Studio Brief 2 What are your costs?

Organisation of boards for presentation

Organisation across all modules

This weeks plan, a very honest catching up plan :

Monday AM  - Etching. Prepare at least 3 plates and begin to etch ready to just drop in any time during the week to finish.
Monday Afternoon : PPP get onto the rest of the group to answer the questions
Monday PM : stay until at LEAST 7 to crack on with COP to blog on the forum. Email to take out a camera from photography

Tuesday AM : Clear all unwanted files to make room for animation photographs. Take USB!! Book out a camera and take photos of hand drawing quote. Work out how many frames it will take. Thumbnail how many more I think the rest will take.
Tuesday PM : Start on responsive pitchboard. Email to self so can work on this from home too.

Wednesday AM : Crack on with animation. Test out downloading songs and putting them into After Effects.
Wednesday Afternoon : Drop in to Etching and finish off the 3 etching plates
Wednesday PM : Stay behind and get on with personal outside work. Prioritise!! Who asked first? Book to get printed next week. Finish pitchboard and print.

Thursday AM: Make sure blogs are up to date. 11 oclock lecture. Print pitchboard if not already done.
Thursday Afternoon : Responsive pitchboard needs to be done
Thursday PM: Stay behind for what ever needs catching up on at this point and try do personal work.

Friday AM: Briefing on the morning
Friday Afternoon : Etching and animation
Friday PM : Personal work

Studio Brief 2 Our Business & Our presentation

• Business name
• Business activity - what do you do?
• Mission statement - What do you aim to achieve?
  
  Business objectives
• What are your plans to achieve your sales?
• Target within the first 12 months
• Promotion, what events will you throw/go to, how will you engage people
• What new products/service will you introduce in the following 2 years to grow your business?
• Long term 5 year goal?
  
  Structure
• How you are going to structure it?
• Who are the people  in the business? Employees, print people
• How many people are employed?
• What are their individual roles?
• What are their individual/joint roles?
  
  Your business
• Is it a limited company or partnership? Social enterprise, co-operative or a sole trader?
  www.gov.uk
• Why have you chosen this company status? What are the advantages?
• Products or services. Physical objects you have to offer
• Goods/services you are selling
• What percentage of turnover each will provide (eg 20% clothing 60% prints 20% exhibitions)
• Resources
  ·                     What resources do you require?
  ·                     Studio space- average cost £120 - £150 per month which usually includes electricity
  ·                     Retail area- Average cost of a small shop is roughly £15,000-£20,000 per year
  ·                     Internet domains- To create websites and such
  ·                     Equipment
  ·                     Office-separate area to do more inventory related things.
  ·                     Printers
  ·                     Printing resources such as print rooms for screen prints/etching/lino
  ·                     Drying racks
  ·                     Drying Cabinets
  ·                     Tools to do printing i.e. Etching and lino cutting
  ·                     Computers- Digital work, online resource etc.
  ·                     Tablets- Digital work
  ·                     Scanners
  ·                     Light boxes
  ·                     Basic Art supplies-
  • Paints  
  • Pens
  • Pencils
  • Inks
  • Paper
  • Etc.
  ·                     Furniture-
  • Desks
  • Chairs
  • Lighting
  • Notice boards
  • ·                     How much will these cost? to the nearest £3,000
  • Roughly £41,000 per year
  
  Stock
• How much stock do you need out at a time?
• Do you need stock to start your business?
• How much will your sales stock cost?
  
  Within the first year we will be souly building our online presence through social media and the making of our website. We will sell all products on there digitally. We won't need to create a stock at first as we will print and post on request. Eventually the vision is to open our own shop in which we would need to start stocking up products. Depending on how much work we generate, we will stock 5 prints of each design to sell. We will then translate these designs on to products which we will then have to stock also. Again five of each type, card, tshirt, air freshner, mobile phone case etc.
  
  Customers
• What evidence do you have that anyone will buy your product?
• Is it a popular product/service currently provided by lots of others?
• Is your idea completely new?
• Is there an increasing demand for your product?
  
