I'll say when I'm up there. I'd like to continue to get better at this though and I've improved since the first time I did a presentation so this feels achievable.

Presentation boards

Dear John, Here are my presentation boards, they display and explain my creative presence across my promotional and professional media. I have maintained consistent branding throughout my media and I have demonstrated this on my boards. I'm pretty happy with the finished result, particularly the promo pack; it took a long time to find the appropriate mockup, I had to modify one to suit the look I want mine to have, naturally taking up a fair bit more time than I had first allotted for making the boards. I feel what if I was to physically make my promo packs by hand they would lack a professional quality and That I'll need to find a printer who can produce them for me, like I did with the business cards. I also know that if I were to hand do them myself it would be difficult to mass produce.

Portfolio

Dear John, I think my portfolio could be better but I tried to manage the layout and to show off my favourite work. I also did a quick mock up or two of my punch pattern to quickly show how it can be applied. For after hand in I'd like to have more applied examples of my work in there but I think it's a good place to start.

Awesome Merch

Dear John,

I got this very annoying text today saying that my business cards and stickers will arrive as I'm in the middle of handing in. Next time I'm going to give them loads of time to print them as it took forever. Though admittedly, I imagine they had quite a lot of orders at this time of year. 

AOI lecture

Dear John,

I found the AOI lecture really useful and I definitely will be joining them as soon as I start getting payed for work. It'll be incredibly beneficial to have people avail be to ask questions to when I'm no longer a part of the college. I really wish she hadn't have sped over the pricing section though as I'm still not really sure of what I should price my work as. I do know however that I've definitely been underselling myself. I intend on getting The illustrators guide to law as soon as possible as I know very little about the legal side and it sounds like a really helpful book to keep around.

The main advice and help I'll need from the AOI is:

• Legal 
• Tax
• Pricing 
• Copyright 
• Online rights 
• Getting payed 

Also some info that really stuck out to me was:

• I have the power to negotiate 
• Don't settle for bad clients
• Keep all physical hand outs like receipts 
• get as much info about the brief before agreeing to it as possible 
• I don't need to have registered copyright or have the symbol on my work for it to be copyrighted  
• Photographers have copyrights as well so be careful with reference 
• I deserve to get payed even if my work isn't used 

Linked in

Dear John, 

I finally did as I promised and made a Linked in. I've ,mainly connected with people of the course so far but I also made sure to connect with Rachel, who I worked under at Hallmark. I added a few art directors and publishers as well that I spied while looking through Hollies profile.

A Reply!

Dear John,

I got a reply! She doesn't want to answer my questions but I wasn't really expecting her to and I think it's really considerate of her to thank me and to direct me to a relevant blog post.

Chocosweete

Dear John,

This is another illustrator who works in a totally different way to me but the use of colour and light is just incredible. I really love the way she uses illustration to document her travels and the people she hangs out with. I'd really like to have a more autobiographical approach to my illustration, I've mildly dabbled in it but I'd like to really push it further. I've started to ask for advice in a way that is what they would tell themselves as I think that if I get any replies it'd be really interesting and it seems a little more engaging then just asking for advice.

Iraville

Dear John,
While I love the use of colour and the characters themselves, it's really the poses that impress me so much. Each of these characters looks so natural in a way that mine never do. this is something that I'd really like to improve upon. So I asked her for some advice too.

Jared Mulat

Dear John,

This illustrator is better known for his other work but its his angler fish series that I've been in love with for a while. He has used glow in the dark screen printing ink to show bioluminescence  and I decided that I would ask him some questions about how that went for him and tell him that I'm working on a similar project right now. 

AndSmileStudio

Dear John, 

This is AndSmileSudio and while some of her work is a little bright and busy for me, I really like how she does it. Each aspect is well produced and looks gorgeous, this is the level that I would like to get to with my work. Particularly with the pins she makes as they're fantastic.  

Frannerd

Dear John, 

This is an illustrator I know as Frannerd and I lover everything she does. Her colours are perfect, I think I'm pretty good with colour but I frequently stick to what is possible or regular. She proves that I don't need to do that and it can look great if you don't. I also love her use of little lines to just add a bit more texture, this is something I should have a play around with. I've also contacted her because I got onto a bit of a role of contacting people that I can fangirl over and just ask them if they'd like to give me some advice. I've tried to keep them personalised to each illustrator though.

Orthotics Brief

Dear John, 

As Paul kindly passed on the email and details of the orthotics brief to me I decided to really quickly send off some of my already made pattern. It might not go anywhere, particularly as I didn't design anything specifically for it but it felt good to be getting out there and trying for things. 

Simone Grunewald (schmoedraws)

Dear John, 

This is an illustrator that I know as shcmoedraws on instagram, I find her character sketches really engaging and I'm really interested in the different poses she uses as they look so much less static than mine. I'm also interested in copiying her project of drawing her outfit as it would be a good daily challenge that would build up my skill set really quickly.   

#Illustration

Dear John, 

This obnoxiously long list is from all the people who liked my work in the span of  2-3 days after I applied the illustration # to a favoured selection of my work. Unfortunately I din't gain any new follows but it's nice to see that people do like my work and it can get out there if I try more than a tiny bit.  

Social media

Dear John, It took a little playing with but I got social media to be consistent with the rest of my creative presence.

