final end of year ppp presentation

OUIL502 PPP module evaluation

I found this years PPP has been really beneficial in my development as an illustrator in terms of branding and the industry itself. It has definitely addressed the key concerns of mine that I have perhaps been to scared or ignorant to think about, like the big question of ‘what happens after I graduate?’ though at times I found the PPP sessions quite confusing and theoretical, especially learning about service sectors and creative industry, I appreciate that this is an important part of business.

 I have found the weekly session with John very helpful and have learnt a great deal about self-promotion and things to look out for when dealing with a client such as copy write, legislation, pricing of work.  Though I could not of asked for better advice, I still struggled with the idea of defining my practice in the form of a promo pack, let alone defining myself! I am a very indecisive and hesitant person, which made it difficult for me to come up with new work to visually communicate myself or choose from my existing work to do so.

However I persisted and focused on myself as an illustrator and a person, which allowed me to figure out what message I want my promo pack to communicate about myself. This process has made me still back and think about  design style and where I feel my strengths lie, something I should do more often as it has allowed me to focus and develop on what works and what does not.

I feel content with my promo pack that is represents me, as a person and as a creative.

Because I am dyslexic, I find it hard to communicate myself well which does not help my confidence, something which I feel hold me back from branching out and talking to people about my work, especially professionals as I do not want to appear stupid. Thankfully, the main thing I taken from this module, especially creative presence is confidence. I feel a lot more confident to approach others or contact professionals now I have learnt how to deliver questions and myself appropriately. I also feel reassured that this is hard for everyone and you have to start somewhere! I plan to start with emails, which will hopefully allow me to build a relationship up with clients or professionals which will with any luck make me feel more relaxed when meeting them or talking to them on the phone.

I have also set up a number of social media sites presenting my work, something I would have been to embarrassed to do last year due to lack of confidence in my work especially with such strong competition. The feedback and comments I have got of the back of these has given me more faith in my work, encouraging me to keep it up!

I feel I can now call myself an illustrator, though I obviously illustrated in first year I still felt unsure about what an ‘illustrator’ does and how they become successful In their profession.

I feel I have grown up from last year, when discussing ideas and the industry with peers and tutors I feel more like a practitioner rather than a student.

I am clearer of how to persist in a career in illustration whereas I felt clueless about this in first year, which was one of my main concerns, before, I new I loved to illustrate but was unsure how my skills could be put towards a potential career.

I think a strength of mine this year it that I have made a point in blogging each lecture we have been given, which allows me to go back and remember key points about branding, and the industry etc I will need to know for future reference.

I think my main weakness within creative strategy and my work ethic, as a whole is not getting someone to proof read my work before printing. Annoyingly I always find one mistake I miss no matter how many times I proof read. This cost me in money but also vital time.

With my promo pack, I wish I has experimented or revised the paper stock before printing as I feel the paper I have printed my creative cv (the pack) onto is not idea for transportation as I t It marks very, very easily resulting in the pack looking grubby, especially with it being a white background.

I feel the most vital thing I have taken from this year is to drop the attitude that work will come to me when I finish uni, I now no it is all down to me branding and getting myself out there for potential clients to see. This is something I need to be working on from now onwards!

Presentation notes

Still trying to develop my tone of voice

Recognizable style or brand identity

Therefore this year I want to figure out

How and where I would exists in creative industry

What area of illustration my practice fits into

My worries for the year

Keep the momentum up after the summer break

Confidence or ability to do it all over again especially with the expectation of work to be of higher standard

 

 Aspirations to experiment further with etching or drypoint.

Assumed process would be ideal

Detailed

 Rustic

Handmade quality

Ironically required to produce a set of prints for our 504 module

Unfortunately lost desire

Unpredictable

Unruly

 Frustrating for me as I like my work to be precise and accurate!

In addition to this animation

Overall

Challenging and exhausting module learning 2 skills at ones

Constant battle of not being happy with the quality of my work

Eventually accepted unrealistic to expect outcomes at the same standard as professional printmakers and animators I have been influenced by

Influenced me to change my attitude towards rest of my work not to compare myself to others.

If our work was all the same, the world would be a very boring place

This being said reassured choosing single disciplined course

would not suit my illustration practice

 

Hard to adapt to longer modules

Balance my time accordingly

anxious about what I should be prioritizing

Worried that I would be doing enough for each

Spent the majority of the first term on 504 as this was first to submit

did not work in my favour when other modules came creeping up

learning curve independent study

 

term 2

off the page exhition

first experience of selling work in an established environment in a professional manner

had to concider

presentation and packaging

summarization

pricing

interesting to see that I sold prints I wasn’t expecting to – ones I almost didn’t want to exhibit,

Shows that I am perhaps too critical of my work, and that my opinions on a successful piece are the same as others.

Potential taste of further

Made me think outside education bubble

This term momentum picked up

Encouraged me to pull myself together

More time doing less time worrying.

Spent majority of term on responsive

Module influenced my consideration of audience

And applying my work into a plausible context

Vital to a successful piece of work, especially commercial.

this module also encouraged me to work on the Presentation of my work for competition summissions with presentation boards

making sure it was clear, organized and recognizable as a set  

 

I also focused on the practical side of cop this term.

As my essay disscussed the preconceptions of homeless people

Took part in external project at st Georges crypt to gain primary research

Visited crypt weekly

Improved understand

More passionate about topic Inevitably made me enjoy producing outcomes

Experience has made me more clear about my area of interest

Creating work relating to social issues as I can connect to it on a personal level and I feel this best suits my delicate way of working.

