Who to target!?

PCA Job wall Opportunities 

The job-wall is very often filled with lots of different and exciting opportunities for us artists to get involved with. Over the years I have seen quite a few jobs that I would enter for. Obviously whilst having projects on I haven't undergone any of them but now I will be hunting on the jobwall on a regular basis. I have already started keeping a look out and have sent out samples of my work (as email below).

Stephen Prior did respond to me saying he'd get back to me as they have a new brewery they want illustrations for which I would be very interested in having a go at.

Illustrators (Work Experience)

Illustrators needed for ongoing project-based work / work-experience opportunities to create rich illustration to support brand-based projects.
Pay - Initially work experience only, but looking to strike up a good working relationship where paid projects will be offered.
Looking for a mixture of illustration styles
Please send examples of work to: Stephen Prior - info@priorcreative.co.uk tel: 07800 794 259

Hand-Made in Britain Show 

Handmade in Britain membership is open to practising designer-makers who create their work in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Offering a comprehensive support network to, with many practical and financial benefits alongside the support and expertise.

They will return to Chelsea Old Town Hall for the 7th year this November for the Handmade in Britain 13: The Contemporary Craft & Design Fair. They are now accepting applications to exhibit at the Chelsea show. All designer-makers working in Britain and creating in all disciplines. 

You have to apply by April 2013, so it has passed for me already, but as its such a big opportunity I have time now to gather an extensive amount of work and learn a few new bits before I apply next year.

Not on the Highstreet.com

This site features many different artists, crafts and various items from individuals who you wont see in any old shop on the highstreet making the items on sale a lot more bespoke and special. I will be sending this company links to my pottery website and may even make a range of cards during the summer to enhance my illustration profile.

Folksy

A little less known site but could be a good start to sell my ceramic items to my audience. Very similar idea to Not on the hughstreet.com they sell bespoke items from artists. I will also be sending my promotional items this way and making contact with the two companies.

Shows 

The Contemporary Craft Festival Devon

Craft fairs would be a great idea to kick start careers in ceramics and a perfect opportunity to sell items and get my name around. I will be making many items throughout the year in time for these events that I will enter. Hopefully I will get a place! 

This year I will be attending to meet a ceramist who I have been researching, I found out about this show from her newsletter of which I am subscribed to.

Katie Almond

How to Apply

Applications for 2013 are now closed.  Thank you to everyone who applied.

CALL FOR ENTRIES will open in the Autumn.

The Contemporary Craft Festival has become one of the largest and most prestigious shows to be part of in the UK. The online application form for The Contemporary Craft Festival and One Year On is now ready. Stand packages start from £395 in the Festival marquees and £195 for One Year On. Full details are on the application form.

With a lively and inspirational atmosphere, the Festival has built up a loyal following of over 8000 visitors and we represent nearly 200 of the UK’s finest designer makers which includes the One Year On marquee. One Year On is a specially designed area for businesses in the early stages of their career.

The event is set in a marquee village in idyllic parkland on the edge of Dartmoor in South Devon with excellent transport links via road, train and air.

One Year On is dedicated to emerging makers in the first year of practise. One Year On showcases approximately 20 makers in their own dedicated marquee. The aim of One Year On is to support  fledgling careers and to encourage and promote the wealth of creative talent we have in the UK. Stands in One Year On are offered at much reduced rate to The Contemporary Craft Festival's main marquees.

One Year On will be selected for quality by industry professionals and will create an outstanding opportunity for businesses of one year or less (Business must have started since January 2012)

One Year On Application Criteria:

1. You are a graduate, students still in education at February 1st deadline may not apply.
2. You are in your first year of business which commenced after January 1^st 2012.
3. You are resident in the UK or Ireland.
4. Your work shows a dedication to quality of making, presentation and originality.
5. You make any of the following: ceramics, glass, textiles, Jewellery, metal, wood, plastics, mixed media, leather, recycled materials and paper.
6. NO painting, photography or musical instruments. Greetings cards are only accepted as part of a range, not the sole product.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE TO APPLY to The Contemporary Craft Festival?

