Immersion 2010: Session 5

Last week we had a really good session actually. It was called 'Nuts and Bolts' and was focused on the specifics of being self-employed/starting a business. Talking about the differences between Sole Traders, Partners, Limited Companies (which I learned in Business Studies GCSE but it's always nice to have a reminder) and making us think about ourselves as a business and we would probably be. I'm definitely of the Sole Trader/Freelancer kind, backed up by being a normal employee for the foreseeable future. Being a normal is good for the bank balance but bad for my lifestyle, I think.

So we had Magnus Long from Viable London back in talking about his route to where he is now, and how some of it he spent as an employee and then taking the decision to form a partnership, then a limited company, and the pros and cons of each.

He said a really nice quote - "It's better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb, instead of halfway up one you don't." Which I quite like.

He also told us about Hidden Art, which I'd never heard about but seems really interesting and useful maybe in the future.

"Hidden Art helps designer-makers and designers transform their passion into products.

We do this through promoting and supporting members to place their products both nationally and internationally through international trade fairs, the Hidden Art E-Shop, global press coverage, Hidden Art Awards and our annual pre-Christmas Open Studios event." It's about £50 a year; I think probably more useful to product designers and designer-makers, that is, people with physical things to sell. I don't really have any of that yet.

We then were given a talk by Be Kaylor-Blake from Futureheads Recruitment, who gave us advice on job hunting through recruitment agencies, what to do, what to expect, that kind of thing. I'd always thought recruitment agencies were a really good idea but according to Be, the process in London/Uk as a whole is quite bad - and other people had bad experiences too. Which was interesting to know, I had assumed they were a good route to go down but maybe not. She said it only worked if there was a good relationship between you and the agency, you had a strong relationship with someone in the team and that it was a two way street, you had to work on it.

Lastly there was Catherin Gregg, who was really nice and has a great company called Make:Good, who "are an architecture and design company working to make public buildings and spaces more friendly and enjoyable places to be. More than this; we empower the very people who use these spaces to be at the heart of delivering the transformations." She had good advice as well, simple but valuable things like, you need to offer things that people actually want, and to have a distinction between yourself and your work. It's ok to sleep! I know I have guilt over being tired a lot and thinking 'but I must work 16 hour days to make it' and actually... no you don't. Chill. Sleep. Sleep is nice. Mmm.

In the evening, we had a panel session with Sue Odell, who does casting, styling, production, and is a general whirlwind of energy and amazingness - the stories she had! And also Gail Gallie, who works in marketing/strategy, and again had a really interesting background and seems to have done amazing stuff.

Sue Odell has shot the images for so many ads that I like -

That toblerone one is great.

She's had such an interesting life - and the one thing that came through clearest is she never set out to be any of the titles she puts on her career - she started out as a graphic designer, then kind of fell into casting by working with Lord Snowdon and other amazing photographers, then through that fell into styling, and so forth - she never set out saying 'I want to be a stylist', she just did what she enjoyed every day, always grabbed new opportunities, got a bit lucky, and so has had a really exciting and varied career. She also admitted to being a complete control freak and never relinquishing control over her projects - hence why she still runs around like a mad woman when she cuould employ 'people' to do what she does.

Gail Gallie was equally interesting - she was behind the labour 1997 campaign, (which proved to be successful), and then moved on to become the head of marketing and events at Radio 1. Which must have been such a great job! She was also behind setting up the Electric Proms too, which was a brilliant idea. I think she ended up moving on to be the head of marketing and events for over a third of the BBC in the end. Crazy stuff.

She then moved on to working on the development and fundraising at the Roundhouse in Camden (if you've never been there, it's a really great venue, lots of nice exposed brick and glass stairways etc). From there I think she worked more freelance and now runs her own campaigns agency, GallieGodfrey as a partnership. That's one varied career.

To read about all the Immersion sessions so far, click here.

