Interview possibilities

I need to start compiling a list of practitioners that I would like to interview as part of this module. I want to aim high and make sure they are people that I think can help me with my practice and understanding of the industry. I have a few people in mind that I would love to interview but I need to and that I have ideas how to contact them. I have been working on projects that are based on authors and illustrators that I could try and contact through social media. I would like to show them the work I have made and use this as a first point of contact. the practitioners are....

Neil Gaiman-I chose Neil Gaiman as he has inspired almost all my work this year. he is a writer not an illustrator but I would like to create children's books and think his knowledge of the industry could provide me with some very useful insights. He is active on social media and I had been planning to tweet him a picture of the book I made based on one of his quotes. This could be a good way to make contact.

Chris Haughton- Chris Haughton is an amazing children's book illustrator, his books are very popular and both his books and other products are made to a high standard. The processes he uses take into account the moral and social issues of society, he works with charities that provide jobs and help for people in need. I think I could learn a lot about how to run a successful business from him. My work has definitely been influenced by his and I would like to send him some work and thank him for the inspiration but I am a bit apprehensive.

Jay Ryan- Jay Ryan is a screen printer that started out making posters for his band. I am interested to find out how his work has become so well known and how his practice has developed and how he approaches briefs. It would be interesting to talk to someone who is somewhat self taught. He lives in America so I am not sure how best to try and make contact at this point.

Johnny Cupcakes- Johnny Cupcakes brand has been very successful and has a loyal following. His designs often follow a set design subject matter combination, drawing on his fans life experiences. He uses references to American culture, computer games, television and film and gives them his own twist on the theme. I would be interested to know how he has managed to run a business that rapidly expanded and how he works on brainstorming new ideas because they release new t shirts every week.


Keith Negley- Keith Negley is an illustrator that has fairly recently started making children's books when it is not something he has been known for. I would like to talk to him about what it was like to transition to children's books and what new challenges it posed. His books have been very successful so I think he could give me lots of useful tips on the challenges I will face. His website has contact details including the address of his studio, I could send a letter to the studio as it is more personal that an email.

Joe Duffield- Joe runs No brand print studio in Leeds, it is primarily a screen printing studio but joe collaborates with a variety of creatives on a number of different projects. Joe is a friend of mine and I would like to start by interviewing somebody I know as it is not something I have done before. Joe will have some very useful insights into running a creative business and collaborating and I can get used to interviewing someone with a little less pressure.

The Flying Eye Scribes-

The flying Eye Scribes (that's all I could find on their site) would be very useful to interview. I would like to ask them about the do's and don't when trying to get a book published and what they look for. I will have to keep researching to see if I can find anymore information but I may have to try and get in touch through their websites contact details.

Logo

I was asked to create a logo for a music label. The only brief I was given was that the name was 'AMP' and it should include a diamond. From the label logo's I have seen they need to be recognisable but also clear and easy to read. I wanted to just use one colour so that the logo could be used in any format. I thought the diamond shape upside down could work as the whole in the 'A' or the 'A' itself. I decided to start with a nice crisp clean font and work from there. Once again this brief had a very short timescale meaning that with other commitments I would only be able to work on it for one day. I had been looking at older brands that have been very popular recently, especially sports clothing brands. I wanted to create a retro look for the logo. because I was only using one colour I thought I could use negative space and invert the colours to make the logo more interesting. I found a font that looks similar to lettering used on old American cars. I bough a pair of trainers recently that were designed by asking the public opinion through social media that featured the same style of lettering.

At first I made the background for the 'M' from the stem of the 'P' but it meant that the 'P' became lost making the logo unclear. The logo felt unbalanced and needed something added at the end of the designs under the 'P'. I tried adding another diamond but it looked poorly thought out and made the logo look too symmetrical. Looking at the 'M' I though it looked like a wire, and that I could add an audio jack to the end of it. Doing this balanced the logo, fits with the context of a music label and made sense of the design of the lettering. I have yet to show the client my work and will revisit this design once I receive feedback. 

Pin up

I was asked to make a logo for a hairdresser that could be used as stickers and on social media for marketing. The brief was extremely short, I only had one day to have a final piece ready. What I found made it much easier was staying in contact with the client at key intervals where  needed to make a decision about a crucial elements of the design. I know the person I was working for so communication was easy but it is a practice I would like to carry over into all my work. The process would have taken much longer without clear and efficient communication, Uncertainty would have slowed down my creative process and waiting around for replies would have been frustrating. One thing that worried me about this brief is that the main focus of the illustration was the hair. I don't know anything about hairdressing but the illustration needed to communicate skill and presentation that would inspire confidence in the clients work. This process highlighted to me the need to research the subjects I am illustrating. It would be easy to make a mistake that undermines everything I ma trying to communicate through a lack of understanding. This style of illustration is more like the way I used to work, although I wouldn't say it has helped me to progress my practice in terms of how I make images it has taught me some important lessons and given me more confidence to work in a variety of ways to meet different demands.

