Monday 5th
March
·
Dr Stuart Cunningham and Professor Michael
Scott (in place of Professor Maurice Cockrill)
The
day started off without Maurice Cockrill, as he was absent. Michael Scott, our
Vice Chancellor took over instead and gave us a brief history of his career as
a Shakespeare professor, and Shakespeare’s intentions as a businessman. Before
that, Stuart Cunningham gave us some facts and figures about the design
industry, including a specific fact that I memorised: that there is a rising demand for designers who
have multiple areas of talent.
Professor
Scott then took over, giving us a romanticised version of how Shakespeare came
into business in the theatre industry, including detailed descriptions of the
origins of theatre. He went on to describe Shakespeare as a shrewd businessman,
who had jumped on the bandwagon when he spied the opportunity in the theatre
business. Also, there was talk of Shakespeare’s plays mocking the majority of
the Elizabethan masses and royalty, while his rival’s plays were much more
direct in nature and leading to severe punishment.
At
some point, I disagreed with his portrayal of Shakespeare as a cold-nosed
businessman. I believe there was a lot of passion in Shakespeare’s plays and
that is the reason why they still sell today. I fully believe the Bard was the
most accomplished user of the English language, but I don’t like to think of
his plays as simple money makers, devised simply to be profitable, which is the
impression I got from Professor Scott’s speech.
·
Angus Montgomery: Key Note Speech
Angus
Montgomery is the editor of ‘Design Week’, a weekly publication that hosts and
reports on various talents and progress in the design industry. He admitted a
little sheepishly at the start that he is only a journalist and that he lacks
any sort of designing skill.
He
made it clear that he was a little envious of those with design skills, and he
elaborated on the vast hub of design jobs in the world today. At this point, I
was sort of interested in the fact that there were so many avenues of design
jobs that I wasn’t really restricted to the ones I’m studying in my course.
·
Building an Audience: Making a living from
comics- John Allison
Allison
started in 2003, and has since created the popular comics, Bad Machinery and
Scary Go Round, despite graduating as a graphic designer.
He
started off by showing us some of his early work, before explaining that these
were done in his spare time, as he had graduated, but was unable to find a job
straight away. He advised graduates to just keep being proactive whilst holding
down any old job to support yourself until you get a design job.
He
then explained that comics are extremely competitive online and any fans of
your work are quick to get upset at aesthetic changes to your comics. John
started in traditional comics, then changed styles as he used Illustrator and
digital tools. He also explained that money-wise, comics are not as commercially
guaranteed when you first start out. They have to start as a passionate hobby
and then slowly develop into very popular and commercially successful
publications.
I
thoroughly enjoyed John Allison’s presentation as he was a very down-to-earth
young man with a very nice portfolio of quality work. Despite not thinking of
doing comics before, I had a small inkling to at least try it out now and
expand my horizons a little.
·
A Freelance Career in Animation and
Illustration- Karen Chueng
Karen
Chueng graduated from Bristol as a freelance illustrator and animator. She won
the Macmillan Prize for Children’s Picture Book Illustration in 2006, and was
shortlisted for the BBC New Animator Award in 2005. She’s done work for
Paramount, Skoda, Honda, Tesco, Ikea and has worked for animation studio
12foot6 who are based in London.
Karen
seemed extremely modest about her talent, and remarked that she was very shy in
the business. I really loved her animation, which was really quirky and funny.
She also commented heavily on having an agent from Jelly London, who has helped
immensely in getting opportunities for work. She says that objectively, it
depends on the artist but some people prefer agents and some can work alone.
Tuesday 6th
March
·
After your degree: The First Steps (Games)-
Dave Boydell
Dave
graduated from Glyndwr, and currently works at Dreadnought-Design. Prior, he
worked as a Prop Designer, Modeller and Texture Artist.
This
was my favourite session by far, not only because it concerned my passion and
the subject of my course, but also because it was first-hand advice from a
Glyndwr graduate, who had clearly been successful in the industry.
Dave
explained that he wanted to be a concept artist, but ended up dabbling in
character design, environments and props. He explained that in the industry
there is a demand for other talents like digital sculpting, 3D modelling and
synopsis writing (world creation). This pleased me greatly as one of my other
passions is writing, and I love creating characters and scenarios with words.
Other avenues are level design and gameplay arches.
He
then went in depth about what to do when you graduate. He says as soon as you
finish, practice your art. Keep sketchbooks, dabble in digital art, explore new
medias and technology and compile your works online. He warned against slacking
off and lacking any goals to reach, as he has known classmates who slacked off
after graduation and have since gone nowhere.
