On the 22nd of April 2021 the university held a talk with illustrators Frances Moffatt and Nick Holmes. Both have been involved with education, Moffatt is known for fashion/lifestyle/publishing illustrations and Holmes has done a variety of work such as advertisement/film/editorial/publishing.

Like with the previous talks getting work is about putting yourself out there and going direct to the clients, they are unlikely to just find you through a website or social media no matter how many followers you have. Also I found it interesting how they spoke about how it just takes a few projects to lead to more work and how it is important to have an income coming in so you can say no to low paying work and to not feel bad about it.

On the 15th of April our university held a talk with illustrators Jill Calder and Sarah Coleman. Jill has created illustrations for publishing/editorial/advertisements and Sarah is known for her typography work on books/advertisements/editorial pieces.

It was really insightful hearing about how to go about contacting clients, that you need to go to the art director to get the best response and not through contact information on websites of the company they work for. Also I think emailing is still the best way to contact, as again if you print something that costs money/ more time, even if they do like seeing physical work it is wether you can afford to do so. Both of them saying about the agencies and having them later on in their careers puts it into perspective how it is probably better for myself to contact clients and get experience first. Though I think I still might contact agencies now and just expect nothing back. Katie Chappell had a goal of getting 100 no/rejections in 2019, which is something that I think will make it “easier” when I start sending emails out, it is a way of not getting disheartened and also as Sarah said no response or not yet as a reply, isn’t always a bad thing as they could come back to you later on.

On the 25th of March our university held a talk with Aimee Stewart and Sarah Habershon. Aimee is a graduate of the university, now a senior designer at Scholastic, and Sarah is art director for the G2 feature in the Guardian.

It was interesting to hear from the clients view point and how they find illustrators through not just emails/ agencies but by looking through Instagram as well. Also how they keep in mind illustrators they have seen for a project say a year later they might contact them then.

On the 11th March 2021 our university held a talk with the comic book artists ​Duncan Fegredo and Sean Phillips.

I wasn’t sure what to get out of this talk but it was definitely interesting and I have learnt stuff from it. Comics have been something that I have never read but I think there are aspects of them that I can relate to. The general idea of compositions and storytelling within them are what I am inspired by from them, as well as the more illustrative comics that using interesting textures/ colours. My only interest with the superhero side of comics is probably watching the Batman animated series as a kid. I feel that comics have developed into the video game world where you can actually play out the action elements, like I remember playing the Halo, Fable, Elder Scrolls and Timesplitters franchises and you sort of take on the role of the characters by taking them through the story.

On the 4th of March 2021 our university held a talk with illustrator Lucy Hadley and graphic designer Vince Waldon, both graduates from the university.

I have been following Lucy’s work for a while now and it was nice to hear her perspective on the illustration industry and journey into printing a book. I was also aware of Vince’s studio through Instagram and the points he made about not undervaluing yourself in abilities or pricing is something I think is really important. I definitely feel the area I struggle with most is confidence, like if I need to ‘act’ like I am then I will do so, but it is difficult to constantly believe that I could fulfil a career of being an illustrator and that my work is even good enough to sell/ be commissioned for. So it is something I am trying to get better with and not worry about.

I have created this cv to try out a way of laying out my experience, skills and education to be easy to read and do the job of simply giving information to the reader. I think it is okay for what it does, it is my first attempt at doing a creative cv and I have tried to keep the element of a normal cv suppling information rather than visuals, as that is what your portfolio is for, to show your art. I have only included my part time job, as I needed to fill the space and it has its pros, but until I have more creative experience to replace it, it will stay. I doubt I will put this on my website for now as it is more of a task to learn from rather than have use for my website. Also education wise I don’t need to list every subject or even include grades from school, I don’t think they are really necessary when you have college grades or a degree, though I might add them in if I change my mind. I would refine it further when I have more time. Notes - it is blurry because for some reason I can’t save the file as an image so could only take a screen shot, and I haven’t included phone number/ address as this is posted online, while in the actual cv I would include the personal information. 

Here are some agencies/publisher’s pages where their contact information is available. I have looked into LinkedIn as well as that is a platform that is made for work and connecting with other people/ clients.

Today with the internet has made communication with getting clients and work more accessible. You don’t have to pay for a portfolio of work to be printed which you would show to people, you can put your work on a website or post to social media for free and it is visible to anyone that comes across your pages. However that eliminates them meeting you in person and vice versa, they can only see the work on a screen rather than in larger print, but with the way society is going it can be more convenient to keep everything digital, and printing something off may not be worth the time and money when there are other options. Also accessibility, it costs money and time to travel to meet others, the fact being that these meetings/events are mostly in cities.

So in my opinion it is better to connect through email or social media to get in contact with those you want to work with, you can be more direct and save time/money on the traditional way of illustrators gaining work. LinkedIn is another good way of finding people as well as connecting, as it is a platform designed for finding work/clients, so contact information is available.

I would say yes I need a cv for jobs that perhaps are not in the creative industry, as with creative jobs your portfolio/website  becomes your cv, but I think you still need a cv as it is an important element to getting work for certain jobs. I have seen that some illustrators do have a cv/resume on their website, but all have loads of examples of jobs they have done to put down on them while at my stage in my career I have very little to put on it that relates to creative experience. I think the simpler a cv is the better, there as some examples in the links below that I think have too much imagery or colours were it takes you away from the information and makes it appear as an illustration on its own. You can still have a sense of creativity in the cv but I don’t think it needs to be fully illustrated.

When I think of what kind of clients I would like I straight away think of publishing places, but what other clients do I think I might be able to work for? I will put some links to clients here that I would want to complete work for. 

Having done some research into clients I kind of have a better idea of who and what I want to be working on. With publishers for books and literature related work, illustrating covers and Illustrations within the books. Also I think it would be interesting to have work for art material clients in terms of illustrating for the packaging or promoting their products. I think I would like to do illustrations for museums, galleries, visitor gardens or historical sites, either promotional or informational illustrations for their websites or for on location use, maybe even work for their gift shops, such as books, postcards etc. Creating promotional illustrations for events like Spring Fling would be something else I would consider doing. Also having clients like YWCA Scotland is something I would want, being involved with clients that have positive goals and intentions is what I want to do as an illustrator, not work for brands/companies that don’t consider equality and human rights. I definitely would prefer working for clients that are aware of how they are making their own products, how they are contributing to society and not giving in to cheap labour or fast fashion as examples. Yet with bigger brands come bigger pay, so if I was offered work for a well known client I would have to assess if I can work with them or not.