Spreadin' myself around....

....Like the common illustration lady of the night that I am.

Just thought I'd better update with what I've been doing with myself in the past week or so since becoming unceremoniously unemployed. Aside from crying.

Jokes.

I've been on a massive self promotional push, basically.

• I now have a profile over on Society6, that place where all the cool kids are at. Join me, follow me, mmm.

• I'm also on CR's Creative Handbook, although no work posted up there yet; technical hitch.

• I'm up on IdeasTap now, a new site that showcases emerging artistic talent.

• I have just sent out 60+ self promotional postcards to Art Directors who I think would like my work. I wanted to send more but oh em gee stamps are expensive these days! 60 2nd class = £18. Now that's not a lot but I have many grand schemes in my head for cool self promotional mail outs (including badges woo) and I so don't have the budget yet. So I'm starting small and targeted, hoping I get a few nice clients who will give this talented graduate a break (heh) and then I can build my empire from there.

• I've also been compiling a list of awesome design studios who might want to hear from me, looking for someone for a placement/tea maker. That could be me. The list is one thing, it's writing emails/sending cool stuff to them that will take time, I'm not the kind to do a generic 'dear sir' email, that's lame and never got anyone anywhere.

• The piece-de-resistance is my super cool Mini Portfolio that I am going to churn out like a factory queen and send your way. That's more art directors (who I think need the extra effort to be impressed), and illustration agencies too. I would love to be represented by an agency and this is the way forward. Also any super cool studios might get one. Bear in mind they take an hour to make each. I'm spending all this evening doing some. They're cute though.

See.

• Applying to any placements in London that I know I'd be good at and applying lots. Even the unpaid ones (Boo). I have a thing against unpaid placements; I think it devalues the work and it's a joke that graduates have to work for free to be taken seriously in this industry. You either do the free placement or get nowhere. Sigh. But as I'm close to London right now and can sort of semi afford kind of to work for free a bit, I should do it. Because someone else will. And they'll get the awesome job.

Depressing news:

I didn't get the amazing placement at AMV.BBDO. This was upsetting. It was a 3 month, 3 day a week, paid placement, working in the Art Production Dept, helping out on all manner of daily tasks and sampling the life of a busy advertising agency. Basically my ideal job; I would have loved to have got it, and I would have gotten so much out of it. Anyway, turns out they're not taking anyone on! So at least it wasn't a rejection because I was rubbish. So there. Tres upsetting :( On the look out for more things.

There's a job going in Peacock's in Leighton Buzzard. Where I live. I really should apply. It's upsetting to work in retail when I've got so much potential but needs must. I can't be all high and mighty about it, I have to suck it up and do it because no one else is paying me right now.

A little help?

Shock horror, my 100th post!

Yay! What a momentous occasion. Although, considering I started this blog on the 16th May 2007 (that's over 2 years ago, completely missed that milestone), 100 posts is pretty terrible going, really. Which would account for my lack of followers and 100s of comments.

However, I am taking this post as a starting point for this blog being bigger and better than it is now. My lack of posting recently is down to a few things - 1) working long hours at my recent placement and never wanting to get in front of another screen at 9pm after looking at one all day and 2) said screen is in fact attached to my ridiculously slow, full up, sad, sorry, vista-based windows laptop that I hate with a passion (don'tdiepleaselaptopIloveyoureally). It takes 15 minutes to start up for god's sake, what a joke. And Firefox has randomly decided to just not open, at all now. So I'm using IE. Which I hate.

Excuses, excuses.

So, I finished my placement at Open yesterday. Which was really sad - didn't want to leave, I really enjoy it there, the work was always varied, it was tough and hard work but at the same time fun and a great environment to work in. (Yesterday I was drawing on the walls, that's not something you do every day.) So hopefully one day I'll get the chance to work with them again, we'll see.

