Monday 21 November 2011

Portfolio Visit! Craig Oldham

So, I had an appointment booked in with Craig from design by Music for 2:30, I was very nervous and ended up getting to the place 20 mins early, so I ended up wondering around before I actually buzzed in. I was sat up on the 1st floor while waiting for Craig and I got to see Matt Bray's work on the glass office, which look pretty cool, especially as I was sat infront of his KISS illustrations, (being a big KISS fan this made me smile).
There were a few meetings going on around me so I just sat quietly and waited.
So I waited for Craig to come down and get me and he took me to the ground floor which he called "the Dungeon". I was very nervous but Craig made me feel calm and comfortable, started off witht the usual small talk.
So I started flicking through my portfolio explaining what each piece was about and why I did them etc etc, I also showed him the books I had printed (Twinkle Twinkle little cat, and dia de los muertos, I'll get them up on a seperate post).
So after he looked at my work he said he was very impressed (thank god!) Out of everything I put in my portfolio his favourites were my 'Killer Fashion' and my shark from the James and the giant peach brief and the roulette wheel from the 8x8 brief, he said he can see that I'm good with soming up with Ideas and answering a brief, and responding to them, he said this could possibly be because he is a designer and that is how he usually works.
He thought that my textures were great and worked very well, he said in the past hes seen people work with texture and It sometimes never works too greatly or just fails completely, but he thought mine worked brillianly and clicks with the shapes and white backgrounds.

With my Twinkle story, he loved the characters (espeically the dog) he thought that the pages worked better with a white background, which most of them have, he thought some of the pages needed to be boiled down as the characters worked better with simpler backgrounds.
Also, he thought with putting pieces from a story in a portfolio that things look better without the type, which I fair enough considering i am an illustrator and people want to be more focus on my illustrations than writing.

My roulette wheel is apparently instant and craig felt he knew the story behind it straight away just by looking at it, he felt this was stronger than the main piece I did for the 8x8 brief, which I tihnk everyone agrees with!
My textures used for my shark are apparently spot on, as they are aggressive which is what the personality of a shark would most probably be.

Overall Craigs main points were that it seems like a I have a 'Creative Head' good at problem solving, he said he could see that by looking at my editoral piece mostly, All my textures are spot on and apparently Craig wants to try and touch the textures in my work, haha. He also thought from looking at my work that I work abit better with briefs given to me, instead of things being so 'open' and thought it was a good idea for me to possibly play with some more editorials, which I may do as I did enjoy doing the editorial in second year.

Also he was very impressed that I had my books printed and brought them with me, He said I was the first student he has seen to have done this, and it was nice for him to see my work in some kind of context instead of every page being put in a portfolio.

Overall I think the visit on a whole went brilliantly, even though I was very nervous at first I soon felt confident and comfy, Craig is such a lovely guy I would suggest people to get intouch with him (though he is a very busy bee at the moment).

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