Comparatives

Through the year I have seen and heard from several practicing professionals and this post will explore the different pressures experienced by two of those individuals and how hey respond to them. I have chosen to look at Container PLUS who, in their words are "a multidisciplinary art and design collective specialising in playfully creating multifaceted fantasy worlds across a multitude of 2D and 3D platforms", and compare them with Andrew Foster whom I have talked about in a previous post.
There are a number of similarities with these two parties, the types of commission they are usually associated with include shop displays and a free heavily painted and hand produced style. There are also very distinct differences. Andrew Foster works alone, often through Central Illustration Agency ad has been responsible for much self motivated promotional work that has led to gallery exhibitions and a self authored approach to much of this work.

Container PLUS work as a collective, primarily driven by the founders Nicola Carter and Luise Vormittag who met whilst studying at Camberwell. Sharing a sense of humour and various other interests, they began working together, initially by promoting each others work when visiting clients and the like until they began to work on joint pieces and established their joint identity.This work led them to work with various other photographers, set designers and assistants, at times just hiring, at others with them becoming part of the group. Patricia Niven (a photographer) recently becoming the third member and forming the group as we know it.

Self Initiated work from Container PLUS. 'The Evil Twins' Showcasing the combination of illustration, set design and photography that has given them their name.

Nicola and Louise have now developed so much with each other that they say it is impossible to tell their work apart, one can take over from the other at any time and no-one would know the difference.

The way these parties have approached their careers raises several questions about the nature of the industry and illustration as a whole. Both have in their own way carved a niche for themselves. Container PLUS have created a unique identity and taken on vastly different commissions with their ability to adapt by hiring people they need to complete the job in hand. Andrew Foster admits that he struggled after leaving educational security and has had to approach things much more from a more personal stance and produced much work that is for his own pleasure. He has a very personal style and it seems the nature of his work means that he is defined by it, being deemed only suitable for certain articles and installations. Currently he is attempting to promote himself and feels like he was tossed aside after his graduation with little actual knowledge of the industry to rely on.

We don't have to look far to see examples of the kind of collaborative efforts that are found now-a-days within illustration. It has become more and more acceptable to have a group identity and push design forward as a group effort under one umbrella, producing self-authored indulgent pieces that let the illustrators' more artistic , indulgent side shine through to create fetishistic, exclusive items produced purely for pleasure and contrary to the accepted norm of client-based illustration. Limited runs of specially printed posters and cards, mugs and tea coasters are pretty run of the mill for any self respecting studio or illustrator now and it seems are almost a necessity for anyone that wants to make a living.

It appears that Container PLUS will have their online shop open some time this year...

So, is this indicative of a failing industry ? Are there just too many graduates now? Is it necessary to club together and scrape an existence together by hanging on with the few people that were in your class at school? The ladies at container PLUS admit that they don't make a lot of money, besides enough to live on and most of their funds is pumped back into self-promotion. Many would call this a victory and I'm not about to deny it. They admit having to look further afield than just the 'safe' umbrella of the illustration community. Looking at themselves much more as a creative whole they are happy to exhibit in more art oriented exhibitions.

The opening that I attended in Sheffield was for Mr Foster's private work and was being exhibited purely as art and as not really having a lot to do with his illustration work at all. We were invited to watch videos of Andrew talking candidly and with an almost uncomfortable feeling the business-like side of things was thrown aside as we saw a much more intimate view.
I admit I wasn't really prepared for this, but being a fine-art student prior to enrolling as an illustration student has opened me up more to the sensitivities of the fine-art world and it was an interesting change from the vast majority of work I was looking at at the time.
Andrew is of course represented by Central Illustration Agency but admits that this can be hard, waiting for a commission whilst your agency handles it's other clients.

Example taken from Andrew Foster's show, 'Precious in Thy Sight', Illustrating the personal nature of the work involved.

Surely it is easy for an agency to hire as much new talent as it desires? They are in a win/win situation. If they don't get you work then they don't pay you. They are eliminating the competition by signing everybody. And if you do score yourself some work..well they'll take a cut.
It seems though that seems self-promotion is a must. Agencies are finding new ways to promote their clients and also to show that they are more creative than others, that they have better talent on their books and so-on but that's their job and if they weren't doing that, well someone else would be.

Either way it seems both of the parties we are looking at having to fight to be where they are.

