Kenneth Branagh

I haven't really done a lot of drawing recently, but since we're meandering towards the end of 2011, here's a few sketches I did from a Kenneth Branagh interview in the Guardian. 

Happy 2012!!

New Year, new blog..

So in next March, it will be two years since I started writing and posting on this blog. It's been fun and well worth it but it needs a lot of life breathing into it. New layout, new design?! Definitely some new creativity.

I also need to update my portfolio with new work and look into getting a website up and running. If so, I might start to incorporate the blog posts into that.

There's a lot to think about. In the meantime, this is my kick up the backside.

Happy Christmas

Belatedly of course.

I like these adverts for the Denver Theatre Company. A cool way of representing the three ghosts and consequently Scrooge's entire journey.

Internships

If you haven't seen Mr Bingo or his work then you should. He is damn fine illustrator and as you can see above his view on working for free is pretty clear. Spot on. What happens though if you're just starting out? Maybe this time last year you had a brain fart and decided to follow a dream, thereby consigning the last 15 years of a career into the bin marked "STARTING AGAIN".

In this recession? Are you kidding me? Squeekybumtime.

One of the scarier moments during London Design Week was being told by an design agency that in order to get 'my break' I would have to accept working free internships, maybe for the next 12 months before getting my first design position. I'll be honest in saying it frightened the crap out of me.

To be fair there are a lot of paid internships inside great design agencies but they sit alongside those three months internships where they offer to kindly pick up your lunch tab. Yeah, well thanks. As you'd expect though competition is high - I mean how do you measure a three year course against a three month one?

Fortunately I'm writing this at the end of December. The interviews did start to come, though it took a good four months to happen. I've been lucky, I'm working a paid three month internship until the end of February at Oceanbarefoot.

It's a full service branding and creative agency and I'm loving it. It's a steep learning curve, but I'm gaining valuable experience and within reason, some space and time, to learn a new career. I'm getting faster in thought and process and I guess more importantly, I haven't broken anything so far..

Marion Deuchars

Towards the back end of the summer a few of us spent the day wandering around London, mainly Dalston, Shoreditch and Old Street talking to designers and illustrators as part of London Design Week. It was really engaging and as an opportunity to get into a variety of differing studios well worth it.

The highlight, beforehand for me, was the chance to meet Marion Deuchars and to be fair she didn't let me down. Her style is free and open, just what a great illustrator should be and while it's very much replicated I love it.

I thought we'd get ten minutes, but she gave us a good hour of her time, discussing her career, how she got started, ambitions and her working process, in and out of various design collectives. All in all she was pretty inspiring.