Immersion 2010: Sessions 1 & 2

A couple of weeks ago I started a brand new course at St Martins, called Immersion. It's a short, one day a week course aimed at design (any discipline) graduates needing help and advice getting into the industry/where they want to be. In a nutshell. It's really varied and has loads of advice, everything from time management and planning to nuts and bolts of setting up a business. There are tonnes of different people there from all disciplines and walks of life, some graduated like me, some wanting to change their career direction etc. I decided to do it because I felt that after Uni I missed having that support network of creatives, I wanted to meet new people to network and collaborate with, and also to help define me and my work and what I want out of my career; not as a tool just for getting a job/placements etc in the short term, but I want to use it to help me build my career from the foundations and assess what I want to do, the kind of company I want to work for/if I just want to freelance, or if, as I have found out, I want to do both! It's about realising your dreams and ambitions and making the most of yourself and your career. Good stuff.

I've been a bit slack about blogging about it because I've been so busy and putting it off because I know it involves a lot of typing. But I want to record the process and it helps me to validate things in my mind if I assess and write about them, out loud. That's why I've decided to do public blog posts about them; it's mainly for my benefit but if anyone wants to read about the course and what I'm learning about myself as I go through then go for it :)

So the first 2 sessions were 2 consecutive days and were really intense. We had a guest speaker who runs the Digital Health Service, so is going to be with us throughout the course, talking about his journey and the mistakes and triumphs he has had to get to where he is.

The things we focused on for these sessions were aspects like:
Communication
Presence
Self-belief
Environment
Values - What's important to you
Motivations
Skills
Networks
What you can offer
Curiosity

Environment
One of the main things we focused on was Environment. We had to do an exercise where we visualised exactly the place/space where we ideally wanted to work; what it looked like, sounded like, where it was, was it with other people or on your own, things like that. It's sounds like a really obvious thing to do but actually doing it was quite enlightening. For some people (like me) it solidified things they had an inkling about, for others it completely surprised them and made it clearer about what kind of work they needed to look for. I realised that:

'I want to work in a place that is full of creative, like minded people, not necessarily all of the same discipline, fairly young, let's you get on with it but still there for help if you need it. Focused environment that encourages hard work but also play, social aspect, music in the background. Separate desk spaces, not too precious, with messy areas. Basically a place with people; I've realised I don't work so well isolated on my own. This could manifest in loads of different ways, including a design studio with similar attributes to this, all working together. '

Even though an aspect to what I do (or want to do) is freelance, I've realised I don't have to sit in a darkened loft all my life. I thrive on company and creative healthy competition and the right dose of pressure. Whether that comes from working within a design company or just sharing desk space with other creatives is the thing that is negotiable; and not mutually exclusive throughout my career, I want different things at different times and just because I have or want one doesn't mean I can't have the other in the mid to long term future. Right now I think I need a stable, full time, creative job that will get me settled financially, socially and creatively. But this is approaching 'Priorities' and that's another session :)

Values
We also talked about Values and what our values are and how they should affect your working lives. Things like 'what do you value most' to ethical/environmental/moral values. Kind of similar the the graphic design First Things First manifesto where they agreed not to work with morally dodgy companies, asking yourself if you are the same? If a massive company asked you to do some work for them for quite a lot of £££ but you know they're a bit ethically dodgy and don't treat their foreign staff right or don't trade fairly etc etc, would you take the job because financial security is valuable to you? Or not because you don't want to be associated with a company like that? (even though someone else somewhere will take the job anyway). All open-ended questions to make you think, defo. I still haven't solidifed my values as of yet, we do more work on them in later sessions. Initial values for me are companies/clients that are:

'Social, ethical, fun, reliable, unique, individual, conscious, ambitious, forward-thinking, progressive'

Critique and Feedback
Interesting points made were that you don't always have to accept feedback - if you don't want it. Everyone has opinions and that's great but sometimes you just need your own opinion, and if you don't want someone's feedback, that's ok. It's an interesting concept. Also the notion that throughout our creative lives so far (uni etc) we have been taught very well how to Critique work and pick the negatives in order to make it better. This is fine, but it was said that we also need to learn to pick out positives in ourselves more and look at what we can do, not what we can't yet. We then had to get into groups and talk about something we did/achieved which made us feel really proud and good about ourselves, and identify the skills used to achieve that thing. My skills that were identified by my group were that I am:

Good at researching
I follow ideas through
Have creative flow
A deadline achiever
A hard worker
Dedicated
Attentive
Confident about my ideas
Able to communication ideas
A conceptual thinker.