Etsy

Dear John,
I have an Etsy! It's all new and shiny, and it means that I can maybe start doing official trade of my work for money. which is just great. i don't have a lot listed yet because I'm still trying to work out what I've made that people could want but I'm getting there and I can start promoting it on my social media. I made my logo with the background the image for my shop as it's my business and so it would match the pattern I was using as the banner. I did use my portrait as my artist photo though. i deliberated a little on whether I should use the big header or the little one for a while but as the little one doesn't show on mobiles and I wanted it to be consistent I opted for the large one.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/potatofinch

Updated website

Dear John,
I've updated my website considerably, it has new work on (better work) and a much clearer, easy to browse format. I have my separate projects, with their own slideshows and I have my about me page with how to contact me on it. I have also linked my brand new Etsy to it now.

I also updated one or two illustrations for my website as my work has improved considerably over the year and my new self portrait replaced the old one on my about me page.

http://cargocollective.com/potatofinch

Promo pack mock up

Dear John,

I made a mock up of my promo pack. it doesn't show the stickers I'd have or that I'd have a few more samples of my work but this is very close to how I'd like to make mine. 

Creative CV

Dear John, I started out with some really rough sketches of what I'd like it to be and with all the drawn elements. I also tried some of my hand written text to go with the potatofinch header but it didn't look good next to helvetica. I found this really hard to do as I'm really not a graphic designer and I have barely anything worth putting on a CV but the research I did seems to have payed off as it looks so much better than I thought it would.I kept the whole thing in the colour scheme of my logo but I decided to barely use the orange so it wouldn't be really visually busy. i do think that the exhibitions section could be improved though as it still ins't perfect but I got to a place that was better than where it started out.

Self portrait

Dear John, After looking at the creative CVs on pinterest I noticed that my favourites had little photos or illustrations of themselves and when I looked at the illustration of myself from last year I thought it was time for a new one that will more accurately portray my abilities. I had this sketch of myself already from a long train journey and as I was staying in my reflection it is more detailed then some of my normal work. I also had a bit of a breakthrough with this. As when I tried using the pale colour on the hair I realised, while it wasn't right for my hair, light coloured lines on dark colours look so good. So when I did the lines on the shirt I chose to do the lighter lines over the dark red ones I also tried. Another thing that I did with this that I wouldn't normally do, was to make the check pattern on my shirt. While I didn't do it mega detailed or super like my actual one, I am really happy with how it turned out. Especially when the colour got to a point that shows what it is without detracting from the rest of the image. I knew that this was to tie in with my branding so I made the background my faded logo and used the pink/cream from the pattern as the table. This should ensure that it all ties together.

Creative CV research

Follow Rosie's board creative cv on Pinterest. Dear John, This year I wanted to make a useful creative CV. So I actually did a bit of research this time. I have heavily used these as reference for how it should look. I like the ones with info graphics best.

Oh Natural!

Dear John, 

After talking to Lauren about my print idea (that became my branding) she approached me about an exhibition she was involved in setting up. As I'd had a print in mind already, my logo work was to an A3 scale and I was able to use it for it's original intention. I'd always thought it would look really good in the middle of white space, particularly as this would accentuate the tight, clean circle of leaves. I was featured on their Instagram (I have Lauren to thank for that) and it was really nice to see my work in that context as well as being really good promotion.

Stickers

Dear John,

As I'd had some thought about stickers and they were available on Awesome Merch I decided to put an order in for these as well. I thought it'd be cool to have alternate stickers and business cards as they match.

Business cards final

Dear John, I was happy with most my designs and a little unsure what to do next, so I made a bunch of paper prototypes and went on a poll of the studio. i got some really good feedback. Including Rowena's suggestion of a totally new combination of front and back (which with a little tweak became one of my finals). It was also from talking to Zara that I decided on having two business cards, as they're similar enough to work as a set they won't be confusing but it also allows me to shake things up a little bit. After I decided on the final two I looked at places to get them printed and chose Awesome Merch as its nice and local. It turns out I didn't quite to the bleed right but they really helpfully corrected it for me.

Business cards back variations

Dear John, Here's all the backs I made. They're mostly different placing os the text but it was really useful for me to make all of these as it allowed me to see it properly and work out which I want. I think that plain back is just boring and that the faded pattern back is still too busy. I really like the one with the edge of my logo on it though.

Business cards front variations

Dear John, These are all the variations I made for the possible front to my business cards. I don't think the plain pattern ones are very strong but I really like the other three.

Business cards quick sketch

Dear John,

While I was drawing out my logo, I did some quick sketches of what I want my business card to look like. I had some ideas for some more dynamic shapes but I think they would make it too complicated for easy mass production. I might get some round stickers though as I really like the look of the round designs I did.

Business cards research

Follow Rosie's board business cards on Pinterest. Dear John, I did a little business card research before I made mine, I really liked the ones that a circle in the middle or had a pattern covering the whole of the front side. I think this is the direction I'll be going in.

maruti_bitamin

Dear John,

maruti_bitamin is one of my favourite artists out there and she really inspires me to both create more analogue work and to create in general. There is a fluidity to her work that I find incredible.

She also makes wonderfully weird things with lovely colours. 

She also captures the fishy underwater theme without having to be incredibly accurate, which is so impressive as that ocean vibe is really elusive.

On top of that she's great at applying her work to products that she sells. I think I'm in love.

So I thought I'd send her a fan girly email and send her one of my illustrations that she inspired me to make.

Pattern

Dear John,

I also made a pattern out of my logo variations that can be applied across my branding and media. the first one is just a play but I think the look of them overlapping is actually quite interesting. It also shows that on the white background it looks unfinished and floaty. I put a very pale pink/cream as the background on the proper pattern and I think it brings everything out, while also letting it become one thing. 

Email signature

Dear John, 

I applied my new logo to my email so that I'm always signing off with who I am. I did try the one with my name underneath it too but to have the lettering legible it had to be massive and that looked rather silly at the bottom of an email.