Authorial Practice Conference

I was lucky enough to attend a conference in Sheffield last week based around Authorial practice in context with commercial illustration. Authorial practice being the personal output of illustrators away from their work for clients, this include ventures into fine art and the production of 'zines and ornaments, animation and so on.
So we went up to Sheffield to see three main speakers namely Simon (in order of appearence) Spilsbury, Ben Cox and Andrew Foster. The day also included the official opening of Andrew Fosters' gallery exhibition at the nearby Sheffield Institute of Arts Gallery entitled 'Precious In Thy Sight'.
The conference aimed to define how authorial practice affects commercial output and development, how online publishing has changed the role of the art director, designer and distributor etc. and lastly determining the role of the commissioner, director, artists agent in
furthering the contextual use of illustrative outcomes....apparently.


The speakers involved all had very different thing to say concerning the topics, first up Simon Spilsbury gave us an exciting talk through his career and how he chose illustration as a career and how he developed his style.
Saying that his dad was his art teacher, he took us through some of the work he completed at art school when he still didn't know what he really wanted to do. I guess he was saying that it was this sort of authorial practice that helped him develop a distinctive style. He went on to say that now he is not concerned about how his clients perceive him and is more than willing to draw things up spontaneously right on the spot for clients. Apparently the time he spent working at an ad agency gave him a good appreciation of quick turnover which has also helped him.

He talked quite a bit about the importance of context concerning his output and being aware of the critical factors in determining what suits a brief.
Simon also told us more about his personal attitude towards his work. Whilst he does not have a specific output other than his commercial work he constantly develops new ideas in and from his sketchbook that goes everywhere with him. This is where he will find many of his ideas but he also talked about being able to really look for the right answer to a question no mater how hard it might seem at first.
At the conclusion of his talk we were reminded that nowadays everything is considered media space.
Ben Cox from Central illustration (CIA) was next and he talked about the role of agencies and finding and matching the right client and illustrator together in order for the most mutually beneficial relationship. He explained to us the importance of personal experimentation and development being crucial to creating new styles and looks for clients to commission.
We were shown how one of their illustrators completed some personal work after completing a fairly well paid job but who was unhappy with the sort of thing they were being asked to do by clients. They decided they needed to show what they were capable of to their audience and so spent a couple of weeks working on something they preferred and submitted that to them (central). The agency liked it so much they used it as part of their own promotional material and the illustrator involved got more commissions along the lines of that sort of work.
We were reminded of the need to keep developing our work as over time it can start to look and feel stale.
Ben talked to us about various promotional exercises the agency had done with their (illustrator) clients. One of these was the Summer/Winter festival an event where the illustrators involved decorated the Royal Exchange in London and held a street party where prospective clients could see their work on display.
This was followed by an explanation of the Consequences show in Covent Garden, an event where each illustrator involved was given a piece that would sit in between the work of two others'. They were all given a horizon line to adhere to and the contact details were supplied to them of their respective neighbours.
The main point Ben seemed to want to make is that he saw authorial practice as a way of the artists he employs being happy in what they do.
I guess he did a pretty good job of promoting his agency as a place where good illustrators want to work and where the best clients will look. He showed us other examples of illustrators they had used to create promotional material for Central, playing us the video 'we like colour' (link to creative review), by Pirates, a creative group who were given a very open brief
Ben also took time to portray his agency's role in creating this sort of relationship whereby he says they will also try to bring client and practitioner together as soon as possible so that the creative involved can have as large an impact as possible on the output of the project. This he believes limits the amount of poor illustration and dummed down ideas that we see time and time again and hence must be good for the industry.



Andrew Foster has some of the strongest views on offer and by the time he took the stage we were all waiting t hear what he said.
There was a large focus was on -as we might have expected- the lines/boundaries between fine art and illustration.
He was very concerned about people doing things just for the sake of it and what he sees as a struggle within the industry for finding real talent and discerning that from the people who assume that just because do something means that you're automatically good at it.
He wanted us all to decide if we were interested, if we had anything to say.
He had a lot to say about practicing illustrators who rely on illustrations that they completed 'fifteen years ago'. He looked at examples of what he perceived as boring approaches to illustration with an example of a bag; he told us if something is 3d, why just draw something 2d on the front of it?
With such a large focus on integrity and responsibility he began to explain that he will loose 90% of his prospective commissions because of the content of his work. Client will be drawn towards his style and attitude but when it comes to the point they dont like wht he wants to do.
Such an uncompromising attitude has left him needing to find other outlets for his work and that is why his work has crossed the barrier into being fine art. Something that he has produced purely for himself, for 'therapy' as he calls it. It seems as a sort of cathartic exercise for him to exorcise his demons and push his creativity.


Following all this we had about an hour for a Q&A session.

