October Influences

Since I moved to the United-Kingdom, I decided to record my influences every month. I try to look at and attend events, talk and exhibition that are related to the field of illustration to grow my knowledge and network. Of course, these influences are not restricted to the illustration field but all aim to grow my knowledge in the art, design, entrepreneurship and brand fields.

Artist Talk Series

I became familiar with the event thanks to my classmate Rita who showed an interest in it on Facebook. I looked at what does this event have to offer. The Artist Talk Series is an event that is run once per month starting from October 2018 to March 2019, so a total of 6 months. Hosted at the Boileroom in Guilford, the money raised during these events are dedicated to the artist community of Guilford.

Guest Talk //01- Emmeline Pidgen

Photo credit: Emmeline Pidgen, 2018

Emmeline Pidgen was the artist to open up the event talk series. She is a freelance illustrator who focuses on narrative and sequential illustrations for both children and adults. She occasionally draws original characters.  She likes to combine traditional and digital drawing, but her first love remains ink and coral/teal colour palettes. I enjoy her work (drawing style) and I admire how she manages to keep this traditional look in her digital work.

Emmeline’s talk started with a presentation of her artist career supported by her work. She then moved on explaining her life as an entrepreneur/ freelancer. We were able to ask her questions and one of mine was concerned about her way to look for projects. She explained that it was coincidental, but most of them happened because of her proactive attitude on the internet with self-initiative projects like What Emmeline Wore In October, which led to a collaboration with brands like collaborations with brands like Oasis, Joules, Fat Face, White Stuff and People Tree. What I take from her talk is the importance to be active online and to keep producing on a daily basis.

Emmeline had a stand with her illustrations, books and booklets like Creative Tips For Your Fight Through The Freelance Jungle. I decided to purchase it to first support her work and get her insight as a freelancer. This is something that appeals to me, maybe not at this moment of my career but surely at a later stage.

Photo credit: Artist Talk Series, 2018

The talk was followed by a workshop organised by Emmeline. She proposed us to do a blind drawing, meaning looking at a photo or a person without looking at the paper. This is a great exercise to understand the coordination between what we see and what produce with our hands. This exercise produced some interesting results and is a great way to spark creativity.

[DRAWINGS coming soon]

MCM LONDON COMIC-CON 2018

MCM Comic-Con is a pop culture event celebrating the world popular culture. At this event, I could find gaming stands [(new) games, developers, talents showing their latest & upcoming releases], film exhibitors [DC Comics stand], Pop Asia stand [mangas, animes and cosplays], a special guests/ author corners, and a Comic Village.

Photo credit: Anime UK News, 2018

It was a great place to see the latest trend in the comic, gaming and animation industries. I had the chance to view a small exhibition of the latest movie from Mamoru Hosoda, Mirai, produced by the Studio Chizu (one of the oldest animation studios in the world). In this exhibit, I had the opportunity to see the storyboards and it evolved into one of the movie scenes. I look forward to watching this new animated movie.

Photo credit: Otaku Tale, 2014

Another booth/stand attracted my attention. It presented the electronic-pop music video ME!ME!ME! produced by Teddy Llyod with the lyrics from Daoko. The character designers of the video is a joined-effort between Shuichi Iseki and Hibiki Yoshizaki.

The animated video tells the story of an otaku (a person with obsessive tendencies like gaming, anime, manga and figurines), Shuu who lost his girlfriend, Anna, because of his addiction. Starting from Shuu’s room, he is thrust inside his fantasy world through his TV. It starts with the nice side otaku (bright and naive colours) and moves on to a darker side (bloody colours) representing the dark side with the degrading portrayal of the woman body from the otaku culture. The female character represents his girlfriend Anna. He wants to get back to the old Anna but the addiction is too strong, stuck into the otaku culture. To know more about the video content, check YouTube Explained‘s video. The video is a critique of the otaku culture, its negative side, and degrading the image of women portrayed in anime, gaming and all sorts of media.

Released in 2014, the video is intended for a mature audience, so to view the video, I had to show an ID. I am surprised that I haven’t heard of it before although it met with high acclaims from the viewers and critics for its high-quality animation and catchy-sounding composition. As I entered the viewing space, there was an opportunity to look at storyboards and character designs of the video clips. They were truly inspiring and disturbing at the same time, which makes Japan so special!

Photo credit: Otaku Tale, 2014

The Comic Village was a great place to meet publishers like Blue Fox Comics, illustrators to network and buy their merchandise. I would like to present you some of the following artists that I met and who particularly caught my attention.

Shanefaced

Photo credit: Shanefaced, 2018

Shanefaced is a comic artist based in North London, his drawings mix a dark and surreal twist to his everyday life. He is inspired by Gris Grimley, Jamie Hewlett, manga and various brands. I love the use of simple/ comic lines and the desaturated colour palette.

Sarah Tamat-Jones

Photo credit: Sarah Tamat-Jones, 2018

Sarah Tamat-Jones is an illustrator and illustrates based in London for editorial, publishing and advertising. She worked for The Guardian, ASOS, Unilever, Viacom,  Washington Post, Vanity Fair and many more. I really enjoy her hand-drawn lines and bold colour palettes.

Nathan Hillustration

Nathan Hill is an illustrator and comics creator. He particularly enjoys drawing monsters and creatures. I particularly enjoy going through his zines like Floaty Herbs Guide and Floaty Spice Guide that are showing a mixed approach, traditional (hand drawn strokes) and digital (colouring).