  Who are the customers?
• Describe your typical customer
  
  Our typical customer is aged 18-30. They study at university and are aware of what is happening socially politically and culturally. They are the internet searchers, the bloggers, the festival go'ers and society attenders. They are creatives, with interest in all aspects of art. They are a little rebellious, and want to make a change.
• If you are Business to Business (providing products for another business) describe the market sector - retail, food, entertainment, cards etc. 
• Why would they buy from you rather than anyone else?
  
  They would buy from us because we have a  message, we hope to make a difference, change views and our message is humorous. It is also affordable, and a new trend.
• How much on average will they spend 
• How often will they spend?
  
  
  How will they know?
  ·                     How will you advertise? 
  ·                     Use social media such as Instagram, twitter etc.
  ·                     Create a blog on popular platforms such a Tumblr
  ·                     Use competitions as a way of name spreading, for example share a photo and hash tagging
  ·                     Have a website to show off work, contact info, prices and such
  ·                     Do events such as pop up shops at hot spots
  ·                     Make business cards/ Flyers with information for use with above events
  ·                     Get someone to write a review/article
  ·                     Go to events such as Thought Bubble and sell work
  
  Presentation preparation 
  
  I came up with the name of the business Bow Down as a reflection of how society bows down to certain cultures and what is in the media, accepting it as the norm. I took charge of the group and put together sheets of what we needed to include within the presentation and who was going to organise which part of it. I made an inital mock up of what the presentation would be like. I put the slide onto our group page on estudio for the rest of the group to see.
  
  
  
  

  

  
  I then made a plan of who needed to do what in order for us to put in a fair share of effort towards the presentation. I labelled each page with a song for each slide in order to make the presentation humorous. Humour is something I have used successfully within my presentations in the past and as some of our work would be humorous I think this would give off the right vibe. We want to stay current and almost 'trendy' so I think using songs to reflect this and having a good positive atmosphere will reign in the audience and grab their attention. 
  
  
  I got in touch with everyone to meet up and speak about what needed to be done. Who needed to create what for the slides. 
  Not everyone turned up though which was not as useful and quite frustrating at times. 
  

  
  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  I created a final to do list to sum everything up
  
  

  

  
  

  Presentation
  
  For our presentation Lewis created the layout and the slide's music, cutting them down to just the start of the chorus'
  Zara created illustrated images of us. I put the slides together, including my own hand generated font. I also created our logo. Becky and Rona wrote down exactly what we needed to say for each slide and Rona made prompt sheets for us all.
  

  
  Feedback of the presentation
  
  We had practised that day the presentation but it was difficult prior to this to get everyone together as people were pretty bad with attendance. However, on the day we felt we had it covered we went over things a lot and had our prompt sheets ready. 
  When it came to the presentation technology failed us we hadn't practised opening the youtube clips and this slowed everything down messed it up and we could not open the music clips. People were laughing but for all the wrong reasons and we were pretty slated for it. However, it was said that the idea was there and had we of pulled it off it would have been the best presentation to date. It is good to take risks and push the boundaries and I am glad we tried to pull it off even if it did not come across how we hoped, we done something different. Compared to everyone else presentations I think ours stood out and was a bit of a breath of fresh air still. I was extremely frustrated with us as a group because had we have been attending more we could have practised more together and got it spot on and I did feel that these were my ideas that weren't necessarily being translated well. I think that individually we done our fair share and put enough effort in but as a group we just didn't pull it off together in the end. 
  
  Bow Down
  
  Bow Down for me is something that has resinated as a potential idea for the future, perhaps not with such explicit work but definitely the idea of being an online presence that sells work that is putting across a certain message, making a stance or being humorous. I feel that I could perhaps take this idea and run with it in the future myself. 

Studio Brief 2 Study Task 4 Assessing the competition

Assessing the competition
Who is our main competitor? Who has done simillar work?

1. What are their strengths?
2. What are their weaknesses?
3. What opportunities have they taken?
4. What threats do they face?