This now means that I am unemployed once again. This has good and bad points, thus:

Good:

• I have more spare time on my hands to start illustration projects, and draw more, and generally create stuff.
• Which means I'll have time to publish said stuff on my website/blog/twitter, and also promote my work more to people I want to work with, and get involved in various projects.
• I can focus on redesigning this blog (which is in desperate need), my website and also my twitter page which is tres dull.
• I don't have to get up at 5,45am for a while (although I didn't actually mind that).
• I can go out on tuesday nights! Oh em gee.
• In fact, I can go out any night, any time, anywhere, I can even bugger off to Paris if I so choose. Because for some random reason, I really want to do that. Like, right now. Paris. Now. Let's go.

Bad:

• Being jobless kinda sucks, I do actually need a reason to get out of bed.
• I have 0 money coming in and with an overdraft as big as mine, and a student loan, and no savings, and no car, I feel pretty worried about that.
• I can't afford to rent anywhere so I'm having to move back to my parent's house in Bedfordshire. This is fine, our house is lovely, except I have very few friends down there. No social life makes Rachel sad in the face.
• No money means no new clothes. No new anything.

And so, I need a plan of action.

1. This starts first of all with buying a Mac. Because with no working computer (yes I'm talking to you, useless laptop) and no photoshop/illustrator, I can't exactly DO anything. I can't even scan a drawing in right now. So like, my illustration career won't exactly get very far if I can't actually illustrate. I think I have just about enough money to cover this, but then I will be well and truly broke.
2. Does anyone know if I can buy a Mac on 0% interest? That would be great right about now.
3. Once I'm back home and unpacked, I can start applying for jobs in and around Birmingham. Which isn't so simple if you're in Bedfordshire. Also, I'll start looking at London properly, as I live only 30 miles away and it's easy to get to.
4. Although, I have plans to move in with my friend up here in the Midlands. If I get a job in London, that's not so good. But needs must. And she doesn't have a job yet either.
5. Simultaneously as all of this, I need to be constantly drawing and illustrating and designing cool stuff to put out there.
6. I then need to make a big list of all the magazines/companies/studios/art directors I want to send my lovely postcards to, and send them out. And expect not to hear anything back, such is the way of the world.
7. I then need to think of cooler self promotional ideas and do that instead.
8. Get some kind of job so I'm not in a pit of despair and I can come back to the Midlands. Ideally this would be in the field of what I want to do, i.e at a design studio or agency, designing, illustrating, thinking conceptually, generating brilliant ideas, you know being awesome. But I also would be fine working in Retail. Honestly. (fashion, only, mind. Paperchase at a push) because I also quite like the idea of Visual Merchandising. I need to look at this further though. I had an interview at Urban Outfitters the other day and I would actually love to work there. I'm not holding out much hope though, apparently they were interviewing 60 people. Omg. I love recessions!
9. Buy Lotus Elise.
10. Hopefully get a few editorial illustration commissions, this is my big major short term goal.
11. Chill out a bit, I haven't had a holiday in over a year so maybe I should just.... relax. If there is such a thing in this current situation.

As you can gather, that's not the greatest formulated plan. I'm at this point where I could go so many ways. Do I just want to try going freelance illustrating, with a standard side job to get me through? Do I want to work as a designer/illustrator in a studio?Do I want to get more into marketing and branding and explore that side of me? Do I want to be a Visual Merchandiser? Should I just get married and be a housewife? (ew. shudders.) Do I want to stay in the Midlands, or go to the bright lights of London, which is nearer home and where I want to be eventually anyway?Should I just run off to New York and start a new life there because I secretly yearn to do that?

Should I just get over this cold first, and figure out how the hell I'm going to get this suitcase on the train?

Answers on a postcard please.

For now, I'm fully intending to blog way more frequently, about way more interesting things other than myself, and a full redesign will appear as soon as I own a shiny iMac. Donations welcome.

Lots of love to my current followers and commenters, you make me happy when I know I'm not talking into the ether.

