Business Cards

My sample business card has come in the post from moo.com, check it out!

(I've blocked out my number on the image for privacy reasons)

Industry Contacts List - Complete

Industry Contacts List


1. Dan Mumford
http://www.dan-mumford.com/
dan@danmumford.com

2. James Fenwick
http://deadfuzz.blogspot.com/

3. Becca Thorne
http://www.beccathorne.co.uk/contactform.html
(E-mail through site)

4. Russell Cobb
T: 01462 441614
E: russell@russellcobb.com

5. Thomas Flintham
http://www.thomasflintham.com/
tommyflintham@hotmail.com

6. Cow Lane Studios Salford
http://www.cowlanestudios.com/
info@cowlanestudios.com

7. Binding Service – University Of Manchester John Rylands Library

Address: Thesis Binding Service,
The Joule Library, The John Rylands University Library,
Sackville Street Building,
The University of Manchester,
Manchester M60 1QD

Telephone: +44(0)161 306 4916

8. Ken Adams
http://www.k3n.com/
(email through website)

9. Bastian Sobtzick
E: Bastian_Sobtzick@web.de
W: www.bastibasti.de

10. “French”
http://www.french.bigcartel.com/
(email through site)

11. Henrik Drescher
http://www.hdrescher.com/
henrik@hdrescher.com

12. Ben Boos
http://benjaminboos.blogspot.com/
swords@benboos.com

13. Paul Romano
www.workhardened.com
paul@workhardened.com

14. MARC Printers
E: info@marctheprinters.co.uk
T: 0161-839-0839

15. Hilke McIntyre
http://www.macintyre-art.com/index.html
e: mail@macintyre-art.com
t: 0133-372-0263

PDP Entrepreneurial Artefact

This is my idea for the promotional artifact. I wanted to make a totem pole with collectible heads, and initially I was going to sculpt them from clay, but when I came to consider how it would be mass produced I thought it better to be flat. That way I could make the designs onto stickers and stick them onto the heads separately.

In terms of selling the product, I would sell the pole and base, and one of heads, and then also other heads separately. That way the customer can buy whatever heads they want and make their own personal totem pole, thus giving the person a uniqueness to their own choice and order of heads.

At the moment it is made from wood, however I would seek to make it out of plastic for easier manufacturing and to also have the heads cylindrical. I have included some sketches of what designs might go on the heads including a Pirate, Knights Helmet, Robot and Native American Mask. These are all things I like and things that inspire me. I would seek to include some nice line-work in these designs to remind clients and anyone who buys it of my illustration work, and I would have my contact details around the rim of the base.

PDP Potential Clients List - Complete

1. Vintage Publishing
Website : vintagebooks.co.uk

2. Bloomsbury.
Address: 36 Soho Sqaure, London, W1D 3Q
Tel: 0207-494-2111
W: bloomsbury.com

3. Harper Collins
Address: Human Resources
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London
W6 8JB
Tel: 0208-307-4000
E: recruitment@harpercollins.co.uk

4. Faber
Address: Faber &Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74-77 Great Russel Street
London
WC1B 3DA
Tel: 0207-927-3800
E: gapublicity@faber.co.uk

5. Walker Books
Address:
87 Vauxhall Walk
London
SE11 5HJ
Tel: 0207-793-0909
PDF samples to: illustratorsubmissions@walker.co.uk
Physical samples to: Illustrator Submissions, The Art Department, Walker Books Ltd, (then rest of address as above)

6. Oxford University Press
Tel: 0186-555-6767
E: humanresources.uk@oup.com

7. Random House
Address:
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road
London
SW1V 2SA
Tel: 0207-840-8400

8. Headline
Address:
Headline Publishing Group
338 Euston Road
London
NW1 3BH
Tel: 0207-873-6000
E: enquiries@headline.co.uk

9. Macmillan Publishers: Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road
London
N1 9RR
Tel: 0207-014-6000
E: Suzy Sheperd
s.sheperd@macmillan.co.uk

10. Macmillan Publishers: Nature Publishing Group
The Macmillan Building
4 Crinan Street
London
N1 9XW
Tel: 0207-7833-4000
E: Paul Riley
p.riley@macmillan.co.uk

11. Kevin Candela
Art Director
http://kevincandela.com

12. Mind Army
www.myspace.com/mindarmystudio

13. Invisible Creature
E:info@invisiblecreature.com
Invisible Creature Inc.
P.O. Box 375
Seahurst, WA 98062


14. Abacus Books
Address:
45B, William Pickering Drive
Albany, Auckland 0632
New Zealand
E: info@abacusbooks.co.nz

15. Scholastic Children’s Books
Address:
Euston House
24 Eversholt Street
London
NW1 1DB
T: 020 7756 7756
E: SCBenquiries@scholastic.co.uk

16. Profile Books Ltd
Address:
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
Exmouth Market
London
EC1R OJH
T: 020 7841 6300
E: info@profilebooks.co.uk


17. Orbit Books
Website: http://www.orbitbooks.net
(contact through website)

18. Orion Books
Address:
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin's Lane
London WC2H 9EA
UK
Tel: 020 7240 3444
Web: www.orionbooks.co.uk

19. Penguin Books
Web: www.penguin.co.uk

20. Polygon/Birlinn Books
Address:
Birlinn Ltd.
West Newington House
10 Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS
Tel:+44 (0)131 668 4371
Email: info@birlinn.co.uk

Competition Brief - Final Image (for now)

I haven't posted anything about my James and The Giant Peach cover for a while because I've been getting on with it in my sketchbook and creating the final image. I have annotated my sketchbook to show the progression of the image, but I would like to make a blog post to express my thoughts as well.