The Contemporary Craft Festival is open to designer makers resident in the UK and Ireland working to the highest standard in ceramics, glass, textiles, jewellery, metal, wood, plastics, mixed media, stone, leather, recycled materials and paper. We do not accept painting, photography, graphic design and musical instruments. Greetings cards are accepted as part of range but not the sole product.

See One Year On criteria above for eligability.

DEADLINE: The Contemporary Craft Festival NOVEMBER 2nd 2012

DEADLINE: ONE YEAR ON February 1st 2013.

TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL IMAGES?

Quality of images is often a reason why good makers don't get selected

• Is your image sharp and in focus?
• Can you clearly see the object?

• Avoid distracting backgrounds
• Make sure the image isn't too dark or too light

Please think about what your selected images say about your work. Don’t be tempted to send in contrasting pictures of different ranges. Selectors prefer to see a coherent body of work. The selection of images you choose will also be used for promotional purposes and all images will need to be good quality and clear.

The 72dpi images will be used for presentation to the Selection Panel. All six images will be projected to the selection panel at the same time. The 300dpi images will be used for  promotional purposes.

IMAGE FORMAT

• You wil need to upload Six 72dpi low resolution and Six 300dpi high resolution images for selection, via our online appliaction form.
• Each image should be labelled with your name For example: Jane Smith 72.jpg and Jane Smith 300.jpeg. Please file each group of 6 in separate folders, eg Jane Smith 72, Jane Smith 300.
• Digital images must be saved as JPEG files and should have the suffix .jpg
• Do not try and send more than 6, the system will only allow you to send 6. They should be the same images in 72 and 300dpi.
• Your 72dpi images should be 9cm x 12cm and 300dpi, 30 x 40cm max.
• Your application must be received by 6pm on November 2nd 2012. Late applications will not be accepted.

FAQ about applications

• I cant change the dpi. Your images were very likely taken in 300dpi (print quality) in camera.  Remember you can always reduce the file size but you will not be able to increase it.  dpi is usually changed in Photoshop.  You can still make an application if you dont have Photoshop.  The system will not accept file sizes larger than 600KB for low res and 4MB for high res, so you will need to make a set of reduced size images under 600kb.  You can do this with any Mac or Microsoft picture editor progamme using the resize or edit function.
• My images do not work in your dimensions: The dimensions are a guide only.  If images lose quality in the recommended sizes by all means make them a little larger or smaller. However please think about the size you are sending - particularly your low res images.   A4 is the largest size we could ever use an image except in VERY rare instances.  We use the 72dpi images for a powerpoint presentation to be viewed on a big screen by the selection panel.   IMPORTANT: Whilst we make every effort, It is your responsibility to resize your low resolution images. We are recieving alot of extremely large pictures around 100cm. These are taking up to 10minutes per image to process.  If you send images like this it may not be possible to present all 6 to the panel.
• I have changed the images to jpgs but they are still unacceptable: Check they have really converted to jpg -   Open in properties and check there are no words or letters after the file extension .jpg. In most cases this can be solved by renaming the image xxxx.jpg
• My images have uploaded but the form will not submit/ the form freezes on a certain box: Another application is being uploaded at the same time.  Try again in a few minutes.
• Can I apply for One Year On & the Contemporay Craft Festival? yes, in the event that you are selected in both areas you can choose where you would like to have your stand.

All applicants will be informed of the Selection Panel’s decision in writing. As we have so many entries we cannot discuss individual applications and the selection panel’s decision is final.

Website Planning

Adobe Muse

I thought I would try my hand at a fairly new adobe program, as in the past I have tried Adobe Flash Catalyst but the program is no longer available for free trials as it was unpopular.

After watching and taking information from online tutorials I was able to navigate my way through the program quite easily and very happy with the results of my trail website.

I like that you can publish your website from the adobe program to launch on the net but it does come at a cost.

My Menu

What I found very useful was how easily I could use tools to give my web page slide shows by simply dragging it over and inserting my images.

I love this page it looks so simple and elegant. The images of my illustrations do the talking here and I didn't want anything flashy or tacky on the page to take the focus away from my work.