New work: Climate Change Banner for ActionAid's Bollocks to Poverty Campaign

Last week I was working on this banner, which is to be displayed (hopefully, if approved) on ActionAid's website, for their 'Bollocks to Poverty' campaign.

Click for larger image.

The campaign is aimed at getting people motivated to actually do something to help end poverty; instead of just donating money and being a bit passive about the whole thing, it's encouraging people to get involved and get passionate about ending poverty, by putting on events and generally thinking outside the box. Here's a bit from the site:

You can do things a bit differently with Bollocks to Poverty. You don’t need to put on coffee mornings or cake sales, you can do what you love doing. Whatever you’re into you can support people fighting their way out of poverty. Shake a tin at your mates and they might chuck you a pound, but throw them a party and they’ll feel inspired to do much more.

Whether you put on a gig, jump out of a plane, pester your MP or volunteer at a festival, say Bollocks to Poverty and do it with ActionAid.

The site is well worth checking out, there's lots of things to do to get involved in the campaign, my favourite is this, "becoming a Bollocks to Poverty Tour Ambassador to come backstage at this summer's festivals, chat to some bands, write some blogs about it and then organise the mother of all Christmas parties for our amazing tour organisers". Noice.

The focus of the brief for this banner is their Climate Change campaign 'Food vs Dust'. It's basically highlighting the impact that climate change will have on the world's poorest - those who have actually contributed to climate change the least, but who will suffer most through floods, drought, cyclones, all of which will destroy homes and crops and leave to food shortages and ultimately starvation. So banners have been requested to highlight this and to act as a point of inspiration on the website to encourage people to find out more and hopefully get involved with trying to reduce climate change.

I mean, we all know about the damage that climate change is doing and people are beginning to do things to help these days (although my opinion is that its going to take more than a few canvas bags to save us), but people most often think about themselves, and the impact it will have on our children in the future - not about the damage that is happening NOW to people in poorer parts of the world. Just take a look at the photos that the Obama administration has revealed about how quickly polar ice caps are melting - even I didn't think it was happening this quickly.

I always try to get involved with issues to do with the environment, sustainability and living ethically within my work - they're things that I am passionate about and that I believe our industry (design as a whole) are capable of doing something about, even more so than the politicians. We're the ones who design the adverts and the packaging and everything to sell all the stuff - we are the ones who can change public thinking from mass consumerism/needing everything/more stuff right now to... whatever comes next. Post consumerism? Anti advertising? It's still a bit grey. 'Age of austerity' I think David Cameron called it. But it's the designer's who can influence people the most. Interesting really, that this recession has come around now... now that we're questioning what exactly we really need to be spending our money on, we can also start to question not just the impact it's having on our wallets but also on resources and the environment in general. I think most people are agreed that we haven't been living financially or environmentally sustainable for a very very long time. And now look what's happened.

So doing this banner was right up my street - the brief is open and people are encouraged to submit their own banners for the cause. I wanted to create something that had a positive overtone but still reflected the core issues - something to grab people in so they want to learn more, without being too overbearing/negative and more a call to get people motivated to change.

So hopefully it gets used on the site! I'll probably blog about it if it is does anyway.

I start my first day of my placement at The Open Consultancy tomorrow... wish me luck! Really looking forward to it. Early night though defo, had a rather mental birthday party last night so taking it easy today, so that I can be bright and breezy at 6am tomorrow. (Yeah, I have to get up at 6 every day, hello full time work... my student days really are over, aren't they :( can't really complain though, i'm so excited about this placement, i'll practically be leaping out of bed tomorrow).

