Creative Strategy Final Slides

Hello! My name is Ellie, I’m going to be talking to you about my first year as an illustration student.

At the start of the year I mainly stuck to the way that I worked in on my foundation course, which I realised was a bit restricting.

The most valuable part of the year for me has been learning new skills and methods and being pushed to use them in upcoming briefs.

My favourite briefs have been all of the vis com ones as I found that I produced better work being pushed outside my comfort zone.

It took me ages to get the hang of vectors, but with the pressure of having to use them, I actually began to love them!

 I enjoyed using vectors so much that I decided to use them in the following vis com brief. I was a lot more confident in using illustrator that I was able to focus on my work being more symbolic and meaningful.

 Editorial- didn’t know enough about photoshop so my work looked terrible

Going to the merrion centre was a disaster because we weren’t actually allowed to draw in there.

Went to Whitby with the wrong intentions, should have gone somewhere completely new and had more of an adventure.

My main three struggles have been burning out too easily, getting too stressed, balancing my life out.

COP- reading into the negative impacts of social media on our society, did experiments on how it affected me, came up with a solution that actually helped me.

Student Ambassador- Not having a job knocked my confidence a little without talking to new people on a professional level, also interesting to tell prospective students about my experience on the course.

Living with other illustrators- keep eachother going because we are in the same boat

Being organised- timetable, makes me get less stressed about upcoming events make everything seem more manageable.

Looking at what other practitioners have produced has given me something to aspire towards.

I have found attending Big Head sessions really helpful. Before I thought there was a massive hierarchy between us as students and them as professionals, but talking to them has really bridged the gap and made me realise that they are just like us but with more experience.

Going to galleries and exhibitions has kept up my knowledge of new work that is being produced, and also given me an insight into other creative practices besides illustration.

I havent done a great deal of reading this year, but the small amount I have done has informed my ways of working. This is something I must do more of next year!

I have been really succesful on the organisational side of things this year...

Although this has caused me to become quite stressed and uptight whenever I make work. I don’t do my own drawings anymore because I never think they are of a high standard, which is definitiely something I need to sort out!

Next year I really need to embrace my creativity and do more observational drawing, I need to stress less about being organised and push myself further with my work.

Questions?