STUDIO BRIEF 1 - Getting involved at work

I've been getting involved with preparation for Christmas at work ( TGI Fridays ) by helping with their advertisement of it including a display board that I made into a fireplace, with stockings hanging down that had information behind them. This was a competition that ran across every store in the UK as to who could have the best noticeboard display --- and we won!!!

STUDIO BRIEF 1 - Design studios Leeds

Graphic Design/Illustration/Web Design

The Hungry Sandwich Club

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I didn't expect them to reply, I knew they had been at our University but was unaware they had only been left a year, they seem to be doing well for themselves off the back of this.

Teabag

SNAP

Duke

Bark & Bite

Advertisement

Boom

Banana Kick

I was most pleased with this reply inviting me to come have a chat :

STUDIO BRIEF 1 - Jobs

I started looking for what jobs there are out there for illustrators, in the area that I would like to live in, and the fields I would like to work in. There aren't that many, most are in London, where I would not want to live. I think doing this would help me get an understanding of the type of field I would like to go down. It gave me an idea of salary and what the requirements are which is something I could focus on this year. Most seem to be asking for Adobe photoshop illustrator and indesign. I need to brush up on my illustrator and indesign skills. 

I like the idea of being a designer or an art director. I like direction, I like a thought process. 

I like making ideas come to life but not necessarily on my own because I don't always have the skills or the style that matches the aesthetic. 

I liked the idea of this job :

I found the PERFECT job to gain some experience at Scribbler as a junior designer, but it is in London.

Dream job alert.. 

Google Doodler 

Two of my friends work for Google down in London so I was just looking at their internships, then I thought why not just look in the careers department and take a leap at what they might have available there. I searched illustrator in the search box and up came my ideal job. An illustrator for Google design team (or as they call it a Doodler). 

So many perks of the job including free food and gym membership, but imagine working for google!? Changing the illustrative logo on the home page.. 

AND it's in America, my dream place. So this is the dream, and until I have a degree and some experience behind me  it's not going to be a reality, but it did give me an idea into the type of thing google would be looking for from an illustrator int terms of qualifications and interests. 

Though my dream is big I decided to try keep it local for now and look at design studios in the Leeds area 

Hungry Sandwich Club

STUDIO BRIEF 1 - MA - Is a masters for me?

I have considered a masters degree but once again feel my age clock ticking; it may not be necessary. I also won't get the funding for it as I have already studied 4 years at university so would have to fund it myself.

The funding for an art and design MA at Leeds Beckett is £4,500 which is manageable to fund myself but if it is not necessary and I can get a job without doing so, I would rather. 

There are a couple of art and design MA's at my home town of Teesside University; but this would mean moving home for me which I really do not want to be an option. I could commute, but it would be silly to be paying rent for a house up in Leeds when my home down is Teesside. Once again there is also the fact that I am spending a year on something that may not necessarily benefit me in the field I want to go down, and also spending my own money on it. If I did an MA it would have to be specific to what I want to do in the future. 

BUSINESS

I started to think outside of the box a little, like perhaps a business MA would suit me if I were to set up my own business. 

Leeds Beckett offer a Business MA :

ADVERTISEMENT

Or perhaps down the route of something more commercial to suit my style of work, like advertising? If I got my head around how advertisement works then I could use my work to take advantage of that knowledge. 

STUDIO BRIEF 1 - PGCE - Do I want to be a teacher?

I've always snubbed teaching as a career because I feel that for me that would be a last resort. I would like to aim high and make it in where my passions lie before I fall back on teaching. As my mother has done this and I see how hard it is to be a teacher and bring the work back home with you every night planning lessons and long hours it put me off the idea. I do like helping people, and I love sharing my knowledge with others. I also like being my own boss and delegating to others rather than being delegated to so I know that teaching would suit me. I love to watch people grow and get better and it would be something I was passionate about; but I feel that I need to establish myself first and at least make a go of becoming an illustrator before I consider teaching.

That is what the passionate, illustrator side of me is saying. The other half is being realistic and thinking well maybe I could be a teacher and still practice illustration alongside that as many others do. I think it depends how motivated you are to carry on practicing illustration when you are already so bogged down and stressed out with being a teacher.

I have started to consider it, looking at PGCE's in Leeds. I know that I definitely do not want to move back home. At the same time, I feel that I have been in education for too long now and kind of need to get a move on. I will be 26 when I graduate and if I take on a PGCE that means I will be 27 and still not fully fulfilling what my passion is.

I would ideally like to teach in secondary or college as I feel these are the years that are vital to making decisions with art and where my passion could be brought to that year range to guide them and most of all let them play. As a teacher I would like to be fun as my work is quite playful, this would be reflected within my teaching approach which would suit this age range better. For me there is no right and wrong answer with art it is an expression and I think teenagers up through college have a lot to express that I would be interested in seeing and developing with them. 

I found that Leeds Beckett has  PGCE course in Art and design for 11-16 year olds

PPP planning - blogging your summer

PPP Planning : Blog us your summer

• Post your experiences observations activities and reflections to your PPP blog labelled OUIL602prep
• You should be researching and contacting agencies, studios, practitioners, and collectives that interesting you
• Research into further study, MAs, PGCEs, Training and development opportunities. What do you want to be?
• List the professional skills and knowledge you wish to further develop over the next 12 months and research into how you will develop them
• Write list, action plans and timetable your activities, and stick to them. 