I think the person that has done simillar light hearted comical work would be Mr Bingo. I've chose him because I think there's things we can learn from from him but also he has weaknesses that we can expand on.


His strengths :

• Taking a subject and making it his own. He takes a brief and spins it on his head, makes it something he is going to enjoy
• His work is light hearted and fun
• He is not afraid to take a risk
• His work sells! People want to be involved in what he is doing. He relates to people
• His work looks quick and easy to produce, not over time-consuming which is something we need whilst were at university balancing other modules
• It is affordable

What is his weakness :

• Unethical - he makes work more for money than ethics
• Not creating work to really make a change in society - none of his work really has a bold messge about making a change
• Maybe selling out too much

What oppotunities has he taken?

• He has got involved in some briefs that don't necessarily suit his style. Putting his drawings on products he has not experienced before - a risk. Learning about different methods. His work can be seen on quite a wide scale such as wall displays or really small like postcards. 
• He's involved with some really huge magazines and big dog clients! As well as work for the people
• He has taken a real opportunity with his social media awareness - he has a great online presence.

What threats does he face?

• His work becomes too limited - drawing style wise?
• He runs out of ideas of where his work can be seen?
• He doesn't take enough risks?
• He becomes too much of a sell out?

Group Pest & Swat analysis
We took each illustrator/group that we felt were our main competition and wrote them out on large sheets of paper so that we could analyse which areas we felt our business would be simillar to or tips that others have done that we could take on board. We conducted a PEST and SWAT analysis of our own business with comparison to the other businesses/illustrators to come up with what we felt were our own strenghths, weaknesses, threats and opportunites we could take.

Here are some examples:

Studio Brief 2 Life's A Pitch

As part of a group task we are to create a pitch. Our group has decided to create illustrations based on a fight against society. We decided there aren't many subcultures that mock political issues, go against society and make art based on this on a large scale. We decided that we would create a social presence through a website, and social networks selling artwork. Our artwork would be then applied to tshirts, cards, postcards, and objects that people can buy. Our work would be offensive, but on a level that is sellable and not too vulgar. It would have to be sensitive enough to be sold in shops, but still make a statement. It would be offensive in a humorous way.

Audience

Our audience was the key here. They would have to be intelligent enough and socially aware of what was going on in the news, in society, in politics to know what we were mocking and the type of statement we were trying to make in order to appreciate the humour and concept. We decided that the audience could be a new subculture we create ourselves. After our context of practise lessons into cultures we felt that this could be a great new audience to create as there are no longer popular cultures that make these large scale statements about society. We discussed how we would have our own studio space where the audience would visit and buy products but it would mostly be online. As this is the case, we felt this culture would be youngsters, in university. Youngsters buy mostly online now and social networking and online presence is key to success. This audience would hang around at music events, art fairs, and be cultured.

Cost

Our cost would not be high end but competitve and we had many aspects to bare in mind that would influence where we actually sold our work and on what products. We would have to go for the cheapest option in order to get enough of a profit, but still at a good quality.

• tshirts
• materials
• print
• website
• studio space - rent electricity
• paper
• tax
• shipping cost
  - All factors to bare in mind about the kind of work we want to create

Assessing the competition
Who is our main competitor? Who has done simillar work?

1. What are their strengths?
2. What are their weaknesses?
3. What opportunities have they taken?
4. What threats do they face?

Contextual References

Etching

Monoprint

Animation

Sound

Organising the group 

We were group 8 on the noticeboard on estudio and I made the effort to gather information together to show the group what we needed to do. We had a series of questions that needed answering about our business so I thought it would be best to each take a section and fill out the answers in order for us all to have done a fair amount of work and would be interesting to come together as a group and see whether we all had a simillar understanding of what our business was.

Studio Brief 1 - A creative Strategy

Where does Illustration fit into the industry?
Where could I go with it?

We spoke about how you could combine all of these ideas together. I decided to look into Cards because I think that 'seasonal' illustration is huge. For example we spoke about Halloween and all of the possibilities you could come up with for this such as cards, banners, table cloths, clothing, invitations etc. I have chose to look at cards because I feel this is massive and something that is not dying out yet it is still massive. It is also extending to businesses such as Moonpig and funky pigeon.com for online E-cards.

