charlier.grillust.uk - Grap2040

Redesigns

1/5/2022

Recently I started playing a game called Genshin Impact. Its become extremely popular in the short time it has been out. It is a game created by a chinese game company called Mihoyo. This game consists of lots of characters and places. Its free to play which is probably why it has become so popular. Recently there has been a few design changes to their key characters that in many ways censor alot of skin on these characters. Though when the designs were announced they were not explicit as to why, its heavily suggested their decsion was swayed by new censorship media laws in china. It is unclear right now whether western players will also recieve the change. It made me wonder how it will be for new players now experiencing the game with these new redesigns and whether it would affect any of their opinions on characters. I thinks its pretty incredible, the importance of good design is.

Resources for teaching

1/5/2022

DBS checkers

Having a DBS check is integeral to becoming a teacher, you aren't allowed alone with children in a school or education alike with out one.

Hiring sites

There are plenty of sites that are made exclusively for teachers. This make things alot easier for new teachers to be approached and find oppotunities

instagrams of inspiration

10/4/2021

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Junko Mizuno (@junko_mizuno_art)

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A post shared by Dollightful (Katherine) (@dollightfully)

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A post shared by Jaltoid (@jaltoid)

My Instagram

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A post shared by Momo (@momomoony_)

CV

9/23/2021

Writing emails

9/23/2021

Net working is one of the most important parts about being an illustartor, casting a wide net of contacts and potential clients is key to being a successful illustrator. One of the most obvious and most commonly used methods of contacting clients is using email.

To start off having an appropriate email name is integral. Using the email you made when you were 12 with X's and O's plater all over it doenst look very professional. Not to say you cant use that email for other things but firing off an email under "charlotterosebot@gmail.com" (Yes, I am ashamed to admit this was my first email address I made and I still use to this day) is hardly going to be taken seriously. In contrast sending and email under the address "Charlotterosebriggs199@yahoo.co.uk" is a little easier to read and take serious.

The contents of the email is important as well. Formatting it in a way thats clear and easy to understand, startong woth your email subject, be clear and upfront about why you're getting in conact in three words or less. First making it clear who you are addressing and sign it off with your own name like a letter.

Spelling, punctuation, grammar and language are also very important keys in writing emails. sending a casual email to a friend things like spelling and grammar aren't terribly important, but when talking to a potential client or colleague it looks unprofessional to no capitalise and use correct punctuation. Similarly the use of formal language is also something that divides casual emails to friends to those from emails directed at clients.

Example;

Importance of a good CV

9/22/2021

Having a good CV is imortant in any job you do or any career you want to go for. It's where you get the chance to share no only your exeriences but your skills, both are important when it comes to any job. But especially so for those looking at going into an artistic or creative career. After all you can train a chef on the job, but its difficult to tecah someone to draw while their entire career revolves around it.

Having a clear layout. Often times employers will go through hundreds of CV's (give or take) a day. Its important that your cv not only stands out but is clear to read and get through. If the potential employer has to fight to understand what yoou've written or gleen the informtion they need, they are less likely yo pick you. Partly because it represents you in a poor, unoragnised light, but also I imagine they'd be fairly annoyed they had to sift potentially pages to find what they wanted.

Include ALL your skills and experience. Though some skills you have aquired may seem unusable or irrelevant to a particular job its important you include them regardless. Showing these examples of skills or experience you've gained shows how rounded you are in different subjects, examples of different tasks you've take on and how efficient that makes you. The more experience you have, the more employable you are.

CV's are usually accompanied with cover letters. These are letter that esentially big yourself up. You talk about yourself and the job youre applying for. It gives your potential employer more of an idea who you are and what drives you.

Artist specific CV's can include exhinbitions/fairs you hav ebeen part of, where your work is or was displayed. This shows you have experience with displaying your work.

Listing your education and what you studied in particular, often times employers are more interested in the portfolio and work examples. But there is an unspoken glass ceiling, so its important you show you have study in the particular area or work youre applying for.

example studied

Importance of social media

9/9/2021

Social media is an important part of any business or start up. Its different from a website as it encourages people to engage rather than the typical regular viewing of work. Social media is perhaps one of my favourite places to upload anykind of stuff i wrok on, including my art and cosplay.