Adrian Mole Fonts

This is the back cover I have made for the Penguin Books brief based on Adrian Mole. The entire cover design contains a lot of text and I wanted to make sure the text acted as part of the illustration as it would cover a large portion of the cover itself. I wanted the text to reflect the narrative of the boom but had to keep in mind the purpose of the text. It needed to be clear and communicate the relevant information. The book covers purpose is to grab peoples attention and communicate the tone and story of the book instantly. The text is additional information including part of the book and a number of reviews. Working on this cover presented me with problems I have not had to tackle before. I don't normally work with text or have such a large number of criteria to adhere to when creating illustrations. This was a difficult process, I had to plan more precisely to incorporate each individual element like, text, logo's, barcode etc. I felt like I was trying to cram information in a small space without and freedom. I read an interview with Jon Klassen where he talked about illustrating books as problem solving, he said that you use symbols to communicate with the reader and the better you become as an illustrator the more complex messages you are able to communicate. I need to treat briefs like this as a learning exercise as I want to illustrate children's books and designing covers will be part of my practice. The process of dealing with constraints will help me to refine my illustrations and become more efficient in communicating through illustration.

Small Businesses

I am not sure what I want to do when I finish my degree, whether to set up a business myself or try and get a job at a bigger company. I want to make sure I understand the pro's and con's of each option. I have been looking at articles about the ways that small businesses can compete with large companies when they are constantly undercut by big businesses that can afford to buy huge amounts of stock at a lower price. There are a number of ways that small businesses can take advantage of their small size. Small businesses can react faster the changes in the market place, they don't have the red tape that bigger companies have to adhere to and the small number of staff and simple company structure mean decisions can be made in much shorter periods of time. In many cases the person in charge is also the person on the front line dealing with customers putting them in an ideal position to react to the needs of their clients.

 Where larger companies are able stock a wide variety of products and offer a diverse range that can often span a huge section of the market place small companies can specialise and use their expertise as selling point. Customers can value the advice from the shops they are buying from as much as the products themselves and will be more confident in the products if the person selling them has a good knowledge of them. large companies can lose this ability as the company grows and suffer because of it. I am a keen cyclist and photographer and can think of two companies off the top of my head that at face value seem to operate in similar ways but the customer experience is vastly different. Jessops seems to hire young people that will be happy to work for minimum wage regardless of their knowledge of the products they sell, Edinburgh cycles employ a people of a similar age but seem to have taken the time to seek out staff with a keen interest and base of knowledge of their products.  As a customer I am much more likely to buy from the latter, knowledgeable staff fill you with confidence and make you more comfortable with spending money. having conversations with staff that have a shared interest creates a feeling of community. Their job is to sell you products but they also want to keep you as a long term customer, something that may not be as crucial with a much larger customer base.

Small businesses can create a strong online presence with a well mad and maintained website and good use of social media. A well though out online presence can give the impression that a small business is much larger than it really is. The quality of the website is crucial when trying to expand your customer base. A trusted payment gateway is a must. The more impressive the website the more comfortable customers will be buying from you, all aspects should be well though out and executed from photography to layout to the item descriptions. An online presence can do much more than provide a platform to sell products, your website and social media sites provide opportunity to interact with the a huge audience. This can be used to communicate values that may not be evident on your website. Interactions with potential customers can go well beyond usual customer services scenarios. Values and personality can be added to your brand that if used well could benefit your business.
I need to figure out which of these is most important to my practice and how to apply them.

Chris Haughton

I was looking at Chris Haughton's website over the Christmas break to but presents for my niece. He primarily writes and illustrates children's books but also sells toys and prints through his site. I think it is important to understand how to expand your business by understanding what it is your customers want. Children that enjoy the books would love to have a toy of their favourite characters from the books and adults that appreciate his illustration would like signed prints. Most popular children's books have merchandise that accompanies them but few have merchandise of the same quality. From what I can tell Chris Haughton's work is not that well know but is loved by the people that do know about it, his illustrations are beautifully crafted and his stories are fun and appealing to children. It makes that he would sell high quality merchandise to a relatively small but loyal fan base as selling cheaper, lower quality products would only be a viable business on a very large scale. he maintains the high quality standards through his prints that are hand signed and printed on archival paper. Even when he is not directly involved in the production his toys are hand made by Mahaguthi development group in Nepal. The toys and packaging are hand made and good quality, The Mahaguthi development group is a social enterprise that takes on 90 women each year (most are widows or victims of domestic abuse) and teaches them to read and write along with other skills to help them seek employment as well as providing education for their children and supporting a hospital. All of these things are good reasons to buy Chris Haughton's products whether a fan or not. I am happy to spend more than usual if a product is hand made to a high standard, I am also happy to pay more if it supporting charities or other worthy causes. Even at the most basic level I am happier spending money on something if everything about the product says 'quality'. I see so many shops that take terrible low quality pictures of items they are selling, this can be a big put off for a customer, if you don't take care when showcasing your work have you taken care in making it? His site is a breath of fresh air when most people are happy to shop at amazon then complain there aren't any local book or record shops where they live. I don't want to sit around complaining, I think we need to figure out what it is a small business can offer that these bigger companies can't or won't. I need to look at these ideas in a lot more depth!!!!!!

-What local businesses could I collaborate with?

-How can we create a sense of community in business?

-How could my work benefit people in need?

-What can small businesses do that bit businesses can't?