8X8 Book Launch

This has to be one of the best feelings in the world, and it has given me to biggest boost in confidence that I no what I'm doing something right in my work and all my work is starting to pay off. Every undergraduate students dream is to get one of their piece of work published well I have along side my fellow students work as well. I was a second year when I produced this work and if you have followed my development of the 8x8 brief this is the final post. 

The Launch of the book was Wednesday 30th October at Manchester School Of Art

I got a chance to talk along side the writer of the amazing story I illustrated by Sian Burns called Never Endings. This is the final outcome. Proudest moment in my life, and I hope I will have more of these moment if I work hard and not give up. An that is what I intend to do.

Thankyou for everyone who was Involved in making the book & My tutor Jo for the opportunity 

Children Book Development

What I first started looking at for the brief are children's books.... Some classsical book from my childhood and some more to date childrens books. I did this to look at the audience and age groups that childrens books are aimed at, my age group is around 5 to 7 years old. So looking at classical books like The Guffalo, Roald Dahl and Cat in the Hat allowes me to look at the qaulity of the illusrtations as well as the lanuage of the text... for example? How much text is on one page? is it intergreated with the illustrations or is it seperate? I also wanted to look at the book for influence on layout, size and scale of the illustrations as well as the book's themselves. Most books come in different sizes I think for my book I will keep it to a A4 size as I have elements that I want to strech over 2 pages and I think the A4 size will give me enough space to do that, but I will find and explore more elements as I bring my rough book together.

McMillan Children Book Brief & Story

After a successful start to the year its decision time yet again with 5 different briefs.... Presented with presentations and briefs I decided not to continue my Scary Stories Project and work on a new brief that is very close to the kind of work I want to be producing after Graduation. The McMillan Children work Brief is a great opportunity for me, the only challenge that presented itself was producing a story. Talking to my tutors  I felt the best way to combine my narrative style illustrations with a story is to research classic fairy tale old folk law stories that were at least a 100 years out of copy right ( which means are no longer printed or owned by anyone) and by research into these stories it allows me work with what the text says, this process from working with text is what I find more comfortable and I can change elements of the story if I need to. The outcome will be a front & back page with 2 copyright pages. If the book is successful the extra 32 pages will be an exciting challenge.

Mini exhbition

My first Mini Exhibition for Third Year. How exciting???
This first exhibition I wasn't sure what expect looking at last years exhibitions and the quality they show in the presentation of their work has to be just as good as mine. What really helped me was planning what the exhibition space would look like? measuring the distance and finding the center of the space allowed me to focus on that correct amount of images I need and what other elements I could incorporate into the exhibition. I wanted to my 3D set to be shows in a very professional manner along side my research file and sketchbook what I will do to improve this is maybe to attach the set to the wall and hang my file on the wall. This allows the space to be a lot more clear to the viewer. I incorporated my characters to the space of the visual effect allowing your eyes to move across the 3 photographs, to the set an then down to my characters.
Overall I felt is was a very successful mini exhibition and allows me to gain more experience for when I'm setting up my final degree show.

Final 3D Outcome

Producing my final outcome presented a challenge to be at first, trying to work with the scale, lighting and how to create a black background to translate the shadows from the characters.
But as they say I took the bull by the horns and ran with it, it was something that I hadn't worked with before and it gave me another chance to experiment with different piece of technology like working with a camera for the first time.
What I would change about my work would be the quality of the camera I used, I felt it didn't deliver the detail and the strength of colour I was looking for.
I would if I had more time done practice outcomes and maybe allowed myself more time to become comfortable with the equipment I was working with.
I would also change the printing quality and not us the Uni Printers for Final works and go more professional printers for better quality of prints.
But overall I felt my work was taken into a very successful direction and has made big steps already at the start of Third year

Art Director Presentation

Combine my research from the Varoom Article and Glaros Pod caste I think that asking questions about art directors and communicating with them is less of a challenge because you are working together even though they are you clients, This presentation was about what I though an illustrator does? And what questions I should ask an Art Director is they are interested in my work?

Art Director

AD's

Art Editor 

May have experience in Graphic Design, photography or Art themselves

Art Buyers

Have knowledge of Commissioning illustrators & Designers with in AD's Agents

Creative Director

Over sees the creative process looks at the final collection of illustrators and is responsible for the final work in the book.

This presentation has given me great advice on what questions to ask in regards to size or the image? Keeping in contact? Deadlines for drafts? Fees? Printing Deadline? Asking them what they had in mind for the work? Being Flexible but not a push over? This information is key to my success and will be taking this on board and creating table of questions on my wall to remind me or the things I need to ask them in the future.

Art Director Stephanie Glaros

Art Director Stephanie Glaros interview (EFII Ep 33)

It is always important to find knew inspiration for my work, but it is also very vital that I listen to the world around me and especially advice from clients that I way be working with in the future. This interview was very interesting for me, Stephanie Glaros, Art Director of Utne Reader Magazine was in felt a very down to earth person with very strong opinions and is very educated in this field as being a Graphic Designer before becoming a Art Director. She talked about how important her relationship is with the illustrator she chooses for a piece of writing and also how she finds the illustrators?? This particular part of the interview I took a key interest to make sure that I get my work out in the world very professionally so that people like Glaros can easily get into contact with me. She also mentioned adding personal touches to my business cards and if I was to send off postcard or posters with my work on to clients, make they very personal and something that the client will remember.  The way Glaros keeps in touch with illustrators is though email or telephone communication and the amount of communication she has with the illustrator depends on the writing, weather or not she wants it do like this.... or if they come up with ideas together... or that she gives the illustrator full rain on the illustration but having them send her draft of the work before the final outcome. To me this communicates a very structured relationship between art director and illustrator developing an understand and trust is a very important part of working together. 

Episode 33 of the Escape From Illustration Island Podcast features an audio interview with Stephanie Glaros, Art Director of Utne Reader Magazine.  Together we discuss Stephanie’s process of learning to be an Art Director the hard way, as well as her search for a seemingly absent Art Director community.  This episode is sponsored by Dripbook.com and TheCreativeFinder.com.

http://illustrationage.com/2010/05/04/efii-podcast-episode-33-art-director-stephanie-glaros/

Age UK Development Opportunity

AGE UK Stockport Brief has allowed me to produce some of my best piece's of work this year, so this opportunity to continue the Age Uk Brief was something I was happy to continue with, and it also allowed me to practice my time management. Working with 2 different briefs at the same time presents a challenge, one that I no I will have to face in the big wide world after I graduate.
Continuing on the Historical Buildings their were spaces that were available for more buildings and different peoples interpretations. I was given the Stockport Chapel Church, what I used in my work was a collection of pencil and my own mark making, I did this to strengthen my Visual World and not using over powering textures, because the church itself is very textured and the black & white side was something I wanted to make more powerful and eye catching, to add more materials would complicate the final outcome.
I used the same background as my Hat Museum piece, to add more unity and all so the contrast between the yellow building and the background I think had more impact.