All the speakers got together at the end with some of the staff from Sheffield university for the Q&A session where questions collected from members of the audience were put to the panel and discussed with also some input from the audience.
The debate shifted from the need for this sort of approach to illustration being perhaps a 'sticking plaster solution' for an industry producing too many graduates for the work producing answers such as;
There is now so much work out there with the internet and other forms of media that there is no excuse to not find work, or make some.

This sort of work is purely the result of unemployment.

There should be more of a focus on authorial practice in illustration courses.
This raised particularly heated debate with various camps being set up within the room, arguing over the neccessities of what an illustration graduate needs to know with regards to the industry and how to teach that. Some were adamant that the particulars of the commercial demands need not be taught to students as apparently they need to be creative and not get bogged down with that sort of thing. Some believed that authorial practice pretty much was covered on their courses and so the argument was mute.
Panelists particularly Andy Foster said that he felt students were short changed and to many people could get onto courses by virtue of the fact that they had a checkbook and a pulse. He wanted to see more realism and preparation for the real world of illustration.
It seemed to me that it was the usual case of people wanting to moan about something instead of being willing to accept something for what it is and accepting that it is you that has to change and not the world. If we want to be illustrators we must accept that there is a system there that works a certain way and if we are going to change any of it then we must play the game to some extent.
One good viewpoint on this was made I believe by Ben Cox that nothing is really going to substitute actually looking for a job anyway.

There seemed to be a lot of confusion on the floor when the subject of personal style came into discussion. Some believing it to be not important or that too much emphasis was put on students to produce something very particular to themselves with regard to style upon their graduation.
Panelists views included such things as, If you don't have a style you're not going to get anywhere. With someone from the audience pointing out the you might be able to do all the tricks under the sun but if your work doesn't hold together and isn't strong, that no-one will be interested.
It seems to me that the more you work at producing something that is your own the more the work you produce starts to hold together as your own. Whether you realise it or not, you will have particular tastes and patterns in your decisions and with things like the way you draw that are very much specific to you and so the only person you have to blame for not having a style is yourself.
It is your responsibilty to experiment with the things you want to experiment with and to come up with good illustrative ideas. No-one is going to do it for you.
And remember to keep experimenting and things will develop over time.
Rant over...

Oh and thanks to the staff at Sheffield uni we all thought it was a brilliant day. :)

Charles Hively Lecture -The Rise and Fall and Rise of American Illustration

I was lucky enough to attend Charles Hively’s lecture; ‘The Rise and fall and rise of American Illustration,’ at Sheffield University this week.

Hively is the producer of 3X3 a three times a year publication devoted solely to illustration. The format being that it features three illustrators written about by three of their illustrator friends. The aim of the magazine is probably best put on the magazine website;

1. “Our mission is to spotlight the best international artists working today and encourage a new focus on the use of illustration by the advertising and design communities.”

Being an ex-illustrator himself Hively started the magazine amongst a lot of negative advice from people telling him the magazine would never be successful, despite this, the magazine has gone from strength to strength since its first edition now reaching issue13.

It must be said that Hively is really all about promoting illustration as a valid method for communication compared to say, photography.

In his lecture he first explained how he got started in illustration, producing an illustration whilst under the influence of a bad cold, as well as the drugs which he had taken to subdue its effects. Producing a, ‘squewy, lined drawing’, of a local scene with a Christmas message, he was convinced that it would never see print. He was wrong of course and this was the launching board for more freelance work.

Launching an advertising agency and then becoming a creative director, he also became more involved in creating the layouts for the magazine he was involved with. This led to critical acclaim.

This gave him the opportunity to hire people that he really admired the work of and enjoy the relationship of working with people coming up with ideas. He really likes concepts and not just decoration.

This career led him to do photography, illustration and art direction, he also worked as an advertising head and this left him with a unique perspective when looking for the next thing and deciding to do 3x3 as a publisher.

Hively, as I have said is a strong believer in illustration going so far as to say that we; ‘have the power to change the cultural environment.’ Pointing out historical examples from American illustration of people wanting their hair lin the style perhaps of how a certain illustrator had drawn it or how everybody at one time could recognise, and know the name of, whoever had done a particular illustration, such was their notoriety.

The next section of the lecture contained what Hively saw as reasons for the ‘death’ of illustration. He named photography as art as one siting people like Steiglitz as art-photographers, suddenly making illustration look very dated. Photography was now capturing the environment in the way that illustration once had.

Another reason was art schools, coming up with abstract ideas representing things like emotions, that were before recognisable as an expression or action that the illustrator would draw now becoming strange shapes and smears of colour for example.

One that you might find surprising was the Apple Mac, whereby he talked about us no longer needing scrap files for resource and just googling everything for example.