Sarah Jones

Photo credit: Girl in the Rain, 2018

AKA Girl in the Rain, Sarah is an illustrator and storyboard artist also based in London. She loves to tell stories, so she published several short comics like The Doll Maker. I love her use of watercolours and inks to create dramatical sceneries.

This ends the October influencers series. November influencers coming soon so, STAY TUNED!

Master Project Bibliography

BOOK 1

A book that shows how illustrations can tell stories and explain abstract concepts. Illustrations had layers that enrich brand identities offering brand the ability to be memorable and desirable. The book displays how illustrator’s work complements a brand’s philosophy and objectives through different media from business cards, fashion labels, packaging, posters to restaurant’s ventures.

The book is a collection of case studies where illustrations were involved in creating a unique and memorable consumer experience. Ultimately, the consumer will first judge a brand from its look and feel. By creating a recognisable brand through strong visual language, the consumer will feel engaged in the narrative of what it means to buy into a brand.

Thus, this book is a great started to start thinking about the use of illustration to build a (personal) brand through original and narrative visuals. I am excited to read through these different case studies to inspire me to create my own personal brand identity and possibly to create a brand identity for my master project.

Victionary. (2014, November). Illustrative Branding, Smashing illustrations for brands. Hong Kong, China:  Victionary Workshop.

BOOK 2

photo coming soon

Business Model You is the book is based on the Business Model Canvas methodology, which guides the reader on how to define a personal business model.  It provides several tools which aim to help the reader to reinvent himself/herself or redefine a brand. The book is divided into 4 sections covering the following topics:

Section 1: Canvas including chapters on Business Model Thinking: Adapting to a Changing World, Business Model Canvas and Personal Business Model Canvas

Section 2: Reflect including chapters on Who Are You?, and Identify Your Career purpose.

Section 3: Revise including chapters on Getting Ready to Reinvent Yourself, and Re-Draw Your Personal Business Model.

Section 4: Act including chapters on Calculate Your Business Value, Test Your Model in the Market, and What’s Next.

This book is particularly useful because I am considering to develop and strengthen my personal brand. I believe that this book can be a great tool to sharpen my understanding of a personal brand but also act as a guide into defining it. This book may be useful for my master project if not to develop my own identity in order to set myself apart on the market.

Clark, T., Osterwalder, A. and Pigneur, Y. (2012). Business Model You. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

BOOK 3

Photo credit: Bis Publishers (n.d.)

The book explains the branding process step by step supported by a dozen examples of successful brands/ study cases. It also includes 23 tools and exercises to build your own brand. Miltenburg explains how branding can be a powerful tool to help ‘sell’ ideas for change and make a real impact.

This book is a great resource to understand how to build and develop a strong, successful brand using different exercises in the book. I used her book, Branding Toolkit For Change Makers, during my internship when creating a client’s blog identity. Thanks to her exercises, I could focus on important elements when creating a new brand identity. I am looking forward to combining Miltenburg’s books to develop my own personal brand identity and maybe use it as a tool for my master project.

Miltenburg, A. (2018). Brand the Change. 3rd edn. Den Bosch, the Netherlands: BIS Publishers.

Photo credit: Anje Jager (n.d.)

Similar to her latest book, Branding Toolkit For Change Makers, helps to understand what needs to be communicated clearly, who is your audience, what do they do, why does it matter to them. The book focuses on the anatomy of a brand and the branding process. Again, this is illustrated through the use of various case studies of successful change-making brands.

Miltenburg, A. (2016). Branding Toolkit For Change Makers. Den Bosch, the Netherlands: The Brandling.

BOOK 4

photo coming soon

Storytelling became an effective tool for creating an entire brand concept and can be used for both on a product and corporate level. Brands have increasingly used this tool to create a bond with the consumers and the brand itself.

Storytelling: Branding in Practice looks at how brands can use storytelling to strengthen the bond with consumers and employees. Structured in two parts: 1) Toolbox and 2) Storytelling applied, the first part might be interesting particularly chapters 2 ( Four Elements of Storytelling), 3 (Storytelling in Business), and 4 (Company Cor Story). This book good foundation on how to build and develop a strong, successful brand story by showcasing different case studies.

Fog, K., Budtz, C., Munch, P., and Blanchette, S. (2010). Storytelling: Branding in Practice. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag.

BOOK 5

 photo coming soon

According to Lupton (2017), a good design is bringing an idea to life, thus through good storytelling. The book gives an overview of how to use narrative techniques to create graphics, products, services and experiences by looking at the psychology of visual perception, again from a narrative point of view.

I particularly like this book because a couple of chapters cover the topic of emotions by looking at models like the emotional journey, the use of persona, and colours & emotions. It also gives a brief introduction to behavioural economics, the study of human decision-making.

Lupton, E. (2017). Design is Storytelling. New-York, the USA: Cooper Hewitt.

BOOK 6

 photo coming soon

Designing For Social Change was written by Andre Shea a graphic designer that aimed to use problem-solving skills to help others. He wrote a book, which presents 10 proven strategies for working with community organisations. The book should be seen as a toolkit of strategies covering the following strategies: Immersing yourself, building trust, promising only what you can deliver, prioritising the process, confronting controversy, identifying the community’s strength, utilising local sources, designing with the community’s voice, giving communities ownership and sustaining engagement with communities.

The book gives a kick start for another interest of mine, social design/ concept. Keywords related to this theme can be ”design for social impact”, ”human-centered design” and ”design for social change”. However, this book may be too orientated on the design process of working with social enterprises, NGOs, foundations, corporations and governments.

Shea, A. (2012). Designing for Social Change, Strategies for Community-Based Graphic Design. New-York, the USA: Princeton Architectural Press.