Which was really interesting to see that written down by someone else. But there you go.

Ambitions
We then were encouraged to think about our ambitions - no matter how big or small- and articulate them. Realise that ambitions change, you may achieve something and everything then shifts to encompass new ambitions. Everyone should have one B.H.A.G - Big Hairy Audacious Goal, something that is so out there and ridiculous, but that you should aim for. Mine is to live, work, and be successful in New York. Not slum it at the start of my career, but really be established and make it and thrive, not just survive, in New York. Other ambitions are have may be more vague and also don't have a timescale as yet - this is something to be addressed in later sessions. In no particular order:

Form/Be a part of a Collective
Do what I love to earn a comfortable living
Inspire others
Be recogised for my accomplishments
Live in London
Be a design writer/commentator (random I know but I still love writing, haven't lost it since English A Level)
Design/work sustainably.

I definitely think these will morph, solidify and change throughout the course, and over the next year too as I start my career.

The last thing we had to do over these 2 sessions was choose 2 pieces of work and present them in a one minute speech to the entire class. Scary scary. This was about developing our 'elevator pitch' and getting more confident talking about ourselves and our work in front of strangers. It went quite well I thought, I hate doing things like that, I get really breathless and too excited and talk too fast, but people said I came across OK so that's good. I've never been a natural speaker and that's something I need to address. It was great seeing everyone's work though and a real ice breaker.

After the sessions we stayed behind for drinks (hurrah) and chatted amongst people. I'm enjoying that aspect of it the most actually; I wanted to meet new and interesting people and I really have, it's quite a journey we're going on so it's good to see other people in the same boat as you, with the same dreams and fears. Everyone is so different but I can already see there are people I'd want to keep in contact with in the future.

So that's sessions 1 and 2 - I'll do 3 and 4 in the next few days. Sorry for there being no pictures. Time to start using your brain, kids.

D&AD New Blood 09 - Roundup part three - Advice Lectures, London loving and plans plans plans

I went back into London on the thursday to attend the D&AD Training and Advice sessions, which were organised to coincide with New Blood and the people who exhibited.

It was a really useful day, held at Notting Hill's Coronet Theatre (which is this cute indie old-stye cinema, pretty sweet) and I attended 4 of the talks that were held there.

The first one was called 'How did they do it?' and that was a good one, it was 2 students, Ross Taylor and Alex... someone(argh cant remember his last name) who had graduated last year and had managed to successfully get jobs, and basically what they did to end up where they are now. Some really useful tips, things like keeping in contact with your contacts, don't be afraid to move on, win as many awards as you can, things like that.

Then there was a talk on 'How to make your mark', making your portfolio as good as it can be, by Paul Brazier of AMV.BBDO, who is going to be the next President of D&AD. Lots of useful things to take away there. The next talk I went to was called 'How to be Successful' (which is amusing, surely it can't be as easy as that) and that was by Steve Henry, who used to be the Creative Director at TBWA but left to take time off from the industry - he spoke a lot about how advertising works and how a lot of it gets watered down so much through the creative process that very rarely do you get an amazing advert - basically telling us as 'new blood' what we can do to make an impact in this changing industry, especially as 'ant- consumerism' and the recession takes hold, advertising is changing as people are realising that buying stuff doesn't make them happy. Loads to think about, it's a subject that I'm really interested it - how can advertising survive if people are starting to not buy things all the time, can advertising actually encourage people to buy less but buy better? Quality over quantity, no more of 'you need this now, loads of it, buy this now!' to something with a bit more austerity. I don't really know the answer yet.

