pp: email - ella okstad

after the confidence of being able to email plum pudding i decided whilst i had this new found pride under my belt i would go ahead and send a few other emails. 

this whole year i have been really scared at the prospect of emailing people and i need to get myself out of that hole. if i want to become a professional illustrator i need to get myself out there and make some friends, so to speak!

i wanted to email Ella Okstad because her website was really welcoming and friendly and i really love her children's illustration. i wanted to keep my tone of voice conversational and not too formal because i didn't want to come across as rigid.

i decided to use the same 'HELLO :-)' that i used for the Plum Pudding email because i just really want to catch someone's attention.

pp: email - plum pudding

i decided to go ahead with emailing plum pudding agency and see if they reply to me! it's worth a shot, even if the prospect of it is very scary. 

i wanted to keep my email short and interesting to look at, using different texts. i wanted my email to stand out so i decided to go with a rather bold 'HELLO :-)' for the subject header. i don't want my email just to get lost in the wind. i hope i hear back from them!

pp: research - plum pudding agency

after having the skype call with chloe from plum pudding children's illustration agency i decided to do some research into the types of work that they make and produce because it could be something that i am interested in for the future.

plum pudding represent a lot of illustrators, and basically what they do is find work for them and represent them creatively. this is something that i am very interested in as the prospect of working alone and trying to figure everything out sounds very scary. I think i will email them (they are very open to emails) and see what it's all about!

questions to ask:

if i wanted to publish a children's book, would you be the ones to help with that?

how does the agency work? is it all online?

i live quite far away in manchester, if i wanted to do a small placement or internship would that be possible?

what's the best way for an artist to stand out amongst the crazy amount of emails you get?

i dont want to ask them too much, as they have stated that they do get a lot of emails. so i wanted to keep it short and sweet and to the point.

pp: chloe from plum pudding

today we had a skype interview with chloe from the children's illustration agency plum pudding.

it was really interesting to hear her talk about what it's like to have an agent and what they do there. there are some tips that i picked up from the talk, for instance, having an online portfolio (website) is important for showing clients easily the work that you have, this should also include character design sheets for animals as well as people. i think that my work fits into this and it was interesting to hear her reaffirm what i already thought. she also talked about having sketches in your portfolio as well as finished pieces of work, which i thought was interesting. it makes sense though, so that the client can see how you produce your work from the beginning stages and if i wanted to go into storyboarding or character designing they would want rough sketches as well as finished pieces so it makes sense.

i think this was one of the skype interviews at university where i felt like it was really geared towards me and i will try and take all of her suggestions into consideration!

pp: business card tests

pp: online illustrating children's books course

so i found an online course for illustrating children's books. i think this is an interesting idea as i have only began to realise that i'd like to specialise in this area recently and have not researched and learned much about the area. the course is all online so i wouldn't have to go to london for it, there is a tutor Maggy who is there to talk about our work and give feedback and support and as someone who really depends on that i think it might be a good opportunity for me to look into. 

pp: possible business card design

After looking at some inspiration from other artists, I want to go with something quite simple and not too extravagant. I think I really like the idea of having it more handwritten, because then it feels more like an Illustrator's business card. I couldn't find a mockup for a square business card so i'll have to try and work that out myself but this was just a little tester to see what it would be like!

pp: helping a photographer

for my extended practice, i was commissioned by a photographer to help with her branding. i have decided to also post it here to my pp blog because i think helping someone else with their branding really helped me to realise things that i want for my own branding that i didn't realise. 

it was also really fun to try out Illustrator again as someone who does not use the programme very often. it was a really useful tool.