I was struggling to create an idea for the cover, I was a bit daunted by the amount of text that had to be on the front cover and so I spent a lot of time looking at examples of text (some of which I have posted on here, others are in my sketchbook). I came across some beautiful illuminated letters (posted earlier on my blog) and these along with a chat with my tutors inspired the decision to do my own illustrated letter forms. Making the letters into characters from the story seemed to solve the problems of having a lot of text on the page and having an image that encapsulated the story. I started tracing some letters and making them into the insects from the story and seeing how they worked out. Some of them were easy such as making the earthworm into an S, others a little more difficult and forced, however on the whole they seemed to be working out.

After some more chats and external input I realised that I needed to break away from the font that was the basis of the characters, both to make them more visually appealing and to make them use the space available in a more effective way. So I hit the sketchbook and marked out the size of the format, to give me a better idea of exactly what space I had available, and experimented with fitting these insect/letters into the format in a more visually dynamic way. After a few versions the image really seemed to be coming together and I proportionally enlarged my format on the photocopier so that I could fit in more detail. I then penciled in the characters and finalised them with a fine-liner. I was able to include the fine line work with its pattern and textural qualities in the drawing and I think it is really working for me at the moment. Doing the whole cover simply with pen and pencil has boosted my confidence in terms of drawing and also in dealing with letter forms, and has actually made me want to use them again in my work somehow.

I made the decision to make the background orange and reverse the line-work out in white as I thought the bright colour would be very apt for this lively children's story and also it would be visually interesting to have the line-work reversed out in white.

N.B - The reason I entitled this post with the suffix "for now" is because the deadline from Penguin for this image is not until June so there is quite likely to be some changes made by that time, just small refinements.

Potential Clients List - a few more

A few more potential clients, obviously I need contact details for these people but I just thought I'd note them down here because I am very likely to misplace the piece of paper they are currently written on!

PUBLISHER: Harper (an imprint of harper collins)
PUBLICATION: Agatha Christie mysteries.

PUBLISHER: Walker Books
PUBLICATION: "Necropolis" by Anthony Horowitz

PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
PUBLICATION: "Finding Sky" by Joss Stirling

PUBLISHER: Bantam Books (London)
PUBLICATION: "Relics Of The Dead" by Ariana Franklin

PUBLISHER: Headline Publishing
PUBLICATION: "The Templar" by Paul Doherty

PUBLISHER: Macmillan Publishers

PUBLISHER: Vintage Modern Classics

Becca Thorne Interview

I recently contacted fantastic illustrator Becca Thorne and she has been very kind indeed and spared some of her time to answer me these questions. A huge thanks to Becca for doing this, it is very much appreciated!

1. Who or what currently inspires you artistically?

-I've just joined Twitter, and seeing all the illustrators tweet about work on there is hugely inspiring whenever i'm not sure what to do with myself. I've got a big interest in Medieval history, so I take a lot of inspiration from Anglo-Saxon and medieval artwork. Also traditional Nordic and Scandinavian art and old Japanese and European woodblocks have a big influence on my work.

2. Your lino and mono prints are fantastic and it's great to see these
traditional techniques being used. Do you think these are dying arts in
the age of digital technology?

-I wouldn't say they were dying arts, but they're definitely not used as much in illustration as they used to be. I'm always a little disappointed when I see work that looks like woodblock or linocut but turns out to be digital, but illustration often needs to be done so quickly that sometimes vector work is the best route (and sometimes I really wish I could use Illustrator!). Even so, traditional techniques (including drawing and painting) have been making a big comeback in the last 5 years or so, especially for book work, and my clients pick me because my work is so obviously hand-rendered.



3. If you ever hit a wall in terms of ideas for a commission, what do
you do to overcome it?

-I'm lucky in that my partner studied fine art at uni, so he's good with ideas and understands the work- he's often hugely helpful. But I've found that the best thing to do to stop any problems happening in the first place is to understand exactly what a client wants before starting. If i haven't visualised a basic idea in my head by the time I've finished reading a brief (which are usually pretty heavily detailed anyway) I email or ring the client back asking for more info, or with some suggestions for us to run through and come up with a solution. An illustration job is invariably a collaboration of sorts between you and the art director, so you're never alone.

4. Do you find it easy or difficult to manage your time effectively?

-I find it pretty easy, but I'm never swamped with work (unfortunately!). I know how long it takes me to work through a job from start to finish, and make sure a client is aware of the time it takes to complete a lino cut. For example i know that 10 quarter-page-size illustrations will take me two weeks; one week for roughs and approval and just under one week for the cutting, printing, approval and posting. Because of the nature of my work I never get daily papers, or anyone else who needs work done the same day- although, if it was one small print and I had no other work on, I could do it easily!



5. I noticed you have been commissioned for several books. Is there any
authors in particular whose work you would like to illustrate?

-I would love to illustrate Philip Pullman books or anything mysterious and historical like Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell or the Cadfael books.

6. Finally, if you could interview one one artist, alive or dead, who
would it be?

-I wouldn't want to interview him as such, but I'd love to have met Jean-Michel Basquiat. As well as his work being amazing he also led an amazing and tragic life- at 15 he'd dropped out of school and was living pretty much rough, but by the time he died, at 27, he'd had major shows in the US and Europe, formed a punk band with Vincent Gallo, dated Madonna, been in a Blondie video and collaborated with David Bowie and Andy Warhol. (I wrote an essay about him for A Level art...).



You can check out Becca's brilliant work here: www.beccathorne.co.uk

Again a massive thanks to Becca for this interview and some great advice!