During this module I have taken part in a variety of different briefs and these have given me an insight in to life as an illustrator after higher education. I found myself working on briefs that challenged me in both my method of production and with my time management. The briefs I engaged in were very different from one another and enabled me to investigate processes and formats than I previously had not had the opportunity to engage with, such as producing a set of wedding stationery or producing a pattern design.
Until this module I had never participated in a live brief and I found the concept both exciting and a challenge. Throughout this module, my work has been primarily digital, from that have seen a vast improvement with the speed in which I produce illustrations on Photoshop. I have seen where my digital approaches have both worked and failed and have learnt from my mistakes. I have purposefully tried to push my digital skills in this module as it’s not my usual approach.
Throughout this module my time management skills have been tested as working to short deadlines showed me what I can achieve in a pressured amount of time. I have taken a more professional approach to the way I present my work as well as considering the specifications of each brief. I have definitely become more aware and critical of how I present my work, especially comparing my current boards to the boards I had to create for my first individual practice crit. Though presentation boards can massively improve the look of my work, they do take time; I need to make sure I account for this within future deadlines. I’ve learnt how to apply my designs to products and applications, such as my J20 submission, whilst considering the audience, output format and colour.
Collaborating with clients has allowed me to experience working to their individual deadlines and specifications. Although I am used to stress that comes with deadlines, there’s more pressure working for someone outside education.
I found that by taking on a lot of briefs at once led to the decline in quality in some responses. For example, the font cover of my Alice brief response was fairly rushed towards the end as I felt quite overwhelmed with the workload, resulting in a submission that I wasn’t completely happy with. However, saying this, responses such as ‘BBC Radio 2 Artist in Residence’ submission were completed in a short amount of time, and yet I was very pleased with the quality of design.
One concern of mine lies in the collaborative brief that I completed with Adam. I’m quite timid when it comes to sharing my opinions and ideas and felt reluctant to instruct or suggest alternative routes due to my lack of self –assurance. Although Adam was a resourceful illustrator to work with, and I’m pleased with our final submission, I don’t feel like I got chance to evidence the volume of work I produced for the brief as the majority of this did is not prominent in the final design. For example, although I was available to work alongside Adam, I came back to college to find that decisions had been made and work completed work without consultation. I found that my skills lie in the preliminary design and sketch based work and decision making regarding colours and product content. For the final design I chose the colours and I produced the initial drawing for Adam to trace and clean up. Adam is more confident using Photoshop so naturally finished the design with me present. For future collaborative projects I intend to speak up more and make it clear I’m equally involved.
This module differed from others as I was producing work for a ‘real life’ client and prepared imagery for range of products. I’ve submitted work for nine briefs and I think a good quality and quantity of work comes through. This is helped by excellent attendance and general commitment. Due to the limited time I had to complete selected briefs, I was unable to produce a large body of development work and in some briefs, none at all. Although I was initially concerned because of this, I was surprised that I was still pleased with the quality of my final work. From this I’ve found that my technical confidence has improved significantly, I can now produce work faster and without losing quality.
Upon the prospect of revisiting the module I would benefit from being more organised. On a number of occasions I prioritised other modules above this one, resulting in me delaying work, as I was asked to produce illustrations for some children’s book and didn’t have time to do so in order to submit any for this module, however, this is a project I will undertake in the future. It would have also been beneficial to be more selective regarding competition entries, bypassing minor competitions such as the Cinderella brief, so I could spend more time on the large ones to ensure quality throughout.
Furthermore, if I was to do this module again I would keep a visual journal to explore development, colour and format. With the lack of time I had to produce some briefs, I didn’t have time for development work. I do not regret my decision to work primarily digitally, as it expanded my practice and sped up my work process. However, some briefs, such as my Alice submission may have benefitted from a more analogue or combined approach.
There are parts of my work which could have benefitted from more time and focus. I struggled with my time planning toward the beginning of the module, when I had a moderately more relaxed workload to complete. By working towards more professional briefs, this module has made me more confident as a creative by pushing me out of my comfort zones and forcing me to have trust my decisions.
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