Different Seasons/Occasions for cards

• Anniversary
• birthday
• new years
• 4th of july
• ash wednesday
• april fools day
• labor day
• mental health awareness
• get well soon
• death
• new job
• new home
• goodbye
• sympathy
• good luck
• sorry you're leaving
• friendship
• thank you
• thinking of you
• just because
• baby boy
• baby girl
• divorce
• wedding
• engagement
• thanksgiving
• fathers day
• mothers day
• halloween
• christmas
• easter
• valentines
• congratulations
• baby shower
• bridal shower
• missing you
• foregiveness
• welcome home

or just blank cards

5 different audiences

I've thought about this in terms of religion

• Jewish
• Christian
• Catholic
• Hindu
• Buddhist
• Mormon
• Athiest    etc where you would have baptism, bah mitzvah, holy communions

Ages

• Children
• Babies/toddlers
• Teens
• Adults
• Elderly

Genders

• Male
• Female

Couples

• For you both
• On your anniversary
• On your engagement
• Wedding day
• Twins
• Parents

I read this interesting post on a website about the greeting card industry :

The greeting card industry

by Jakki Brown

The UK population spends more than £1.3 billion a year on greeting cards. Jakki Brown helps to guide artists to success in this fiercely competitive industry.

The UK greeting card industry leads the world on two counts – design and innovation and per capita send. On average people in the UK send 55 cards a year, 85% of which are bought by women. But just how do you, as an artist, go about satisfying this voracious appetite of the card-sending public?

There are two main options: either to become a greeting card publisher yourself or to supply existing greeting card publishers with your artwork and be paid a fee for doing so. The idea of setting up your own greeting card publishing company may sound exciting, but this decision should not be taken lightly. Going down this route will involve taking on all the set up and running costs of a publishing company as well as the production, selling and administrative responsibilities. This often leaves little time for you to do what you do best – creating the artwork. There are estimated to be around 800 greeting card publishers in the UK, ranging in size from one-person operations to multinational corporations, roughly 200 of which are regarded as ‘serious’ publishers (see page Card and stationery publishers that accept illustrations and photographs).

Finding the right publishers

While some publishers concentrate on producing a certain type of greeting card (e.g. humorous, fine art or juvenile), the majority publish a variety of greeting card ranges. Unfortunately, this makes it more difficult for you as an artist to target the most appropriate potential publishers for your work. There are various ways in which you can research the market, quickly improve your publisher knowledge and, therefore, reduce the amount of wasted correspondence:

• Go shopping. Browse the displays in card shops and other high street shops, department stores, supermarkets, garden centres and gift shops. This will not only give you an insight into what is already available but also which publishers may be interested in your work. Most publishers include their contact details on the backs of the cards.

• Trade fairs. There are a number of trade exhibitions held during the year at which publishers exhibit their greeting card ranges to retailers and overseas distributors. By visiting these exhibitions, you will gain a broad overview of the design trends in the industry, as well as the current ranges of individual publishers. Some publishers are willing to meet artists and look through their portfolios on the stand but others are not. Never interrupt a sale. If you believe your work could be relevant for them, when they are free, ask for a contact name and follow it up afterwards. Have a supply of business cards handy, perhaps illustrated with some of your work, to leave with publishers.

• The Greeting Card Association website (www.greetingcardassociation.org.uk). This resource provides advice about submitting designs and a list of publishers looking for freelance designers.

Types of publishers

There are two broad categories of publisher – wholesale and direct-to-retail – each employing a different method of distribution to reach the retailer.

Wholesale publishers distribute their products to the retailer via greeting card wholesalers or cash-and-carry outlets. They work on volume sales and have a rapid turn¬over of designs, many being used with a variety of different captions. For example, the same floral design may be used for cards for mothers, grandmothers, aunts and sisters. It is therefore usual for the artist to leave a blank space on the design to accommodate the caption. Until recently, whole¬sale publishers were generally only interested in traditional, cute and juvenile designs, but they now publish across the board, including contemporary and humorous ranges.

