Thought Bubble and Creative Networks event

Thought Bubble

Babs Tarr

I really enjoyed the talk by Babs Tarr at the creative networks event. She is currently working on the Batgirl comics for DC with Cameron Stewart. I think the most significant thing I learnt from her talk was how important it is to be diverse with your tone of voice/drawing 'style'. She said that when she was sending off character designs for potential clients, she would send ten different versions of the same character drawn differently. This gave the client more options to work with and showed what a diverse artist she was. 

I love her fan art of Sailor Moon & the other Sailor scouts on motorbikes (top) - I think it's a great combination of girly, japanese anime culture and bad ass motorbike gang culture. I actually gave her one of my own Sailor Moon prints and I ended up getting the print below free! Very exciting moment for me - I think I'll try and contact other artists to do more print swaps. 

Matt Forsythe

Matt Forsythe also spoke at the creative networks event. He's an illustrator who also worked on animation projects such as Adventure Time. He talked about the process of creating an animation in a team, including storyboarding, and writing specific notes about which part of the composition would actually be moving. Forsythe also spoke about how the studio he worked for didn't even do the actual animation of Adventure Time - it was done by another studio in Korea, which doesn't even get credit. This kind of taught me how unfair the industry can be but also how rigorous the design process for animation needs to be. 

Economic Sectors - Where does my practise fit in?

Primary Sector
The primary sector of the economy extracts or harvests products from the earth (coal, wood etc).

Secondary Sector
The secondary sector of the economy manufactures finished goods (food, clothes etc)

Tertiary Sector
The tertiary sector of the economy is the service industry (hotels, catering etc)

Quaternary Sector
The quaternary sector of the economy consists of intellectual activities

Tertiary Sector broken down

Public Sector
The part of the economy concerned with providing public aid/state controlled services (hospitals, fire services)

Private Sector
The part of the economy that is not state controlled and is run by individuals/companies for profit

Third Sector
The part of the economy that includes voluntary, non-profit organisations

Design studios/agencies, in-house creative teams and freelance practitioners fit into the Tertiary Sector.

Examples of professional practice from this blog: Which sector were they produced for?

I would say that all of the above examples have been produced for the Secondary Sector (finished goods). I seem to have quite an interest in producing work for this sector because I happen to like buying things with beautiful packaging. The designer (service provider) would have been asked to design a product/packaging that would be attractive to buyers, so I would say that their role as a service provider has been a successful one. 

This is the only example I wasn't sure about. I think this would belong in the Tertiary Sector because it has been designed for another service provider - in this case, a restaurant to make the environment more attractive to diners. 

Studio Brief 2: Life's A Pitch

What is the idea/concept for your groups proposal?
Student based art fair/convention, completely curated by students. Would include live drawing collaboration space, small showcase space (gallery type area), tables for stalls/students work.

What service do you propose to provide?

• A platform for other creatives our age, to have the opportunity to show the public and peers their work
• Local networking
• Seminars/demonstrations from established professionals or peers
• An opportunity to buy/sell artwork or do trades

Who will benefit/make use of your services? 

• Creative students from the area/surrounding institutions
• Leeds/the local creative community
• Local businesses looking for fresh talent
• Any creative practitioner who attends - they will have to opportunity to show off their work, talk to possible clients, arrange collaborations
• Venue

What are the aims of your proposal?

• Bring together local creatives - especially ones our age
• Create discussion around what is illustration?
• Break down the boundary between professional practitioners and students eager to establish their own practice
• Showcase the talent in the local creative community 
• Promote conversation about design, illustration etc

What are the expected outcomes of your proposal?

• Hold a convention
• Have people visit 
• Arrange for a practitioner to give a talk or demonstration
• Get other students involved (setting up their own tables etc)
• Make money

How will you measure your success?

• Footfall - if people actually show up for the experience
• Media coverage - any tags on instagram, twitter etc?
• Feedback - did people actually enjoy the convention and the services we provided?
• Profit - breaking even would be good too, we don't want to loose money on this
• Did we enjoy ourselves?

What problems can you foresee?

• Funding for venue cost, insurance etc
• Advertising - will have to be substantial to get the right amount of footfall 
• Organising crew/volunteers - it will be hard to maintain the whole event by ourselves
• Food/drink services - are there any health and safety things we need to check out first?