Of course the lecture was not a bleak eulogy for illustration and Me Hively was of course dutifully bound to tell us of the resurrection of the illustration world and why his magazine is so successful.

He took us back to a day before computers and even photography (at least before it was used widely in print) and showed how art and illustration were almost the same thing. Moving on, he showed us how things moved on and illustration started to be used in advertising, with the obvious advantage that an illustrator can show an idea and not just a piece of art.

One problem he noted was that when he mentioned (recently) the idea that an illustrator could be hired to produce an idea to art directors that this came as a surprise to them. They had become so reliant upon photography that they were not even aware that they could hire somebody to think of and develop an idea for them. He stated that it was a problem amongst the industry that they would merely come up with an idea and then tell a photographer exactly what they wanted to see.

He stressed that this is something that us illustrators really need to take note of and that we should be pushing art directors, creative producers et-all to consider illustration as a practical and perhaps superior alternative to this sort of avenue. He also that they might be saving themselves some money by hiring just one person instead of the army of assistants and so on that the photographer needs. An illustrator will take an idea away and work on it and refine it and come up with new solutions. They have the ability to draw an idea straight from their heads onto the paper and develop it further. Also you would be buying something entirely more original, what with illustration being such a personal thing.

We were shown that a photographic style could be recreated by another photographer and you wouldn’t know who had taken the photo, but with illustration (at least good illustration) you would get that individual’s style. Interesting.

As well as this, we looked at the need for illustration to cross into the realms of art as both another source of income but also of course as a means of promotion. Hively tried to convince us that it would be pertinent to get a second job to support ourselves but also to always be looking at fresh ideas and working on our creativity, as the average illustrators career lasts maybe seven years. He suggested tactics such as having an alternate identity, a nom-de-plume, or having two or three recognisably different styles, which we can work in.

He pointed us to people such as Seymour Chwast, at Push Pin studios and animation as helping to once again breathe new life into the illustration industry.

Adding that even through digital manipulation not everyone could match the specific skills of the individual illustrator for producing ideas. ‘Not everyone can draw.’

As I have said he now enjoys promoting talented illustrators through his magazine 3x3. With his assistant Sarah they also now produce other sister magazines and they also now produce an annual for 3x3. This includes a competition contained in a section at the back of the annual.

He concluded by talking about the three things every illustrator needs to know and a list of do’s and don'ts for us all.

The three things we all need to know are;

1.

Illustration is a business.

You work for yourself -you have to be prepared to jump in head first, those that get to the edge and turn back are not going to make it.

This also means that you do your own accounts, you bill and collect (always stating; ‘net due upon receipt’). You do the filing and taxes.

2.

Websites are marketing tools.

Blogs are not, prospective clients need to see the work you are offering, not a long list of text and have to search around for the type of work you offer. You need your best work to be there straight away and not a bunch of flash animations and menus in the way.

3.

Be visible.

Don’t just print off 600 postcards; send them to the people that matter, the ones that you think will hire you. Be everywhere, a client needs to see you at least three times for you to be in their minds.

Enter every show and keep doing it. Put you work in directories (good ones) not just the ones that charge, 3x3 is a good one, people pay attention.

Show work in galleries, this will get your work to a wider audience and rovide alternate income.

Try to get your work in to memorable media, Times magazine or similar, better quality print, more memorable media, wider audience.

Do’s and Don’ts

Do be original-Don’t be a copy

Be professional-Not a prima-donna

Do try to see directors-Don’t dress like a slob

Do be outgoing-Don’t be recluse

Be assertive and positive-Don’t do jobs you can’t handle

Do get the second job and take time to promote yourself, denying work while you promote yourself gives clients the impression that you are busy, they will call again if they want you!

Do publicize-Don’t wait for the phone to ring.

Do join clubs-Don’t just join the AOI

Art directors will give you work, illustrators wont.

Do take AD’s to lunch.- Don’t just take illustrators. This will extend your career.

Support the community-Don’t just support yourself.

Do bid fairly- Don’t undercut a pro. This is just undermining the industry and will bring all commissions down, how will we make a living?

Do be prepared to barter, if a client names a price, ask for more.- Don’t just jump at the first figure out of the bag. Have an idea what the job should be worth beforehand if possible, ask the community.

Do research-Don’t just make something up.

Do lots of sketches-Don’t just use the first idea that you come up with.

Do be ruthless-Don’t show everything you’ve done, only the best or things that you are prepared to do again.

Do subscribe to print-Don’t just rely on the web.

That should give us all something to consider….

For a little more information there's a good interview with Charles here.