Direct-to-retail (DTR) publishers supply retailers via sales agents or reps. Most greeting cards sold through specialist card shops and gift shops are supplied by DTR publishers, which range from multinational corporations down to small, trendy niche publishing companies. These publishers market series of ranges based on distinctive design themes or characters. Categories of DTR cards include contemporary art/fun, fine art, humour, words and sentiment, children’s, photographic, traditional and handmade/hand-finished and, of course, Christmas cards.

Approaching a publisher

Unfortunately, there is no standard way of approaching and submitting work to a card publisher. The first step is to establish that the publisher you wish to approach accepts work from freelance artists; then find out their requirements for submission and to whom it should be addressed. It is always better to send several examples of your work to show the breadth of your artistic skills. Some publishers prefer to see finished designs while others are happy with well-presented sketches. Never send originals: instead supply your images on disk, or as photocopies, laser copies or photographs, and include at least one design in colour. You can initially send your designs to as many publishers as you like, but never be tempt¬ed to sell similar designs to two publishers – a bad reputation will follow you around. Some publishers will be looking to purchase individual designs for specific sending occasions (e.g. new baby, new home, sympathy) while others will be more intent on looking for designs which could be developed to make up a range. Bear in mind that publishers work a long way in advance, for example Christmas ranges are launched to the retailers the previous January.

Development of a range may take up to six months prior to launching. Also remember that cards in retail outlets are rarely displayed in their entirety with many of the racking display systems obscuring part of the design. Therefore, when designing a card make sure that some of the ‘action’ appears in the top half. When interest is shown Some publishers respond to submissions from artists immediately while others prefer to deal with them on a monthly basis. A publisher’s response may be in the form of a request for more submissions of a specific design style or of a specific character. This speculative development work is usually carried out free of charge. Always meet your deadline (news travels fast in the industry).

A publisher interested in buying your artwork will probably then issue you with a contract. This may cover aspects such as the terms of payment; rights of usage of the design (e.g. is it just for greeting cards or will it include giftwrap and/or stationery?); territory of usage (most publishers want worldwide rights); and ownership of copyright or license period. There is no set industry standard rate of pay for greeting card artists. Publishers pay artists either on a per design or per range basis in one of the following ways:

• Flat fee. A one-off payment is made to the artist for ownership of a design for an unlimited period. The industry standard is around £200–£250 for a single design, and payment on a sliding scale for more than one design.

•  Licensing fee. The publisher is granted the right to use a piece of artwork for a specified number of years, after which the full rights revert to the artist. Payment to the artist is approximately £150 upwards per design.

• Licensing fee plus royalty. As above plus a royalty payment on each card sold. Artists would generally receive a mini¬mum of £100 for the licensing fee plus 3–7% of the trade price of each card sold.

• Advance royalty deal. A goodwill advance on royalties is paid to the artist. In the case of a range, the artist would receive a goodwill advance of say £500–£1,000 plus 5–8% additional royalty payment once the threshold is reached.

• Royalty only. The artist receives regular royalty payments, generally paid quarterly, based on the number of cards sold. Artists should expect to receive a 5–8% royalty, sales reports and royalty statements. The fees stated above should only be regarded as a rough guideline. Fees and advances are generally paid on completion of artwork. Publishers which have worldwide rights pay royalties for sales overseas to artists, although these will be on a pro-rata basis to the export trade price.

Contextual References

Self Evaluation and Rationale - About the Author, so far..

What 5 things have you gained from this work and how will this impact on your practise?

I have gained from working with different media. I used to hate collage, dodged it and used Photoshop to collage instead of hand generated work. However this time I couldn't avoid it and had to tackle it head on. It look some getting into but once I had a plan with collaging the spoons as to what I wanted to represent, I ran with it. I layed out all of the materials that fit the concept I was going for and just played around. Now I think that I am getting used to it. Don't get me wrong a lot of my work looks unfinished, and a lot didn't go as expected but it's certainly opened my mind about shape rather than line work. It has free'd me up to begin the project and allowed for a lot of experimentation of texture and colour.
Making mistakes in your work can actually work in your favour. It has drove me a little bit insane all the cutting out though! I tried creating my own backgrounds using ink and working into them with line but they actually didn't work as well as the collage did in the end.

