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One of the agencies that I looked at is Liberty Art Fabrics which is a famous textile design firm based in London. After listening to Lisa Congdon one of the things she mentioned that she did was create textiles as well as wallpaper. So I looked into textile design and I find it interesting because it’s a interesting way to incorporate illustration and product design. My mom was a fashion designer, I’ve always been interested in textile and fashion ever since I was young and used to go to my mom’s work and play with all the different buttons. My mom used to take me into the factory and choose all the scraps of fabric to dress my barbies in. 

What I’m realising about this industry is that you can’t be a one trick pony. A lot of the designers that are out there have a complete diverse range of skills ranging from business to fashion designer to illustrator and textile designer. I think to say that I want to go into commercial illustration I need to be open to all forms of design. In a sense they are all linked, and I realise that I need to push my knowledge and skill in all categories to be successful but not only that to try as many things as possible to see you what you like and don’t like.

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Developing, building, and stubbornly maintaining a successful visual style will ultimately kill your creativity–and your career. Change constantly or die.

Bob Staake

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While doing some research in commercial illustration, I stumbled across this interview with Lisa Cogdon. The basis of the interview was about how and why Lisa became an illustrator, some of the things that inspire her and the work that she has done in the past. What’s interesting about her is that she currently has a thriving business and professional career as a commercial illustrator and artist which she only started at 40! Before that she had no formal training besides some painting classes  and worked as a project manager at a NGO.

She explained that she had done a few painting classes and realised how much she enjoyed creating and crafting things. She held down a full-time job while exploring her passion at night and on weekends. What’s interesting about what she talked about is that 5 years prior (when she began her work) she started a blog where showed all her stuff as well as starting projects such as collections that made, exploring art forms such as typography and calligraphy. She explains how now she looks back and cringes at some of the early work she produce but noted that that work was so important to where she is now in the work she’s doing because she said by getting out there and showing people her stuff, she was able to receive feedback and motivation to continue.

I’m really interested in what she has to say seeing as she isn’t somebody with formal training. For me, I always think maybe I wouldn’t be able to be an illustrator or produce commercial work because I’m not that great now and I won’t ever be amazing. But the way she talks about practice and her freedom of exploring different art forms makes me realise that that is all it is. It’s about working at it and putting yourself out there.  

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Commercial Illustration

graphic art created specifically for commercial uses, especially for advertising, illustrations in magazines or books, or the like. After researching Rachel Levit, I want to look into her career of commercial illustrations. I like how she talked about working with magazines and other publications. She says it’s a very straight forward and fast process. She’ll be commissioned to do a piece and only be given a day to come up with something. I love that kind pace and type of workspace. I feel like I work really well under pressure. I am the type of person who needs time frames, guidelines and whatever but that’s when I kind of excell. Next step is to look into industries/ agencies that do commercial illustrations. 

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Camilla Engman is one of Rachel Levit’s influencers. She is Swedish based illustrator again her style is very simple however she uses more texture and detail than Levit. But her work is very conceptual, it tells a story  

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Rachel Levit does a lot of illustrations for publications such as The New Yorker, New York Times and even Vogue. She does illustrations for articles that are either displayed in print or on their websites. This is quite exciting for me because these type of illustrations are dealing with issues such as woman rights, mental health and health issues. Her work is very conceptual and has a sweet/sad sense of humour behind it. I feel that I am drawn to illustration but this particular type of work excites me

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I think it's important to have different references and have a unique point of view because otherwise you are not contributing to anything

Rachel Levit

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Influences: Mexican folk art and culture (Rachel Levit is from mexico)

style : figurative and delicate

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Rachel Levit. I found these illustrations on Pinterest and have been inspired by this illustrators work. Her work is mostly in simple line work yet I find her subject matter interesting. I like to work in metaphors, I think that especially in branding and logo design metaphors offer a completely unique and usually image. Though Rachel Levit doesn’t work with brands/branding, her designs are peculiar and out of the box. This is again something that I wish to exercise more of in my own design - keeping it simple and clean yet interesting because of the subject matter

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These are some just Jean Michel Basquiat’s works. You see something like this scares me yet at the same time I’m intrigued by it. I hate the fact that I’ve been taught that good art is about how perfect it looks because perfect leaves out the grit, the emotion and the life that art is supposed to portray. Yet looking at it from a designer’s perspective I’m intrigued in learning about how this kind of explosion of line and colour still represent a message. They still tell me about who this person is and about the life he leads. I see pain and that he’s lead a rough life with violence, grit and hardship. Isn’t that what we are taught now? We are taught that design is about communicating a message on behalf of a brand. Isn’t this simuliar to what Jean Michel Basquiat is trying to do, he’s communicating with us through his work.

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Jean- Michel Basquiat is the role model and influencer of my influencer (Karolina Koryl)

Jean- Michel Basquiat was a young graffiti artist in the 1980′s and represented American Punk and the rise of a critically embraced and popularly celebrated artistic phenomenon. 

Influences: African-Caribbean heritage, Minimalism and Conceptualism.

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Karolina Koryl

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Karolina Koryl is an illustrator that inspires me and she’s only 17 years old! She hasn’t done any big design work for brands or anything. She currently just sells her illustrations on her website. What draws me to her work is the freedom and confidence she has in her work. What I mean by this is it’s not perfect, it can actually be considered to be ugly and weird yet it’s so unconventional and expressive that inspires me to take on the same attitude for my own work. 

One of the biggest challenges I face as a young designer is this mental box that I live in. It’s something that I noticed when I first started my course is that I wanted to be good and I wanted everyone else to think that I was a good designer. But that limits you so badly because you can only go as far as you think others want of you. And to be honest, you end up designing corny shit that you are not proud of. I know that I have a unique way of looking of the world around me, I just don’t know yet how to fully access that creative energy without any reservations. That’s why I want to learn from artist such as Karolina Koryl so that I can find my self.

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Bauhaus first school of design. Before this fine art was taken more seriously than design. This german school pushed to boundaries of ‘Modernist’ era by giving design as much weight as fine art. Their goal was to bring art back in the contact of everyday life through design. School was eventually closed down by Nazi’s and moved to Chicago becoming the Institute of Design.

I’m interested in the idea of combining art and design. I think that you can not have design without art because one needs to have a grounding in artistic abilities to be able to design. However, I want to further explore the relationship between the two because in my case I feel that I am a stronger artist than a designer and sometimes I get confused between the two. I want to explore how one can be a stronger designer (deliver a strong message) yet let that be equally artistic.