A summary presentation of your creative strategy saying this is what I'm about this is what I want to do and what I want to find out about

• Summary of your personal and professional aims
• evidence of research into professional practice and progression opportunities undertaken over the summer
• a summary of further professional research activities to be undertaken as part of level 6

MOO'd

So over the summer I had spoken with MOO'd cereal cafe planning on putting up some of our work for a permanent exhibition which seemed like a great opportunity to get involved in. They wanted something monochrome which meant that I would be able to explore my sketchbook over the summer and then further some work for the walls. 

However, MOO'd stopped getting in touch and their cereal cafe every time I passed was closed, so I am not sure if they were having some difficulties or there was a problem where they had to shut down perhaps? It kind of made me feel they were unreliable. I also pushed for everyone to get involved in class and nobody took me up on this so I am going to wait until were back from over the summer when people have more time and are actually in Leeds. I think with everyone going home, including myself, it would be harder to produce work and take it to them whereas if we were back at University it is much easier to print and to get there. 

School

I did say that I wanted to get involved more in local opportunities and so being back home quite a lot in Middlesbrough over the summer meant I was going to have to look for things to get involved in there. Middlesbrough is quite small there is not much going on but my mother works in a school that happened to get in touch. 

They were looking for mural designs for their walls and my mum put one of them in touch with me via email. 

She asked me if I would be able to design a mural for their history department based on World War 1. At this point I was still working part time in Leeds so I would have to travel back and forth. 

I went into the school to discuss this further; she showed me around her humanities department and how they had decorated it thus far. She also showed me the wall I would be designing and it was huge. I asked what sort of thing she had in mind and she said a soldier with a grey background that then spread out and lead into a field of poppies down the other side. The wall had windows and a door which initially she did not want covering. I said it would break up the design and that perhaps she could consider the design also covering those. However, with windows it would have blocked out the sunlight. The windows were only facing indoors so were not letting in natural sunlight anyway, so she told me to go ahead with painting over them. This meant the design would need paint that covered both areas.

Paints :

I started to research into mural painting as it is not something I have done before, nor would feel completely comfortable with. I asked around to my peers that I knew had painted on walls before and got in touch with some paint manufacturers to ask which would be best. I was told that acrylic paint with an acrylic varnish would cover and finish both surfaces. I emailed back and forth to the head of department of the school to tell her this, and ask for her to order them.

Design :

I sent over an idea of what I had been asked for just to get a rough idea of the layout I played around in Photoshop. I took a World War 1 soldier silhouette in black looking to the left because I figured that would make your eyes look left towards the field of poppies. I did a highlight of white around the silhouette with a grey gradient that lead to green and a field of poppies. This was just a rough idea, to figure out how she wanted it doing. I figured she might want the poppies to be more flat and look like more of a field with grains of grass or she might want the soldier to be detailed, in a different stance etc. 

Pricing :

After sending my design we discussed pricing. Speaking in person I asked did they have a budget, which she was unsure of, and had told her that I would be charging by the hour depending on an estimate of how long the work would take me. With such a big wall and needing paint areas to dry over night etc I estimated it taking 4-5 full days of 9-5. This also meant that I would be missing out on working at my part time job for those 4-5 days and would need to cover travel costs. It had to be worthwhile for me, to miss out on the days and for the petrol back home. 

In order to get an idea of what to charge I thought of sending my design to an online business already that speicalises in murals, asking them what they would charge for the work. I sent them the size of the wall and my design. They replied :

£1390 for a company that specialises in mural painting. I thought that was pretty steep! As I am not a professional at this, and doing work for a school that is probably on a budget I needed to be a little bit more realistic. However, this was good to fall back on and show them if they felt I was to charge too much. It was also good to know that he felt my design was worth that amount and to know the tools necessarily to complete it. I hadn't even thought about scaffolding I was just going to use a ladder!

I only earn minimum wage in my part time job with tips on top of that, so if I was to cover what I would earn within those 5 days usually, with petrol on top of that then I would be happy. I feel I need to know more about what to charge people for this sort of thing. I am happy giving out pricing of my own commissions and digital work but for murals I think it is completely different. Especially for a school. 

More work : 

Other departments had heard about her idea of painting in the humanities department. She had took it to the head teacher who was really pleased with the idea and felt that this could be expanded by painting the entrance to each department in the school - result! If I pulled this off and did it well, I could paint each department meaning more money. I started to think I was going to need to take some time off work if this was going to be such a big job. I then went on to think about the publicity I would get from doing this, and future work. I don't have to limit myself to digital designs, I could actually do this. I looked into possibly getting a projector to project my design onto the wall and make it more accurate than painting free hand. It is not really my cup of tea to be painting free hand onto a wall, but it was going to be an experience so why not?

My boyfriend is a technical whiz and works in IT he told me that I just needed a lead for my mac as the school already had a projector so we went looking at leads to buy to project my design. I also sent these over to their head of department for them to pay for as part of the job. 

Further price talk :

I decided on £8 an hour because it felt realistic, I had produced a design I would be working 9-5 flat out on for 4-5 days. 8x8=64 which over 5 days was £320. For one wall I felt this was pretty good and if I was to be offered more work