What 5 things do you intend to explore further through your Visual Journal and why?

I think that I need to work on more Primary research of motifs, which motifs I can explore further to do with the theme because then I am not limited to just looking at hands or spoons. I haven't explored needles much and figure. I will work on using a limited colour palette because looking at other people's work this seems to be something that works really well. I think colour for me is a massive thing with Burroughs because colour sets the mood for everything. If you have the highs of drugs, the psychedelia side can be really playful and vibrant; but explore the lows of drugs and it's cold and dark and death.
I think I need to explore the kinds of backgrounds I incorporate into my pieces in order to set the mood. I will definitely look at collage more, but I think I need a balance now of some line work too; in which case I will explore different pens. I usually always work with fine liner but I have been using white pens on black, silver pens and different thickness of black which has worked well so far.
I will definitely explore the idea of an alter ego - two figures showing the highs and lows of heroin through the body. When researching into heroin addicts I found that a lot of them talked about the idea of a secret life, keeping secrets from their family so this would be interesting to look into. I want to look at combining more quotes into my work in which case I'll have to explore my style of text more.

What themes do you intend to explore further through your Visual Journal and how will you explore these visually?

The highs of heroin - I will explore these through colour and texture but also primary research of figures laughing to show they are tripping. The lows of heroin - the complete opposite colours, textures, and figures curled up in a corner, crying and lonely. The alter-ego side of heroin, the double life and secret identity I will explore through showing a figure split in half or two figures. Investigating the moods of heroin such as positive, paranoia etc.

What research activities will you undertake in order to explore these themes further and how will these inform your work? Where will you go? What will you do? What will you come back with?

Study Task 1 - Who am I Why am I here?

I think the turning point for me in PPP was 'The Illustrated Self' questioning what exactly was I interested in. I found it so hard to pin point my interests because I felt they were so broad and I was open to everything. However, I looked back on the work I'd been creating and thought okay there's a re-occuring theme here of human behaviour and how we do funny things, how we are sometimes ignorant, how we act, how were similar to animals, animals as humans doing human things etc. So I am interested in Human. Being human, what it means to be human, how different we all are yet are all the same.
I am really interested in (and think about all the time) how we are all born into the world with the same right to live. Some people have those rights taken away from them by other humans which is not right i/e slavery - what gives a human the right to take another human's life, or take charge of their life. We're born with a life to live the way we want to live it. We may face struggles financially to do this but none the less we're free to pretty much do what we want. I am interested in how society puts a structure on the way we feel we should live - when really this structure is just put there by other humans equal to ourselves, so we don't really have to take notice. One thing that echoed this interest was Richard's COP lecture where he showed us an image and told us the tale of Plato's cave. Human's trapped in a cave where they have a distorted vision of the outside world and how they think they should be living set in place by other humans.
I am interested in feminism, equal rights, gender equality, movements that echo that we should all be treat the same. For example HEforSHE with Emma Watson and her speech "If not me, who? If not now, when?" I want to do something based on this. I want to make people think, make a statement, but something relatable. I made work about Michael Jackson previously acting 'normal' eating Quavers etc to show how the media portrayed him as a monster when he was just a human.

I looked back on one of the first posts I had ever done for PPP which was ten things about myself as a learner, as an individual and ten things I was going to promise to work on. It was interesting to see the type of things I really have improved on and things I still need to work on.

