Rationale Workshop

The aim of today's workshop was to narrow down our practice in terms of where we want to be at the end of the course and embarking on our creative careers.

5 Things I want to make

• Prints/designs that can be applied to a range of products (like 505)
• Book Jackets
• Educational books for children and adults
• Greetings cards
• Workshop pack

5 Practical skills to develop 

• Screen printing
• Hand rendered processes e.g. painting with gouache and watercolour
• Hand written type and layout
• How to draw PEOPLE in my sort of 'tone of voice'
• 3D and haberdashery

5 Disciplines to explore

• Publishing and book design
• Children's illustration
• Public and large scale?
• EDUCATIONAL
• Character and narrative

 5 Practitioners that inspire me

• Elsie Gravel
• Amy Isla
• Mike Lowry
• Tracey English
• Ashley Percival

5 Things I want to find out

• Where my work sits within the industry
• How I can become more confident in my work
• What kind of people appreciate my work. Who is my audience and what is the best way to communicate with them?
• What kind of people I should and shouldn't work with
• Finances! How to be savvy with numbers and financially stable in my creative career

 5 Places I want to go

• Tigerprint (potentially) for an internship??
• Somewhere that I can talk to interesting people that I don't already know
• London- D&AD to exhibit my work (and hopefully find a job?)
• WORKING STUDIOS
• A place I've never been, and visually document it

5 Things I don't want to do ever again

• Move back home and get into the cycle of having a dead end job and never moving back to a city
• Use after effects on my own (I need moral support!)
• Run to a submission...
• Stay up all night doing work
• Lose interest in my practice!

 Establishing Wants and Needs

This enabled us to prioritize what needs to be done in the time we have left at college.
Wants: RED
Needs: BLUE

Narrowing down wants and needs


WANTS

• To get an internship
• To be confident in my work
• To gain experience working FOR a company before I start freelancing or further study
• Produce a strong range of products to kickstart my Etsy shop and increase my online presence
• Develop a broad portfolio; show employers that I am very adaptable

NEEDS

• Develop a stronger tone of voice through story telling, character and narrative
• Visit studios, contact agencies and find out who I want to work for and establish my portfolio to fit the direction of employment I want to take
• Focus on hand rendered image making processes and techniques; screen printing in particuler
• Establish my online presence; emphasis on sustaining my Etsy show to become my 'cash cow'
• Gain a substantial level of knowledge about how I can publish my work i.e. approach educational organisations, book/art stores etc 

Five Clear Statements

I want to research how illustration can be used as a persuasive device in the context of advertising, with the aim of changing behaviour. This is because I want my work to inform, inspire and educate people of all ages. This means I will be able to put my ideas forward on issues that I am passionate about, through a passionate way of working. This could open up opportunities to work in ethical advertising, editorial and educational illustration.

I need to establish my online presence because it will help me create potential contacts, and develop a larger audience that is being exposed to my work. This means I will be able to potentially find some clients, discover opportunities and sell more products on my Etsy shop.

I want to have the chance of doing an internship at somewhere like tiger print, or a creative advertising industry. I aim to apply by Easter, so then I will be more focused on the direction that I'd like to go in career wise. This means I will be able to gain an insight into whether I would work best in a studio environment after graduating.

I need to develop a stronger tone of voice within my work, which will allow me to communicate my passion and interests through the way I present my ideas visually. My rationale(in progress)concerns the emotive and informative impact that illustration can provide in a persuasive context on the theme of health and wellbeing. This means I will be able to find clients and audiences that really appreciate and understand the messages I am trying to communicate within my work, which will be both self-fulfilling for myself and inspiring to the audience.

I need to become a lot more confident in my work because this is something that I really struggle with, and find myself becoming restrictive in terms of who and what I apply myself to. This means I will be able to approach professionals more easily when looking for work as well as gaining constructive advice in how I can continue to develop my practice.