Presentation

Presentation Boards

Portfolio

Semi google-able

I googled myself to check how finable I am.
Now when you google Hollie Smith you unfortunately get a soul singer from New Zealand, which I have known for a long time and one of my personal goals is to become more famous than her so she can know how it feels.

Same spelling and everything

So I google hollie smith illustration which yeilds more positive results

My sites are all there, including my very recent account on The Dots oddly, so maybe I should make better use of that. So web wise thats not bad, I'll give myself a 6 out of ten

Image results are patchier, in fact most of the results are images I've pinned on pinterest on my illustration board, but there's a fair bit of my work scattered about. 4 out of 10

Now to take over the web.
Onwards and upwards

Mehhhh ykno its not a bad result for a Smith. We're very hard to find, as a result of being so easy to find. Like finding a tree in a forest. They're everywhere is my point. Hollie is not uncommon either.

Outrage

Some guy called Luke has taken my ghost hands pattern and pasted some type over it and put it on his blog.
NAHHHH MATE. Nope

I mean yeah he credited me, but there isn't a link and that type looks ugly and he does not possess the right to alter my work in any way.
So I told him

UAL Children's Book thing

I emailed about a call for a childrens book illustrator on the UAL oppurtunities site a bit ago, got this response back, which is probably my nicest rejection yet because it contained actual feedback.

Now I'm just waiting for her to explain what this Q-Tales platform thing is, because it sounds good but it's easy to make stuff sound good.
There's two website results for q-tales
Theres the .eu site

And theres the .com site.

Confusingly theyre both related to childrens books but I think it's probably the latter.
 It's worth noting that neither have a public showcase of portfolios so I don't think it's anything to get too giddy about.  Unless its like a super secret members only club where all the publishers prey on portfolios. who knows.
Milena knows. She just hasn't told me yet.

Boards, redone

So I wasn't happy with how my boards looked and tried reprinting them in the computer suite on Antique White to see if that went any better.
It did, which meant I could alter them. Which is a good job because Patrick found some typos.

So I've revamped them a little now and added more to my promo pack, and put my CV on too.

I think they look a lot better now

Art Market

Got the response saying to be sure I attend the briefing on May 23rd, which, alas, is the first day of my placement - obvious priority. 

So emailed back to say so 

So they said I just need to get someone to get the booklet for me basically so that's all fine, hopefully i will be selling in the market. 

I think I'd like to put a couple of copies of heady leggy book up there but if its just prints I can sort that out too.

Presentation

It's well established that I hate presentations, or even just talking in front of more than four people, so this was like ultimate worst nightmare - presenting my practice and degree and career plans in front of everyyyyonnnee.

I was even nauseous/nervous while making the presentation, the distress basically made me ill. And in the running order I was second to last, so I had the stress dragged out over two excrutiating days, which definitely hindered my enjoyment of everyone elses presentations. Saying that I did still enjoy watching everyone, even though it took fooorrreveeerrrrrrr, but it was nice seeing where everyone is at now and how they got there, and theres a massive diversity in everyones practises. Although watching how great all the other presentations were just made me dread mine even more.

When it came to it I was basically sure my throat was gonna close up and I'd choke and die at the front of the room, but I didn't so that's a success.
I really have no idea how it went because it was a surreal blur and I can't remember anything I actually said. This year I had notes on the screen under the slides because from the past two years I've learnt I can't read sheets of notes when I'm presenting. Or read at all it turns out because I mostly ignored my notes and blabbered on about I literally can't remember what. It has been repressed from my brain. 

My feedback was fine, just affirming that the presentation was alright and I need to figure out where I sit in the industry, but I have forgotten a lot of that because of my temporary presentation stress induced amnesia. I ran over a little bit too but I don't know how long because the timer restarted when I had to quit powerpoint to make my images happen. 

But it's over now and I won't have to do it again, except in future career and probably all the time. At least I've got better at it over the three years though, it's now vaguely coherent, I just hope presenting won't form the basis of my practice in future. 

art market

sent the application to sell work in the art market
why the heck not

CV

I've made a new CV.
It had to be in keeping with my branded aesthetic, i.e primary colours, character parade banner, dots and dashes pattern.