And the last talk was all about Setting up a new business/how to survive as a freelancer - some of these things I knew already but it was refreshing to hear it from actual freelancers, and interesting to hear that going freelance straight from uni isn't always the best idea - get into the industry and learn from real life, get some contacts first before you go out on your own. Makes sense.



It was another beautiful day in London so I took a wander over to the Southbank - here are some pics taken off the Embankment bridge. I just walked down from here on my own to the Tate Modern, not really with an aim in mind, just taking it all in and realising how much I miss London. I used to come here every 2 weeks or so back before Uni, going to gigs and galleries, and now I'm lucky if I go 2 or 3 times a year. So being back in London so much these past 2 weeks has been great, and even though the tube is still as packed and nightmarish as usual, I love it. I know that place so well and it's made me realise that I definitely want to live there. After not being accepted into either of the MA's that I wanted to do in London, I thought I'd leave it for a bit, but these past 4 days at New Blood has really made me rethink everything - I want to do placements in London, working at studios, working freelance, doing all these things, and I know it's a cliche but you really have to be in London for these things. I love that city, the energy, even the horrible impatient Londoners and the mentalist cyclists. I felt myself slipping back into the Londoner mentality so easily almost straight away - (stupid tourists, can't even work the tube, it's bloody colour coded for god's sake, it's not hard) I caught myself thinking. How bad is that? :P

But I'm a bit torn because I planned to live with my best friend in Wolves for a year, and I have a job in Wolves, and so many friends up there, and not so many in London and at home, and all this stuff. But maybe it's time to just do something for myself. I never do that.

So I think I need a Plan of Action. Start contacting studios etc, keep illustrating, keep applying for placements, don't rush anything or make any rash decisions and hopefully by Christmas I'll be well on my way to where I want to be. Wherever that is.

First off, I need a Mac. Badly. Where can I get a reconditioned one? I am poor.

Previous posts about New Blood 09.

Rachel says hello.

Sorry for not posting in a while, I keep meaning to but have been a bit busy =/

The main thing I've been doing (aside from too much socialising) is sorting my website out. It's nearly finished, I posted about it when I'd just started, so thought it's time to get it out there!

www.rachelsayshello.com

All my work is up there now (hurrah), I just need to write a bio and sort the backgrounds out. Writing a bio is hard so I'm sort of putting it off. Ha. I'll do it by the end of the week.

I'm building it using Indexhibit, which is quite brilliant actually. I can't remember exactly how I stumbled across it but it's created by the awesome Daniel Eatock (who I mentioned in my last post) and I don't how how I could have done my website without it. I have no idea how to use Dreamweaver and have basic knowledge of HTML so this was kind of a lifesaver. And, in my opinion, it looks dead cool.

Some participants have made theirs so spangly it's untrue. Mine is semi boring in comparison. But I'm sure they know all kind of interweb tricks and such. Mine is going to be a work in progress, definitely. At the moment, I just want it live and kicking in time for my degree show. Which I'm getting super excited about. We're going to start building/painting it soon hurrah.

Anyway, I'm so happy to have got all my recent work up there, including my recent editorial illustrations:

What's the greenest way to recharge my gadgets?


Olive oil is good for you, and the planet... Isn't it?


Bottled water sales drop off

Is there an eco perfume for Valentine's Day?

They are all based on articles on environmental issues. I love doing editorial illustrations, now I have more time on my hands I definitely need to do some more soon.


I'm getting a bit worried about all this recession business. Now, I know it's been like this for a while now. But while studying it was a bit like... it didn't really have anything to do with me. But now I'm looking for jobs, it's suddenly quite scary. I've applied to quite a few and haven't got anywhere yet. And I'm just looking for anything right now, design placements to shop jobs, anything. I had a call back for a 2nd interview at Topman the other day, and omg I so wanted that job. It was going to be perfect for me. But I didn't get it... bit gutting. I just didn't have enough experience. And at the moment, employers can be pretty choosey because there's so many applicants. But you hear about 50 yr old managing directors getting laid off and not being able to find a job anywhere. It's all a bit scary. I just hope I can find something soon because I have no money, and if I have no money it means I can't stay in Wolves, and I love my family but I can't go home. I just can't.