I personally have made alot of good friends through social media, and infact its so much easier to get in contact with other artists and creators, putting us all really on one platform. I've asked many questions thorugh DM's before about tips and "where to buys" and its helped me greatly. Similarly I've had the same questions posed to me. Engagement is is impotant, it not only helps build a realible audience but helps you grow a bigger and better network with other artists. Talking with people and replying to comments is my favourite part! Though people rarely critque you, I do value my peers assessment of my work, EVEN IF I didnt ask them for it. I love building not only an audidence but gaining friends from posting. Considering how young social media is I believe its affected how people engange and repsond with their consumers are extreme. Artists feel more like people now with voices, opinions and personlities, rather than just names on an art piece.

Making people feel like they are more involved in the process creating a sense of community, always nice to have when trying to grow and get your name out there Posing questions and giving yourself a recognisable personality builds a rapor and relationship with your audience, and askign questions in your captions or asking for opinions encourages engagment from people, for them to repond, share their opinion or as a question. I've also enganged in "art trades" before. This where I traded a piec of my art for someone else's, they both get uploaded and both artists get notoriety and recognition for their work. So it's a mutually beneficial trade.

This Brings me to my next, spicy debate topic

Working for exposure?

Working for exposure is something not only practised by artists, but encouraged by company’s large and small. Sometimes it’s very VERY blatant in their suggestion, other times it’s disguised as a “competition” this method is primarily used by larger companies or projects. Though working for exposure isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it really isn’t encouraged. You wouldn’t work for free after all and that’s essentially what these people ask for. Mutually beneficial trades differ from a company making a potential profit from your work and you receive nothing but the possibility someone actually checking out your work.

A recent example of working for exposure would be the newest James Bond movie campaign, though the dead line for the "competition" has passed they asked for designers and illustators to design posters for the up coming movie "no time to die"

Though there is a $2000 cash prize for each piece selected, and 20 others will be sleceted as finalists and recieve $250 per piece. the biggest selling point they honed in on was the use of it on Bond social media and material. The cash pay out is noce but also only once, you dont recieve royalties for your work, long term wise you only really get the posibility of someone from the bond social medias actually searching your name. At first glance to anyone it would be a fabulous oppotunity, and they wouldnt inherenty BE wrong, but really it feels like you're just designing a movie poster that will be

Used all across their social media and potentially at movie theatres, thats alot of work for a poster and design work youre not really being paid for. Estentially working for free, to potentially get a one off cash pay out. Though I do think the notion of being part of the creative process for such a big project would be exciting, its work and being part of a process youre not really being paid for.

There have been many examples of people asking for free products in exchange for exposure from independent artist, since social media became such a large part of the illustration world people with a large following often see them wearing or "advertising" a small business' products as a form of payment. Though artists and small business' have been able to see the humourous and ridiculousness side, it does highlight how generally accepted it is now to accept exposure as a form of payment in some desperate attempt to make a name for yourself even if that name is foggied in working for free and for dodgy companys or people.

Oppotunities like this arrise all the time, countless times I've been approached in regards to my cospplay from clothing companies asking for ME to purchase their items that they can use for their social media to promote their clothes, with the only benefit I get being "exposure" this is naturally something I never go for, because unlike art trades I tale part in that benefit both me and the pther artist and neither of us are really losing out, I would be out of pocket helping a company out because I may gain SOME traction. So where I do think that working for exposure isn't always a bad thing, maybe as you start out and it idnt your main source of income, or its something you enjoy doing and do it in your spare time, youre not really losing out on anything, But if it has become your career and you rely on it for your income, wasting your time on work youre not being paid for is unbeneficial to you "exposure doesn't pay the bills"

other site examples

9/9/2021

To start of being able to change my site I need to find better examples of websites, so I first started with an old classmates whos site was significantly easier to navigate. Though Im not entirely sure I could use this as an example in all honesty the site has help me sus out my own.

Ida Hoftvedt art

- Navigation bar easy to locate and look around with
- Looking through her works page was fun
- Her work is some what dark toned and the design of her site matches it but not in a tacky way
- She seperates her personal, university and commission work really well

-I love Mizuno's work in general, her page is very telling of the kind of work she makes.
-Has two different language settings so its easier to read for botht he japanese and english visitors
-easy to navigate but arguably not very well designed, or spaced.
-Her works page is fun to look at even though alot of the pieces are thumbnails of the full piece

Improving my site

9/7/2021

A good website is important to have especially when looking into becoming a professional graphic designer or illustrator. To have a clear and easy to navigate website looks professional and shows examples of your work in a batter light ot any potential employers There are both good and bad examples of artists websites. Unfortunately mines falls under the not so good example. My website very much represents my head space at the time of creating it. As a result it is very messy, hard to look around and resmbles something similar to a pdf.

