Live Project Tutorial

22/02/12

I had my tutorial with Marianne Springham today and I brought all my thoughts and ideas to discuss with her. I was really pleased with her response and she helped fuel my ideas and get me thinking about what to do next. I went in with my initial Proposal which outlined my ideas.

Live Project

Name- Emily Reid

What Client / Competition / Practice briefs are you proposing to do?

Please outline your briefs / projects. Are you collaborating with other people?

What are the deadlines for these briefs? Are they all the same scale – are you going to work on some more than others? How are these projects live?

I am proposing to create good quality crafts to sell. I am undecided on my specific audience as of yet but I know I want to combine illustration making and I am interested in using a variety of materials. I will be working on my own and my intention is to create soft toys using felt, material, buttons, embroidery, stitching. I want there to be a theme within the products such as animals, nature or food. The audience response and need will dictate the way I create the work. I thought it may be good to create a mini illustrated zine/story/prints within the theme of the toys. The brief will be Live as I intend to set up an etsy and sell what I make and research into craft stalls. Throughout the project I intend to get in touch with people and see if there is an interest in making for a specific person with specific requirements of what they want. A tailor made gift for a friend/relative made more personal. This means I will be working to their ideas as will have to meet the customer needs.

What is your rationale for undertaking these briefs?
What do you want to learn, what experiences do you want to gain, etc

I want to learn about what it takes to create quality products/images/illustrations to sell to an audience. How much should I sell them for, taking into consideration cost of material, time, profits, and how much people will pay for what I am creating. I want to gain experience (good and bad) of creating something for a specific person, meeting certain requirements. I want see how much interest there is in what I am proposing to make. I want to experience setting up an online shop and experiment with what materials I should be working with to make good quality work.

What’s next?
What do you need to do next? How are you going to structure your time between now and the deadline? What research do you need to undertake?

I need to research into materials, what I need and cost. I need to sketch and illustrate some ideas for what I will be making. I need to spend some time illustrating ideas for characters/zines/prints dependant on my theme. I need to decide on a theme from my research. Look into ways people market themselves and how they make and sell their work. Is there anyone selling similar crafts to me? Look at artists, decide on the ways I’m going to work combining illustration and making, decide what materials and ways of working will be relevant. What facilities and equipment are available for me to use? I want to come out with a great deal of knowledge of what it takes to create a sellable piece of work to a high quality.

I am really interested in combining illustration and making in relevant ways to the subject. I discussed with Marianne about how I would like there to be a theme within my work. At first I thought about food, nature and animals. However, I am really interest in people, history, character and biographies so the idea of creating stuffed toy people/characters made using different materials, giving them a name, a label with a short story/biography, it could be comical. As I am still unsure of my audience then my making may dictate this rather than the other way around. I am really excited about this idea of combining my illustrations and interest in people and bringing them to life using materials. I draw my inspiration from people around me, surroundings, and reading lots of articles/interesting stories about experiences.

I thoroughly enjoyed Visual Language, where I read and researched about people who are 100 years old and tried to capture their character and personality in my illustrations. Although for these characters they would not be based on real people necessarily, they will be influenced by people around me, observations and the illustrations/stories I create.

Marianne also really liked the idea of creating a zine/prints/story to accompany the toy characters. How can I tie all of this together? This is why I think a theme within my work is essential.

So this week I basically need to...

• Research into Folksy, Etsy, methods of selling. Also look into gallery shops.  
• Look at whats out there, artists/craft makers.
• Are there any methods/skills I need to learn to get my work to a high quality to sell.
• Sketch/illustrate some initial ideas for characters to make, ways to make them.
• Look into what materials I want to use, what I already have and would need. 
• Bring all of this to show Marianne, along with some other examples of my work such as illustrations from Visual Language and stuffed toys I have made previously.