Ideally, someone will come along and be like "You there, do some awesome illustrations for me, here's a pile of money!" Haha. Or not.

But that makes me wonder about the recession and illustration. Not design in general, there's tons of stuff around about design and the recession, but illustration. That's another post I feel.

I'm sure I'll find a job. I have to, right?

Older posts on editorial illustrations

Arty-type graduates 2009, (un)Natural Talent, and just how scared are you?

I had a conversation with my friend today about art in general, and my course, and the talent on it and if you are born with talent or not. That kind of thing. I generally came to the conclusion that throughout my artistic education, I have come across a few people who have been hugley talented. You know, can draw perfectly first time round and are just damn good. But they don't seem to care. They have their little world and don't seem driven to do the work they're set or find about new things or research into things that inspire them, you know all that standard stuff. Well, things I find standard anyway. But then they draw, and it's like, wow. Ok, you bastard, clearly you're born talented and I hate you. You're cool, but I hate you, because I work my ass off, I'm constantly soaking up the world around me, looking into things, sticking stuff on my wall, finding inspiration everywhere, experimenting, trying new things. And I'm nowhere near as good as you. And you just sit there and smoke cool little cigarettes.

It's like, if there was a graph, there would be a relationship between how talented you are as to how little you seem to have to work for it. And I've always thought that unfair.

So it's strange when I come across this post today that kind of reassured me against that thought I've had. That actually, they're not better than me, everyone is different, and stop comparing yourself to someone else, who at the end of the day, isn't exploring their creative life enough. (semi self-help book, there). That, by the way, is a really great blog, and it's pretty to look at too. Go look.

This all stems I think, from the fact that I've nearly finished my course, and I'm freaking out about leaving into the big bad world. I handed in two modules today. Which felt AMAZING. Despite the fact that it was the most complicated hand in process EVER and I got so stressed I felt pressure on my chest. Do you ever get that? Well I had that today. It was weird. Anyway, I finally got it handed in after dodging an assault of: technology going wrong, huge print queues, selfish computer-hogging spanish students, stanley knife cuts, spray mount fumes, photography classes stealing your hand-in room (damn you Henry *shakes fist*) the entire uni network being stoneage slow because everyone wants to print barcodes, and tutors announcing we're losing our studio in 3 days.

But. I. Did. It.
Which is more than I can say for 80% of my class who had got extensions for one reason or another. And I'm bitter about that because I work hard and some (not all) don't deserve an extension, in my humble opinion. Is that harsh? Actually I don't care, it's true.

Previous freak outs that I'm sure many of us feel.

I've just got 1 more module to hand in on thursday then it's DEGREE SHOW TIME BABY.

So my question today is, Where are you, soon-to-be art (and especially illustration and graphic design) graduates?? Are you freaking out? Are you a naturally-talented, cool cigarette smoking bastard? Are you a nervous wreck who feels they have BECOME their shiny white macintosh? When is your degree show? Just how drunk, exactly, are you going to get?

This is the website to watch. There's a lot of us, isn't there.

Do we all think like this?

I'm having a bit of a freak out recently. That's the wrong word, because it's not. It's more of a gnawing, consistent worry. I am worried about my career. And this is particularly worrying because I haven't even started it yet. I'm not entirely sure why I'm blogging this, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with hoping that I'm not alone in it. There has to be other Illustration students out there, right now, that are sharing in this vague sort of unease.

First, let me point out that I love Illustration, I love my career choice. But in the past few months or so I've become increasingly aware of how difficult this is all going to be. I didn't ever expect it to be easy, in fact I love a challenge, but the prospect of me graduating and then finding a job straight away, or getting enough commissions to sustain me, seems like an impossible pipe dream at this moment.

But then, having a job you love and getting paid well for it is the Holy Grail, right?