He
advised us to get networking, such as distributing business cards, stationery
and specialist pieces, such as novelty business cards. He also gave us the
names of some agencies that you can explore to find work:
GameIndustry.biz
Aardvark
Swift
OPM
Deviant
Art
Conceptart.org
Zbrushcentral
He
also offered some advice on managing your work online, and how to create
portfolios. He suggested Blogger first and foremost (which I already have) and
also CarbonMade to make an online portfolio. He also suggested attending
conventions and expos with your work, such as Thought Bubble and MCM. Another
great idea he said to do, is to create an art book, which you can self-publish
or use Lulu or Blurb to publish it for you. All in the name of getting your
name out there.
In
terms of employability, he suggests that your resume be well-presented and good
looking, and try to tailor it to specific companies or specific jobs that you
are going for. For the cover letter, sell yourself on the first page and don’t
waffle on aimlessly and especially, don’t sound needy.
In
the industry, Dave suggests that you be completely flexible and go where the
work is. Be prepared to make the coffee and do menial tasks at first. You may
not be what you want to be at the beginning, but when you do get work, Dave
says “Enjoy it!” He definitely stresses that it’s likely you’ll need another
job while you search for an opportunity and while being proactive, take some
ideas from the current industry while developing work. To help with networking,
he even gave us his Twitter details to see what he’s doing.
All
in all, I found this lecture to be the most useful and it has really prepared
me for the time when I will graduate, which is really to not expect to waltz
into a dream job and to work hard for your future.
·
Character Design and Social Networking-
Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan
works as an illustrator and comic artist. He focused in the session on the
creation of the character Inspector Cumulus as well as several bizarre
characters created for shop window displays all over the world. In the subject
of Inspector Cumulus, it started as a simple vector drawing mocked up to
resemble an actual poster for a real animation program.
Then,
Jonathan explained that someone spotted it, enquired about it and it led into a
vinyl toy being made of it, which was distributed all over the world. It seems
that there is a correlation between everyone speaking at Creative Futures week;
that most of their best successes spawn from a lucky chance that someone in the
industry spots and develops further.
On
the subject of the fabric characters in the shop windows, Jonathan explained
that he collaborated with his wife on them. The ideas for them came from random
sketches, that his wife saw and decided to make up in fabric. This indicates
that different skills in all sorts of avenues are invaluable in the design
industry, and that collaboration can be very rewarding. The characters were
chosen for display in various establishments in London, including a particular
shop on Oxford Street for the Christmas holidays. The characters received
critical acclaim, earning Jonathan’s wife the prestigious title of ‘Sculptress
of Felt’ and gaining more exhibitions in Japan.
To
finish, Jonathan advised that you get your work onto as many places as possible
in order to have a prominent presence online, and to keep a sketchbook at all
times, as this is where ideas develop from directly and can lead to special
opportunities when completed.
·
Illustration and Key Graphics: Work, Realities
and Copyright- David Newell
David
Newell is a Creative Director who works at Multibrands Ltd.
Unfortunately,
this was one of the more boring sessions, mostly due to the work that David
presented, which was very dated and using old techniques like airbrush-art. The
majority of the focus was on graphics like typography and logos. Most of
David’s work was for advertisement campaigns from the early 90’s, including
condom packets, batteries and toothpaste.
Despite
this, I understand that David is a Creative Director and so is not fully
involved with creating finished pieces and is more involved in generating ideas
and concepts. So unfortunately, I didn’t get that much from this session.
Wednesday
7th March
·
Working as a Freelance Animator- Ian Whittle
Ian
has worked at Second Home Studios and Red Door Studios. Specialising in stop
motion animation, he also dabbles in character design, set and prop production,
animation and post production. He also uses Photoshop, Flash and After Effects
to great use.
Ian
started off giving a few demonstrations of some of the work he has done. We
were shown a cut-out animation including simple drawings done by a group of
children who are in foster families. The animation was very personal and
included audio from the children describing how they felt about being in foster
families.
He
then showed us physical props of white paper crops that were used for an advert
for cider that was all stop motion animation. The finished advert was really
beautiful and was made using lots of technical effects as well as programs like
After Effects.
He
explained that he switched companies at this point, and worked on lots of brief
stop-motion animations that preclude programs on children’s TV channels, for
example CITV. He then showed us the props they used in those animations,
including intricate mechanical mice. He finished off with showing us a finished
animated short, which was again stop-motion.
This session was quite useful, as it indicated that keeping an interest in all avenues, even stop animation, which I've only experimented with a few times, can be useful when working in the design industry.
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