Here for example I use a little annotation (That later becomes alot more, and still so yet so disjointed) to talk about a sketch I worked on, only its situated in amongst many other sketches OF similar things and is just dropped in between images rather messily. It's unclear where the annotation is directed. Once reading the comment it become much easier understanding what Im talking about and where to look. But it shouldn't take SO much effort to work it out. Making it clearer where the comment is directed from the get go the easier it is for me and anyone looking at my website.

I also have no navigation bar, this in part due to fact that all my work is on ONE page. So my "website" really resembles more a PDF than anything else. Splitting my work up appropriately would make look around so much easier. As it is right now, to find a particular project you have to scroll through the webpage and find the project you are looking for. Not only is this counter producitve but its also very confusing, with every chance you could be reading the wrong thing.

TO-DO List

There are many ways to fix my site and make improvements for starters. Looking at other artists and their sites, its easy to make clear improvmants;

-A navigation bar
(need a nevigation bar to get through my website easier)
-Splitting my work
(Put each new project on a different webpage so theyre not all sharing one and it's easier to look around at the correct work, and easier FOR YOU to organise yourself)
-Spacing and dividers
(Make where annotaion is suppose to be very clear, space work out appropriately so it can all be appreciated rather than jumbled up)
-Annotation
(make annotations clearer to understand a little more exanpansive rather than one off small comments.)

Action Plan

9/1/2021

To be complete honest at this stage in my life Im not 100% sure what I want to do for work. I worked at a bar (illegally) at 16 and then Greggs when I was 17 until now, I've been working there fir five years now and I do enjoy it but I wasnt exactly thinking full time. Over the past year I've been really thinking about moving on and where I will go after finishing this course. I knew for certain I didnt want a generic office job, whether its working with people or a creative career, the thought of crunching numbers at a desk job isnt very appealing. So during my months of thinking about my future career, I've conisdered a few ideas.

My first obvious choice is embracing the skills I've learnt over the years and apply them to my career. Like I spoke about before the idea of being a concept artist is very appealing, creating a place, character or idea and to see it become real would be cool, though the same issue applies here as with ant illustration work I do on commision, I often end up doing what I THINK would look best rather than the client, now with commisions I've taken in the past this was less of an issue as it wasnt in a professional setting, really the opposite and the client trusted me whole heartedly to make the right decision as long as the content they wanted was there. Feeding back to a more professional client is very different. I'd have to work on my ability to appropriately contact a client and make sure I stay on papr with exactly what they want rather than taking my own creative liberties.
What has been suggested to me also, is possibly using the knowledge I have of software and my "creative eye" to just go into graphic design, there are often places hiring for junio graphic designers, and where that may not be my specialty, I have the knowledge and ability to be a sufficiant graphic designer or more I suppose at starting level, graphic monkey.

But I also dabble with the idea of becoming a teacher/carer, around the time I was conisdering this I also conisdered nursing though I remebered how sqeemish I am around blood and suddenly that idea didnt sound as fun. But I'de enjoy being a care giver of some variety. Though it isnt exactly related to my study it was always something I looked at. I would have to start by volunteering or being a TA for a year, though the income wouldnt be spectacular it would be good experience before I look into taking any teaching courses. Before I look into voluteering or being a TA I have to first get a DBS (disclossure and barring service) check, this will allow me to be left alone with children and not have to constantly be monitised. To already have this check would make me easier and more desirable to hire because it would save the school time and money getting it done for me. Being able to be trusted with children and left alone with them would be a great way to get that responsiblity experience. I would ideally want to work with young children, child care and development would also be useful knowledge and education to have.

Though Im not 100% sure where I want to be in a year or so Im happy to have different options infront of me to make the decsion a little less daunting. I think 22 is a pretty young age to want to know what I want to do for the rest of my life especially since we seem to keep living longer and longer, but with my health in the best place its been in year and my options/plans lay out infront of me things seem a little less murky in the coming days.