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.

Running Errands

Last night, I was lucky enough to get talking to some people in a pub and have been asked to do a couple of jobs for separate people. These will be paid and I have been given several weeks to complete them. These are effectively my first proper paid illustration jobs so I am excited!

Firstly a girl wants me to design her a tattoo featuring a dragon spiralling cherry blossoms, I find this request both honourable but kind of challenging because someone is going to be placing a design of mine to their body for the rest of their life (bar laser surgery to remove it (haha)) and so they are putting quite a lot of trust into my work. But at the same time, that makes me feel happy that my drawings are respected by people I don't know.

The second job is from a man who wants me to sketch a professional portrait of his dog who is really old as a memory of when he passes on. He is going to send me a picture of the dog and I will draw from the picture, he also said that pastels are preferred but is completely open to any form of sketch. I do like to do observational drawings

To be completely honest, money does not mean very much to me, I'm much more thankful for the opportunities and the experiences, as this is all worth a lot more than just Happy Meal spends. I am very excited and will get round to doing these jobs as soon as I can.

-Shatty