I knew when I came here I didn't want to go anywhere else when I came to this
course I set up from my college that I said that all I wanted to do really was to go to Brighton
and so once I got here, I sort of have been slightly guilty of being
what's the way it's sort of very like sort of single-minded and when I came
here that's all I kind of wanted to do is that right I'm here to be an
illustrator and what Brighton did sort of teach me was when I first came in I was
doing a very sort of set style of work and this is how I was going to do it and
they taught me to no, have more fun with this that you were doing you're
trying too hard to do one specific thing it's a three year course after this
you're gonna have to concentrate and focus and
because you could have to try and earn money off of it essentially, and I have a
living whereas these three years you don't to worry about that. Have fun and
like kind of realise what is it you're good at and what you like. And when I
started the course had a set start I thought this what I'm going to do when I
left it was totally different I was doing like I was doing pencil sketches
and I really detailed kind of almost photorealistic pencil drawings when I
left it was characters with googly eyes so it's like a very vast change at that
time and I think that's probably the thing that Brighton,
specifically the Illustration and Graphic Design course really taught me
I used to do printouts to like I would make a poster with all my work on it and a
CV on the back. I would send that out to art directors or always
advertise its free as well so if anyone wanted for my website their kids they
could just ask for it send me their address and I would send them this in the
post and I would sort of use the money from the work at the weekends to put
towards that print cost, postage etc and it was just I was just determined at
that point to try and get it you get into into having a career as an
illustrator and so yeah first sort of five, four, five months I was
doing that and I was just some days sat at my desk not really doing anything but
I was working and trying to create work even it is wasn't for pay or it was
just to keep myself busy and keep posting new stuff up online and then yes
slowly things people start to recognize the work through social channels
and then through this poster that was advertising and then slowly the
addresses I was being sent we're from like-minded people Iike graduates or people
anyone wants something for free but then I notice the signatures and some of
those emails were like Nike and advertising agents that Wieden and
Kennedy and and we're interesting the poster and then that led into an
internship at an illustration agency and then sort of we're now talking sort of
eight months after that was they offered to represent me there so then that kind
of really got the ball rolling and and and it kind of that was when I was sort
of a year or a year after universities when it really started to pick up and I
was able to use illustrations to support myself like solely as my my one line of
work basically
Each jobs kind of different so there was a job I did for McDonald's Japan which
was great that that they were fantastic design agencies to work well the design
is the design agency are called TBWA and they were fantastic to work with
they essentially saw what I did, knew that my work worked in that way like in the
colors that I used and the character that you use so when they commissioned
me for the McDonald's job I was kind of concerned that they were going to really
pit in print like oh you have to use McDonald's red oh you have to use my
combos yellow I tend to use softer colors than that but when I sent over my
sort of color version of the artwork they're like great this is fine and then
I said I was okay if I changed the M that was at the bottom to be a lighter
yellow that matched my colors and they were they were yeah really happy to for
me to do that which is great and that's always a nice, those jobs are the ones
that go front and center on my portfolio because they're the ones I think work
best and it's nice when you get that trust from a client. Sometimes it doesn't
always go that way and I don't want to name names and that but there's been
some jobs where that hasn't happened. You kind of have to look each each case
scenario and work out what works for you for. On this particular job that didn't
go so well it paid well so that had to come into consideration and I
know starting out, this was about two three years in and
this is paying well enough for me to spend two months working on that, then I
can put back in so I'm my own practice and kind of take the experience from
that which I did learn a lot about on that but kind of have to take each job
as it comes I would suppose