I looked at a bunch of 'creative CVs' on pinterest and what not and some had good ideas but mostly they were just naff and gimicy

So yeah I wanted to keep it kinda basic, like a normal CV but pretty and colourful and consistant with my branding.
I made a CV in summer when I was unemployed and dirt poor, and it ended up getting me the job because non-creative people (sometimes) dig that stuff.

This is the summer CV

 Looks alright but I've moved on.
Gotta throw some yellow into the mix.

Here is my new one.

I really think it screams in your face
AAAHHRG. READ ME.
But yeah I like it, it's waht I'm about right now and all that.
Patricks advice was remove some jobs and put the education in order of most recent first, which I have done, and I have removed Till Operator at KFC and event catering staff. Nobody has to know.
I've put my placement on cos deleting some jobs freed up extra space, and its a big thing, don't think it matters that I havent done it yet. And when I have I can change it to past tence.

Tried to keep it short and light. Nobody wants to be bored reading a CV, or for it to take longer than 5 miuntes.

I will have to update my portrait at some point though since I had a mid youth crisis and cut all my hair off.

AOI Membership

So following that reality bombshell of a talk from AOI I'm going to join while it's still cheap.
I just can't decide whether to pay the extra £40 to get my portfolio on the website as well.
It's no cheaper as an affiliate student, so maybe I could hang on for that.
But also I got my loan through and it's more productive than buying shoes.
Garhh don't know

Here's what the portfolios look like

I'm considering it just for means of having a platform representing my work, somewhere where I can be browsed, because finding an agent seems to be THE hardest thing ever

I'll mull it over a little

Website update

So feedback has been that since my work is quite diverse at the minute, having it all as a gallery is confusing and loud, and looks like the work of six different people crammed together, so I'm working on a new plan but this gallery will have to remain the home page while I sort it out, it may take a while.

I have drop down menus of all the projects so when you click one it goes to that and just shows you those images, and on the front page I'll have a slideshow of work running, jsut so its not all on screen all at once in an audible buzz of confusing visuals

Theres some obvious formatting issues but its a work in progress

Linkedin

I quite like linkedin

Got my profile all spiffy

 

 

So I've been spam adding art directors and people who work at places I want to work for
Here are some of my successes

So thats pretty sweet so far
It's good because once they accept me I get their email address and then email them my portfolio. I'm still working through the list.
It seems some poeple will just accept anyone though
As long as theyre accepting me i aint fussed

The Dots

Making an account on The Dots
Looking for jobs and all that
The portfolio upload funciton is annoying though
I just wanna upload the whole pdf
Not each damn thing at a time

Portfolio

I've assembled some work thats vaguely acceptable.

Gonna send it to people and see what they think.
Here it is.

Board Printing

Went to digital print to print my boards but James wasn't in so it was the tech guys fumbling around trying to figure out what to do
Ended up taking an hour and I'm not happy with how they came out, the colours really dont sit well on the stark white and theres smudges and stuff
I'm going to try it on an offwhite stock on the bypass printer tray bceause I dont wanna hand these in theyre not nice

Boards

I did my boards today so I could print them at three, this being the only slot I could get before the PPP deadline in like three weeks. Madness

I feel like I had to rush them a bit, and since I can only get into print today I don't know if I'll get chance to add to them at all.
They look okay though, just a bit sparse.
I think the promo pack needs more, ideally I'd have made a physical one but there isn't really the time or the need right now, I can print it later to send to people. It should be quite simple to make and send though, compared to last years matchbox nonsense.

My main problem with making boards is my inability to leave blank space and they end up all cramped and horrid. I have to get Adam to tell me when to stop putting more things on it. There's still too much blank space for my liking but they don't look too messy so it'll do.

I got issues with issuu

It keeps making two of my portfolio images really small and it's most annoying.

I've even changed all the image sizes so theyre all the same and its not worrrrkinnng

Look how silly this looks

portfolio?!??!?!?1

Don't know what to put in my portfolio
I hardly have any finished pieces of proper drawing that isn't awful

Lets look at some maybe options

Hmmmm
maybe itll be fine but there doesnt feel like theres much stuff
like i've been doing loads of work but none of it is portfolio enough
i guess thisll have to do for now