Ciao for nowwww

Train Journeys

Considering I live really close to Birmingham, can easily get there, and it's full of amazing shops, galleries, clubs, bars, awesome stuff, I haven't been in over a year. I think it's got something to do with the fact that everytime I go I spend a huge amount of money. Well it turns out that this week I've been 3 times, strangely. On monday I went over to the Bull Ring to give out CV's everywhere (that was a mission, I must have been in about 80 shops)... that paid off because on wednesday I went back to have an interview at Republic. Then today, I was back, this time going over to Edgebaston for an interview at Birmingham city Uni, for an illustration placement working on imagery for software for medical students. That went really well today, I so hope I get it... if I do then I'll go into more detail about what it's all about. Really exciting though! So 2 job prospects there, just got to wait on the results of them. Eeeek *bites nails*

Anyway, the point of this was that it meant I was on lots of trains this week, and I like drawing people on trains. I don't often do it because I get too scared but I actively searched out interesting-looking people. So, I hope I do get one of those jobs because it means I'll be on a train every day, so I can draw loads more people. Here are the best ones/ones I managed to complete before they noticed and scowled:

This dude was on monday, he had an interesting moustache, intently reading his paper.


The behooded fellow was really jittery so I couldn't really get him. He looked mean. The other guy had a really hook-y nose, could just see it through the seats.


She was so wrinkly, I love drawing old people, way more interesting. Couldn't get the glasses though. And the guy on the right, well he's not really there, because as it says 'hot guy that i'm too scared to draw', which was true. He was basically the twin of someone I know, it was very strange, different hair though. Anyway, I didn't want him to see I was looking at him so after 3 attempts I gave up... too attractive to draw, how lame is that. Now I shall never see him again *tear* Lol.

All this drawing on trains is very much like this blog I follow, Ami Underground. It's amazing, definitely subscribe to it, he just draws people on the NY tube every day. Waaay better than I am. It's busy there though, bet he can do it way more covertly, on trains round the West Midlands you look kind of obvious. Maybe I should try this next time I'm down in London.

By the way, that moleskin I'm using, is tiny!! Like, the size of a business card, maybe slightly bigger. It's perfect, and pink. Haha.

Pencil Power

I want to post today about a few illustrators that really inspire me, who all work with pencil predominantly. I'm a huge fan of good ol' fashioned pencil drawing in illustration, and I'm constantly trying to improve my drawing because I think it's important in this crazy digital world to still have these skills.

I've just discovered an amazing illustrator through a recent post by the guys at It's Nice That, who only goes by the name Henri.






Pretty damn awesome. It's all about Playstation.

Next is my favourite, I think I came across her a while ago in Grafik magazine, her work has inspired me so much. Esra Roise:




This one I love; there's something so personal about it. Reminds me that I need to draw the contents of my handbag soon. Actually I might just draw my handbag, it's very pretty.
Tapes! I love tapes, drawing them is somehow really exciting. These are just beautifully drawn.

Some of these are drawn from photographs, snapshot-style, which was a source of inspiration for my Seven Sins project.

Next up is Denise Van Leeuwen (what a great name!) She works with text occasionally and her images have a super-surreal feeling to them; purposefully out of proportion and quite stunning:





The colours are great as well, love that blue hair!


Sophie Henson is also great, lots of hand drawn type (which of course everyone knows I love), she draws with pen rather than pencil but her work is equally tasty:



This is great, love this image so much.

Another 'contents of your handbag' type illustration. The blue tone of this makes it extra special, I guess it reminds me of biro doodling. And is that a cassette tape I spot? ;)


I hope people get as much inspiration/tickly sensations from these illustrators as I do. Their work blows me away. Also, do you know of any awesome pencil/pen illustrators out there that I don't? I'd love to feed my visual habit.


In other news, the kind people at Creative Wolverhampton have posted about my Seven deadly sins handmade book! Which was so exciting and unexpected ^.^ That's a really good blog actually, I've been following it recently, especially if you live/study in Wolves and the surrounding areas, with news, interesting bits, things like that. Check it owwwwwt.

I'll be posting again really soon, seems I have lots of things buzzing around in my head that I want to talk about. I had a job interview yesterday and I have an interview for an Illustrator placement tomorrow... that's very exciting.

Lastly, I saw Wolverine last night. Go see it. Effects are immense, Gambit is a legend (he's always been my favourite), and well... girls, it's Wolverine. Just go watch.

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?

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