Let me throw some statistics at you. These are from the AOI'S Illustrator's Survey 2008, which can be found here. It's a pretty fascinating read, but here are things that stand out to me:

• 34% of the people surveyed generated the majority of their income from Editorial Illustration. This doesn't surprise me and is quite nice to know actually, being that I enjoy doing Editorial (albeit fake and uncommissioned at the moment) Illustration. Lovely.
  
• Only 23.5% think that "being an illustrator is very satisfying and I can earn enough money to make a decent living." This is slightly worrying; although what exactly does a 'decent living' mean? Bread and butter or Prada shoes? Somewhere in between?
  
• 77% of us work at home. This emits a huge 'OMGZ' from me because that's my idea of hell. I. need. to be. around. people. More on this later.
• 22.4% (The highest percentage of all the choices) earn between £0 - £1,000 a year from Illustration. Eek. That's not a lot. But wait...
• Just 7.2% earn between £30k - £40k. 9.8% Earn over 40k. That's not a massive percentage. Well done to those who do earn over 40k though, that's quite...immense.
• However, 30.3% earn LESS than a quarter of their annual income through Illustration. Which means they've all got other jobs. Which is something I have accepted I will have to do maybe for the first year or so but not as a long-term thing. I don't want to be an Illustrator/Waitress. Hi, what do you do? I'm an Illustrator-slash-receptionist. You?

However, I have deducted that, the same amount of people (roughly), who disagreed that "being an illustrator is very satisfying and I can earn enough money to make a decent living," are the same people who earn between £0 - £1000 a year from it, and so are the same people who earn less than a quarter of their annual income through Illustration. Right? So what about the rest?

I guess what I'm preoccupied about is that I want to be good. I make no apologies for the fact that I expect highly of myself, push myself, and want to succeed. So I want to be in that top 8% (ish), earning £30k or more. Of course I do. But 8% of all the thousands of us who will Graduate this time next year is not a lot. To get there I have to work damn hard. And that's fine, that's not what scares me. I suppose what I get scared about are my own limitations. I'll look at some amazing Illustration/Design/whatnot and think the same old, 'Wow, I am never going to be that good. I'm graduating into the actual real world where actual real people get actual real jobs in one year and I am not that good. I'm going to be a receptionist,' school of thought. Which isn't productive, but what if I'm just not that good. There's a thought. Failure. What if I want the £40k and the 18 hour days to finish the commission and the sleepless nights and the recognition and the amazing studio with my imaginary Collective and the Prada shoes and.... I'm just not quite good enough. Do we all think like this, us aspiring Student Illustrators?

I suppose there's never an answer to this unless I push myself the hardest and give it my all and be original and be clever and be pro-active, and a little bit lucky, and go out there and find the jobs, and then I'll either be on the ladder on the way or I... won't be. But I know that there's nothing I can imagine myself doing except this. There is no Plan B, because Plan A is what I want to be. So I have to get this right. That's possibly the scariest part of all.

Like everyone, I have short term and long term goals. I need to Graduate. That would help. But first I'd quite like to get a commission. I think that would perhaps calm the little nagging feelings if I know that someone somewhere likes my work and wants to pay me for it. That's what it's about after all, isn't it. But of course to get the coveted first commission people have to actually know I exist. Self promotion first then, eh. But I also think of all these long term things that I want to do, with my imaginary perfect studio and dreams of personal projects and collaborations and all sorts. Maybe I just want the world.

As a side note, and following on from Bullet Point number 3, I read a quote, and it completely slips my memory who said it, but it was something like, "if you want to be an artist, you better like your own company." This really struck me. As an illustrator, I probably should like being on my own if I'm going to do this. That whole image of the lone illustrator working out of the back bedroom. So there is this side of my personality that doesn't quite sit right with my career choice. This adds to this vague worry that is the theme of this post.

Of course, I'd quite like to have a shared studio or even eventually start a Collective. If if maybe.


So I suppose this is just my reach into the dark, with the question, Do we all think like this? 'We' being aspiring Illustrators. And 'this' being the Vague Worry.


Or is it just me?