London Book Fair

I looked for children's book fairs where I could show my work that were closer to home than The Bologna Book Fair. I found the London Book Fair which in which  " 25,000 publishing professionals arrive in London for the week of the Fair to learn, network, and kick off their year of business."

The fair is features conferences, awards and exhibitions. The fair advertises itself as "global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels." This makes it sound like an ideal place to exhibit my work and to network with industry professionals. The festival is not focussed only on children's books so is not as clearly based on my practice as The Bologna Children's Book Fair but I still think it could be an extremely useful and enjoyable event to attend and possibly exhibit at. It would be a good way to build confidence in my work and gain experience of how to prepare, and display my work at these kinds of events. I would like to start attending events like this to build my confidence and get used to networking.

Bologna Children's Book Fair

I read an interview with Chris Haughton where he talked about his first book being published, he met the publishers at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. I have heard about the event before and wanted to find out more about it.

"The Bologna Children’s Book Fair each year attracts artists, illustrators, graphic designers, literary agents, publishers, authors, translators, business developers, licensors and licensees, packagers, printers, distributors, booksellers, librarians, teachers, suppliers of publishing services and all of the professional figures involved in the world of children’s books."

The Fair attracts a large number of people from a range of disciplines and professions related to children's books making it a good place to network and showcase work. I would like to visit the fair to learn more about all aspects of children's book illustration and discover new applications for my practice. The exhibition offers a range of events and opportunities. The Illustrator's Survival Centre provides a space for illustrators to meet and share experiences. They offer workshops including

"• Portfolio Reviews
Curated by authors, editors, agents and art directors
What works and what to change in portfolios, before and after meeting with publishers
• Workshops
Tips on design and planning for illustrators
• Masterclass “Survival Tools for the profession”
From self-promotion to managing interviews with the publisher, from the contract to social media
• Meet the jury
Cycles of meetings, workshops and portfolio reviews with the jurors of the Illustrators’ Exhibition 2017: Steven Guarnaccia, Arianna Squilloni, Harriet Birkinshaw, Daniela Stamatiadi and Jean-François Martin
• Red Carpet
Meetings with international artists: masterclasses and workshops
(including Chris Riddell, Isabelle Arsenault, Gilles Bachelet)"

The event sounds like an amazing opportunity to gain an incredible insight into the professional practice with classes and workshops aimed purposely at helping freelance illustrators. They also run an illustration competition that offers a huge cash prize as well as the chance to be published and all the selected illustrators are gain exposure on the website and through publications.

I want to start attending more events and developing my work with the goal of exhibiting at The Bologna Children's Book Fair after I graduate.

Joe No Brand

I was working yesterday with Joe who runs a screen printing company based on Mabgate in Leeds. I was painting a van for him as I used to take on a lot of spray paint commissions. We were talking about his business and the troubles that can occur when dealing with clients. One thing he mentioned that seems relatively simple but sounds as though it can cause problems if not dealt with properly is making sure you have a clear brief and both yourself and the client know what the brief is. We often complain about briefs being too restrictive and limiting our options but a vague brief can be much more troublesome when dealing with clients. Joe said that he gets a fair number of clients that say they are not too fussy about colours or fonts when he is designing work for them but that they almost always want changes made when they receive his work. Joe thinks that the clients usually have an idea in their head of what the work should look like but they may not be confident enough to explain it to you so you should try as much as possible to encourage them to give you a clear idea of what it is they want by showing examples of previous work, possible fonts, colour schemes. This all seems fairly clear cut but I have noticed in my own practice that I only realise potential problems or important decisions once I start the work. I think it is important to try and deal with these issues before work starts. Experience will help to learn the common problems that can occur, making a note of them will help to take them into account for future jobs. Joe mentioned using a checklist that you fill out with clients before the job starts as a way to make sure you have covered all the important information.

Presentation

Life's A Pitch Presentation

Our task is to form a collective and pitch a way we could promote our work as a group. I have teamed up with a group of illustrators that work primarily with shape based illustration but apply it in very different ways through varying processes and areas of illustration. Our aim is to put on a exhibition of printed media at Hyde Park Book Club. The venue provides a free exhibition space meaning we can keep costs o a minimum. It is located on a main road with a large amount of foot traffic good transport links from Leeds city centre with very short travel times. The location is populated by a large number of students and young creatives making it an ideal place to network. The venue has previously been host to similar exhibitions in the past so has a pre existing client base.
The exhibition will be aimed at print enthusiasts, collectors, other practitioners and potential commissioners. We aim to create awareness of our work and make connections within the creative community both with other creatives and potential employers. It will be useful to gain experience of putting on exhibitions for future events, developing marketing and organisation skills as well as further developing our understanding of roles within collaborative work.
We would like to contact other collectives and local creative businesses to increase exposure and network. Getting local print companies involved could also lower costs and allow us to produce work to sell at a appealing prices. We could contact Footprint workers co-op and No Brand Printing to ask about resograph and screen printing costs. We could also screen, lino and digital print within the art college to keep costs low. As it will be our first exhibition and we do not know how many people will come or if we will be able to sell much work it will be important to keep costs as low as possible. We have decided on our individual roles within the collective, my role is to cultivate contacts that will be able to help us with the exhibition.
We need to work on branding and marketing for the exhibition. We aim to create a logo to represent the collective as a while and make a website containing examples of work and information about the event itself. It will be important to make the website as user friendly as possible and geared towards encouraging people to attend the event. the site could contain travel advice, bios of each of the illustrators involved and a description of all aspects of the exhibition. We can use social media to advertise the event making use of the pre existing social network of each of the individuals in the collective and expanding our reach.