A 'Paper Passionist' talked to us today about paper, different kinds of paper, the processes of constructing paper, the different effects and styles of paper. She really lives up to her title! She had brought in many packs of paper with lots of different examples of styles of paper. It was very quirky of her to organise so many packs for us to take away. I now have a basic understanding of the process to make paper and how simple it actually is, she was very helpful and offered support if anyone needs help in using or sending off for any particular paper.
I was shocked that paper can come in infinite varieties. When you think of paper, you think of boring white A4 pieces, but they can be so very different. One piece was almost like a brick! She also showed us special types of business cards you can make that are very thick pieces of paper layered on top of one another. The most interesting piece was a stylised black piece that looked like metal sheeting and had holes in it, that was very nice, you could fit paper for any purpose at all, there is always a style that would work.
Deborah also showed us her archive of favourite pieces of work that she had done with many other artists, she seemed to be very knowledgable of people in the industry. This visit was probably the most interesting of all the visits, and I'm glad Deborah spoke to us about something so overlooked; paper!
I was lucky enough to get a portfolio viewing with Fig Taylor, writer of "How to Create a Portfolio & Get Hired" She had a look over my portfolio and assumed I wanted to get into Poster designs, probably for charities. She obviously looked over what I had and thought this would be the direction I am headed for, which would be right since a lot of the work in my portfolio is for organisations such as RSPCA, AGE UK etc. I think she assumes what she sees is what I want to do, which may sound obvious, but a lot of people seem to throw their best work in their portfolio without thinking about who it is that is actually looking. For example, if a book company was to look at your portfolio with hopes of hiring you, you would probably put mostly book designs to show you are capable of that medium, or for a poster agency, you would show them posters you have done. But my portfolio at the time was an average of all my best and personally favourite work, so maybe it was confusing to see where I actually stand from an employment perspective.
She thought my Age UK work was "the most frightening thing I have ever seen in my life" which is agreeable, since that was sort of the point of it. It was still very nice of her to look at my Portfolio since she is very well-known in the industry, and I have heard of her a few times before. From what she has said I do want to maybe do work for charities, but not necessarily posters and not necessarily just charities.
