Little Brown Book Project - Marketing and Studio Visit

I have been to London to show several marketing directors my seven book cover designs for the Josie Dew Cycling Books project I have been working on. While I was there, I had a look around the building that Little Brown were stationed at. I was very surprised that there were so many employees in such a small company. It was a giant office with many people working on different things, some putting books together, others designing the actual books, it was really amazing to see! I spoke to one of the designers who was in the middle of designing a thriller book. 

They were working on Photoshop with one of those drawing tablets. She showed me some of the recent books she had designed and they all looked really different, yet intricate. Some had some funny illustrative characters, some were very dark and eerie, it was clear that most of the artists here don't have one particular style, they adapt to suit the content being made. She showed me a list of books that need to be made for a certain date (about two months away) and there were about 20 that needed to be made. I thought it would be very stressful buts he said she gets sent ideas of how they want it to look, the problem is that sometimes there are so many different ideas suggested, it can be difficult to understand which design they actually want. I asked her if she ever takes anything home or if it is all done at work. She said that luckily she never needs to work from home, it's all done during office hours, and that it is good to have a break from it as with anything.

As for showing work to the team, it was very scary! I assumed there would just be a few people but there was a giant roundtable and about 15 different people, they started saying "Hello I'm the marketing director for Waterstones" etc. I didn't expect this many, but I explained my work and why I designed them the way I did and it went ok. I was very lucky to get this oppertunity, but where it will go from here I do not know yet, but it was a really great experience!

Portfolio Review - Little Brown Book Publishers

I travelled to Blackfriars in London to visit the studio of Little Brown Book Publishing. (see separate blog entry). While I was there, Hannah Wood took a look at my portfolio. It was quite nerve wracking to go into an industry head-first with about 10 marketing directors waiting to see the book designs I had made. Hannah and a lady that was with her sat and waited for me to tell them about each piece of work. I'd never professionally explained each piece of art I had done until this point, it was even more scary trying to talk through the silence of them.

Overall they seemed to like my work, there was a tight schedule, and my portfolio review overran so I had to make haste, keeping it short but sweet. They said that it was a good idea that I chose to put drawings into the portfolio, because far too often do people slam all their best final work into a portfolio and sometimes it can be difficult to see where a certain brief could have gone if they had done things differently. Showing some decent rough work allows them to see the foundations of where a project could potentially go.

They thought my Animals in Anguish characters were a little "extreme" but I explained that it was because I was trying to make an extreme point and 'shock' the audience. They saw this with reason but I do acknowledge that some people could seem offended or shocked by these characters, but this is what I wanted them to feel.

Portfolio Review - Fig Taylor

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.

E-Portfolio Feedback - Philippa Lightburn

I sent my e-portfolio to Philippa Lightburn, Philippa is an illustrator who was an ex-student at my university, and has gone on to be a professional freelance illustrator.

"I've had a look through your portfolio and I'm really impressed with both your work and the layout. I remember meeting you at the guru evening and I don't think you had a lot of your work with you so seeing it all together like this is really nice! You've got a great style that is obviously working well for you and your portfolio flows well from page to page."

"My favourite illustration is the pollution piece for the RSPCA. I just think it's such a great idea that has been executed really well and it has an immediate message. The two block colours work nicely and it's very graphically striking. I also really love the Wind in the Willows book cover - especially the trees in the background. They're really beautiful colours and have a lovely texture to them."

Since a lot of my portfolio contains a lot of mixed media between hand crafted objects and work I've made on the computer, it's nice that she can appreciate this, and appreciate the use of colour between them. The Fairtrade piece had a strict colour palette, so it's even better that I managed to hold a good synergy regarding colour in the piece.

"The presentation of your portfolio is really strong and I can't fault anything. All the other gurus I've emailed have had little things that I would change with the layout, but yours is perfect!"

I feel I was happy with the way my work was presented, each page follows the exact sizing and measurements of the previous page, so it pleases my perfectionist side. It made me smile that she used the word 'perfect' though, that was a nice comment to receive.

"The only minor thing I can spot is perhaps some of the typography. I really like the typography on the two book covers, the hand drawn quality of it is really nice and compliments the work well. The fonts on the RSPCA and Fair Trade images could perhaps be a bit more interesting and match the styles of the illustrations more. But this is a really minor thing so please don't take it to heart. I'm only picking up on it because I went to a graphic design agency and the guy said I could do with changing the font on one of my pieces. Graphic designers are really in to type so carefully choosing one or designing your own can be worth your while!"

This has been interesting because Pat Carroll said the opposite, he has worked with graphic designers for years and doesn't think the typeface works with the skyline. I do think the type does fit with the series or books, it's a very hand rendered characterful typeface and I do like it. It's very interesting to receive opinions from people who have experience from the industry, because it's just an opinion, and you can only take from it what you asked for, a collection of opinions gives you a more broad range of feedback.

Overall Philippa was very pleased with my work and I am glad with this. I want to try and improve some of the pieces of work though, there are other potential pieces that didn't make it into the portfolio that maybe I will reconsider.

E-Portfolio Feedback - Gary Prendergast & Pat Carroll

I have been given feedback by two artists, Gary Prendergast and Pat Carroll, Pat has worked with many successful graphic designers and students, and has made LPs for band albums such as The Happy Mondays. They found my portfolio layout to appear very professional, all the pages are perfectly laid out and look as they should. They were both very fond of my illustrative and graphical combinations in my work, and said that they can tell straight away what kind of style I have with my work. 

Pat was very impressed with my RSPCA work and thought they were my strongest pieces, some pieces such as the Josie Dew piece, has a great potential, but is let down by the typeface and the statue in the centre, it would be good if this piece could be amended. I felt I liked the typeface, but agree with the statue comment, it is a bit of an anti-climax, it just looks a little out of place. If after removing the statue, there is too much of an open gap, I could work on making the skyline a bit higher.

They said my work reminded them of an artist called Paul Rand and recommended I look into him, as my work has a similar style. Overall, they said that my portfolio does have a really nice feel and gives off my aura, which I am glad about. I will go into my eportfolio and try to make some amendments to past work over the Christmas holiday.

Little Brown Book - Feedback

I have shown my work to Little Brown Publishing and they were quite surprised by the work of everyone. Their advice to me was to continue to work with shape and try to forge a concept of using the whole page (front, back and middle), as they particularly would like to see imagery that fills the whole page and not just separate to the front or back, this is an idea I agreed with as I have done this in the past for projects such as The Wind in the Willows, where I have used the double page to plant a whole scene.

They also recommend I work with a Graphic Design student to combine a suitable typeface with my designs, I don't always like working with others as I feel I can think better in my own head and like to think I'd be fine finding a good typeface, but having someone else to bounce ideas and combine thoughts is always good and it will be interesting to work with someone I don't know and hasn't had the same design experience. 

I am going to continue to think about the layout of the page and how this can be used to an advantage, instead of sticking to just using each page separate. I also think that if I use shape in each design and stick to my style, I will have automatically kept the synergy going and that will be the common basis for the 7 designs.