I have always found cop a daunting module lack of confidence in writing

Addressed this early one on one tutorials

Module become less overwhelming as it was tackled

Week by week.

Reassurance my work was on the right track

 

505 –

Helped me rationalize my workload to what’s realistic.

Downsizing my expectations and brief gave me a specific

and focused directions.

Giving me more time to develop outcomes to professional finish

new illustrative technique informed by contextual reference

instead of creating replicas of photographs I began to illustrate the sense in a abstact way

this year especially

Appreciated position I am in being surrounded my other creatives at LCA.

responsive and pp lectures have made me acknowledge the benefits of collaboration with other disaplins to improve or advise me with my own practice.

I collaborated with photographer William kneeshaw to take photographs for me to draw from for 505.

Asked for advice from graphic designer Liam Bailey about my font and layout choice.

Consulting with them has given me reassurance and confidence in my work as they specialize in wach of the creative fields so I trust in there opinions.

 

term 3

Applying illustrations to different formats,

encouraging knowing that existing illustrating can be reformatted and appearing new without having to start from scratch.

Visiting tetly book fair

Reignited my love of creating illustrative books 

Influenced my idea to produce a book for my 505 submissions.

Creative presence addressed my interest into how I can get myself out there.

Quite reserved person but weekly sessions with john gave me confidence in my work and made me realize my practice will not be considered or recognized without self-promotion.

What I will take from this year

I aim to continue to blog little and often as this makes it easier to reflect on my progress at the end of each module.

Think realistically about workload and what I can achieve in the time given

Continue using learning support to help me structure my time accordingly.

Take advantage of other creative at LCA

What I want to do next:

 Continue to develop work to a professional standard, considering its production, range and distribution.

contact professionals I am influenced by for advice and experience about the creative industry I will soon be venturing into.

Continue to develop my illustration aesthetic in general!

http://www.daviddownton.com/couture/

street pattern

its really inspiring seeing the transformation of a simple sketch onto a variety of platforms.

OUIL505 end of module evaluation

Though it was quite daunting having such a open brief, I was looking forward to being able to explore a subject I was interesting in.  I wanted to be able to draw ‘things’, whatever I felt like drawing as I feel I haven’t had the freedom or time to do this in a while, so I decided to focus on celebrating ordinary life/things. I wanted this project to express appreciation about what we have and not what we don’t.

After speaking to tutors, I realized this idea was far to broad and I needed a defined outcome and a reason for the production of the outcome.

To narrow my project down, I began to focus more on ordinary scenarios people find themselves in rather than both people and objects.  I started by finding photography that show people in their natural habitat, scenes that would go unnoticed if the moment were not captured. My aim of exposing these scenes is to create a feeling of nostalgia, empathy and recognition because you have perhaps experienced or done them yourself.

Though I found some really powerful images these were not my own and I wanted to personalize the project. I firstly decided to take my own photography of what I thought were ‘unnoticed moments’, so I could make my work specific to my concept and exclusive as a publication.  However I felt this was unsuccessful as my images were not sharp enough thus making it difficult for me to show detail in my drawings. This instigated my collaboration with a photography student who could visually communicate and capture my ideas to the standard I needed.

i knew i wanted to create detailed figure illustrations to emphasize how individual and inimitable each person/moment is and how we do not see all these little details unless there are captured and bought to attention.

To create the focal point on the figures faces I experimented with using line drawings with specific detail on the faces and simplified details on the body and backgrounds.

before i started finalizing my illustrations of unnoticed moments, i wanted to be clear what format i would be drawing them for. i experimented with the idea of a book, i thought this would be a ideal way to show multiple ‘unnoticed moments’ thus adding to the concept that they happen regularly.  i also put together a mock up concertina booklet which i felt would again emphasize the idea that these moments are all around us . Though I like the idea that each page in the concertina is seen as a individual moment but also as part of one big scene, i found it difficult to jigsaw each moments together to create a believable scene.

As well as making sure my resolutions were created to a professional level, to resolve my brief, I had to think about my work in terms of its product, range, and distribution -not just a single resolved piece (book). Though I feel I have definitely become more aware of my work in context, especially after taking part in competition briefs in our responsive module where I was required to produce work for book covers etc. I found it quite difficult to personally give my work a purpose that would be plausible in the real world. After talking to tutors I decided to mould my illustrations for a charity campaign.

I think If I was to start this project again I would have decided on the application of my work first (charity campaign) as I would have been able to make the concept of my book more fitting to the charity’s perception and sensitivity, communicating a stronger link by illustrating issues the charity’s demographic can relate to.

 it would of also saved me time thinking about where to apply my work in the environment as I was able to quickly establish what platforms other Samaritans campaigns have used and where they have applied them, using this as a guide instead trying to impose my work onto as many platforms as I could which would not necessarily be in places the charity’s demographic would be most receptive.

I feel this module has been a big eye opener in that it has allowed me to appreciate that i do not necessarily have to produce new illustrations when I need to publicize and apply my work to different platforms as I can reinvent existing illustrations by cropping, removing or adding elements to maintain recognition to the original pieces whilst still making them look individually created for other formats. For example my poster resolutions, I transferred the figure illustrations only from the book and added the paired quote in a appropriate area. This is something I can definitely use in other modules and in later life such as self-promotion, instead of creating new work to promote myself such as business cards, I can take crops of existing work giving It a new feel.