After finding Adobe fairly simple to work I wanted to create a separate website for the pottery side of my discipline. 

Creating the home page using my own hand drawn  buttons felt like a great idea as it represented the hand made ethos to my pottery.

The problem here is that it doesn't look 'slick' nor does it look professional. I would quite like to keep the hand made side or maybe use photographs of my work as buttons instead to navigate through the site.

Logo ideas for my name as a recognisable brand. I like the idea, but the colouring has to be carefully thought about for the site so it doesn't stick out or offend my webpage.

Here is the next stage of playing around on Muse, I really like the use of the slideshow and I may still keep some of my hand drawn headings as it suits the page here.

This is the final look of my home page with the rest of the site in a similar style.

Really pleased with this result and looking forward to the grueling process of uploading to a host service ! The boxes are captions of my work that leads the viewer around my site. I haven't used headings as it keeps a little bit back to keep the viewer intrigued. Also the type suits the hand rendered styling of my work.

Business Cards

Moo.com are great providers for quality business promotional items, their business cards are high quality and easy to make online.

Here are a few possible ideas I have already for business cards, promoting my recent works of 'The Adventures of the Cat & the Moon Bear'.


I like this image as it is one of the strongest mono prints I made for the book. I like the simplicity and the small touches ie the butterfly, it does't suggest too much but its a lovely image and would work alongside text.

This one isn't as interesting and doesn't follow the sequential style as the other card ideas do but I got a lot of good feedback from my Amsterdam houses so I thought I should include them in my promotional work.

Here is my favourite card, I love the shape of this bear and the cat next to him shows just how big a bear can be. It also shows a playful side to my illustration work which hopefully would appeal to those in the publishing industry of children's picture books.

And finally my all time favourite bear image, the face gives out such a personality within the bear and he looks very friendly and cute which would hopefully appeal to younger readers. Everyone likes a good cute bear image! 

I have left it very simple, I didn't want any random imagery to interfere with the text that will be applied once I have my website details.

Moo.com

Promotional Strategies & Website Research

For my Illustrative website I want to use icons and text that looks simple and sophisticated.
My work from the Cat & the Moon Bear has given me plenty of images and ideas that I can use for trendy little icon buttons and a lot of work to feature on my site.
I will have more imagery from my Pylon press zine also to keep my site interesting.
The site will be used to try and promote my skills in children's book illustration so I want it to appeal to the right audiences ie 'publishers'.


My favourite children's illustrator Carson Ellis's site is very basic but stylish, her beautiful illustrations do the talking on her site, its easily mapped out and looks very professional of course.

Making My Website 

Cargo

Artists webpages on Cargo

These webpages look very good and it appears that you can personalise the format more than I thought you could if you used your own program. The one above looks simple and sophisticated in a professional manner which I am trying to achieve with my own site.

Although I am not sure you can upload your own imagery with cargo, to use as menu tabs and buttons which is a benefit from using dream weaver or flash.

Hot Glue

Artists on Hotglue

The site shows many of the users of hotglue and their web pages which unfortunately I looked at most of the bad ones first which are quite garish and offensive to the eye!!

This one below is a great example of how a website should not be done! The text isn't in line and is untidy, the garish colouring makes it impossible to even start reading. Its just a bit of a mess basically!

It is very important that when I make my website that I keep it simple, so that the viewer can navigate easily through my work which is so important if I want to get noticed. It will also show professionalism in my own profession.

Below I quite like, the page is taken up by a large scale piece of work but it doesn't drown out the text of which to navigate the site at the top of the page.

I would quite like to have simple clean coloured text with a white or off-white background with a few loose images to keep the viewer intrigued to look though more.

Industry Research

When I graduate I want to have a working website for my pottery and another separate website for my portfolio, similarly I want to take advantage of the benefits for upcoming illustrators with YCN's new website offering you a space to make a portfolio and receive possibly some work. The online portfolio is free however there is an option at a price which gives you first dibs and news on whats out and available and lets you in with a chance of getting a lot more work possibly.