Things that have changed about me :
- I am pretty hard on myself ... not so much anymore I think I have more confidence in my work
- I am pretty quiet and shy ... again have become more confident with speaking
- Taking notes helps a lot ... not so much anymore I think I am more visual and need to see things

Need to improve that I haven't yet:
- Eat better vegetables etc ... I still need to work on this
- Need to be more experimental with media ... still quite afraid to do this, I did more over the summer with my drawing materials using ink and watercolour

I think my people of interest and illustrators has become less broad because initially I didn't realise what exactly I was interested in. I didn't know the kind of work I wanted to create so I was open to anything. I then began to look more closely at illustrators that created work similar to my own with the same aim to be funny or to make a statement.
I said in my first ever post I wanted to become better with digital techniques and I feel I have definitely done this. Looking back at my work from Foundation I am quite embarrassed by it. The concept was there but there was no consideration for composition, everything looked flat and were not well executed.

I also said earlier on that I wanted to make my work look more finished which I think I am slowly achieving through editing on Photoshop. I put that I was interested still in narrative and writing and I feel I am still exploring this today through poetry.


Monday 6th October

At this moment in time

5 things I want to know more about

• I want to know the best methods of making money within the Illustration industry - what sells?
• I want to know where my drawings can fit within the world, what kind of work do I want to be producing? To what audience?
• I want to know more about what is available in Leeds for illustrators in terms of careers and then again outside of Leeds in other countries (driven by my own research)
• I want to look into doing a PGCE
• I want to know more digital skills - more Photoshop and Illustrator
• I want to know more about professional website designs and putting my work out there

5 strengths that make me me

• I am very focused and driven to do well after University and keeping my goals in mind
• I am able to turn a brief on it's head if I don't enjoy it and make it into something I want to do 
• I am organised and punctual and get up early to get in on time
• I will put the work in and stay behind if I need to
• My strength is making work that people can relate to, and feel something whether its make them laugh or shocking or emotional

5 things I want to improve on

• Improve my drawing technique try out different pens
• Improve my compositions and scales
• Improve my work to be more finished and professional
• Be more adventurous and experimental with media
• Digital techniques

5 images that define my interests

TIM KIRBY

MR BINGO

DAVID SHRIGLEY

HANNAH SIMPSON

PPP - End of Module Self Evaluation

Leeds College of Art BA (Hons) ILLUSTRATION	Level	04
OUIL402 Personal & Professional Practice 1	Credits	20
End of Module Self Evaluation

NAME	Adele Pierce

1.  What learning have you inherited through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied it? Consider differing approaches to contextual/professional research
I have learnt how to be really open to all aspects of Illustration. When first starting the course I think I had a very closed view of what Illustration was. I looked around at my peers here and they were all different. We all have very different skills and interests which often lead me to feeling out of place, or unsure of whether I belonged. But now I see that that is a strength, and I can use them to bounce ideas off and better my work. I think that constantly looking at illustrators and the practise on a whole pushes you to want to be better, and personally for me makes me want to complete my work to a higher level. I think looking on websites has been really useful, setting up a Pinterest and Tumblr account in particular for me has been a breakthrough. This allows me to search really specifically for areas I want to look at. For example, in the past I would visit the AOI website and have to sift through lots of illustrators’ portfolios before finding one that I really liked. Now I can be specific with what I search, and come up with lots of illustrators that create work reflecting my interests immediately. I have used the library quite a lot here too, to take out books whether they are about illustration or just contextual research in general, which has been very beneficial. I also really enjoy the ‘Big Heads’ skype sessions, listening to professionals talk so personally about their experiences gives me a great idea of what to expect and what to aim for.
2. What approaches to image making have you developed during this module and what informed such ways of working?
I have used my research skills to look at illustrators work that I would like to be as good as, or work that excites me and motivates me to want to make imagery. In particular for this module at the end of the year I have came out with work that combines all of my interests into one. For the final brief I researched into poetry quite a lot because this has been a running interest of mine from the start on my blogs. I then decided to look into weird and whacky humans who maybe have body issues and wanted to make work that was charming and relatable from this idea. I looked into circus freaks and people with exaggerated body parts, then created poetry from images I’d found on the internet. I was happy with the results of this and decided to carry on the poetry and illustration idea. I thought of how I would like to perceive a character in a media I would be comfortable with which was a watercolour painting. I then decided to challenge myself and create character development borne purely from my imagination, in a quite animated style in book form. This was a real struggle, and something I would be embarrassed to show anyone but really informed my thinking. I then decided to study on one character in particular from the book which was of a giant. From this I challenged myself to create poetry based on this one character and I feel exhaustively thought about who this character was, what he would wear, all the angles of his face and posture. I feel I definitely could have done more of this having had more time, and experimented with more media for it. I started to create a book on this but felt my drawings were becoming restricted so needed to work on larger paper to figure out the character first. I then experimented digitally with my outcome, drawing and re-drawing my idea until I was happy with it, then scanning it in and colouring it digitally for the final piece. I added text (a poem) on Photoshop and battled with the composition, and font style to suit the illustration.
3. What strengths can you identify in your practice and how have/will you capitalise on these in the future?
I think my strengths are recognising work that I can appreciate as good illustration, but also finding work that I am passionate about and that really motivates me. For example, I could spend hours finding illustrators work that I ‘like’ but there are few that grab my insides and make me think, yeah, I want to do that. When I find those, I print them out and have them beside me as I am working so that I can reflect on them and think ‘how did they do that’ ‘what makes this so successful?’ ‘maybe I should try those colours’ ‘I am going to try do that with my linework’ ‘what makes this so funny?’ ‘that looks really professional.’ And this allows me to constantly question my own work which I think is a strength. I think I have really good ideas, I am a thinker and a dreamer and this comes across in my work. I think that I am good at pin pointing really original funny ideas and creating work that makes people feel something. I am the concept, I think my ideas are what makes my work successful. I am able to make work that I know people will relate to, find recognisable, and sometimes even get involved with. I think in the future within the illustration industry I will create work that sells well because its open to a mass of people and is not just for a specific niche.
4. What weaknesses can you identify in your practice and how will you address these in the future?
I think my weaknesses are how I am not experimental enough with my media. I think sometimes I am too many ideas and not enough ‘doing.’ Or maybe I do lots, lots of research lots of drawings but none that really inform my practice. I never spend long enough on getting something right to a standard I am happy with because I don’t have the patience, I’m too busy coming up with other ideas. I think I am too restricted with using fine liner at the minute especially when creating character because they all end up looking the same. They are all outlined, and when it comes to colouring this on Photoshop there’s only so much I can do without it looking stupid all outlined in black. I really need to work at shape and colour within my work and finding illustrators that do this. I would also like to challenge myself to look at collage more because I’ve found some really nice work in collage and think I would love to be able to structure an image in that way. I think another weakness is sometimes being too ambitious with my outcomes that in the end they become rushed. Doing too many things at once when I should concentrate on getting just one right. I think particularly for the summer show I would love to spend three weeks on one painting, to make it something I am proud to display.
5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?
Next time, though I say it all the time, I really will be experimental with my media. For this brief I think I have improved because I used books as a way of collecting my thoughts, I looked at poetry, character development which I fought with, a little bit of paint, worked on larger paper and really small paper and then digitally to finish it off. But next I will work on paint more, maybe a little bit of ink, try not to draw in fine liner at all and really work on my drawing practice. I need to do more research into illustrators and try discover which area I would like to go down and what do I see myself as? A visual entertainer – is that enough? Can I always entertain? Because sometimes I don’t want to be funny, sometimes I want to make work that is quite emotional, or charming, or just a really nice painting. I will continue to stay behind on nights where I can to get work done because I feel this has been really successful so far. I will continue to blog as I go as well to avoid an overload of work at the end of a brief.
6.How would you grade yourself on the following areas: (please indicate using an ‘x’)  5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor
	1	2	3	4	5
Attendance			x
Punctuality			x
Motivation			x
Commitment			x
Quantity of work produced			x
Quality of work produced			x
Contribution to the group			x
The evaluation of your work is an important part of the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a member of staff as soon as possible.

A copy of your end of module self evaluation should be posted to your studio practice blog. This should be the last post before the submission of work and will provide the starting point for the assessment process. Post a copy of your evaluation to your PPP blog as evidence of your own on going evaluation.

Notes