Guest Speaker - Fig Taylor

Today we had Fig Taylor, a portfolio consultant for the Association of Illustrators come down to visit us.

Fig Taylor (theaoi.com)

Who on a side note looks very similar to British comedian Joe Brand.

Joe Brand (thenorthernecho.co.uk)

This is not entirely relevant, but it struck me as rather comical, especially considering Fig Taylor had a delightful habit of telling funny stories and veering off into colourful French (in other words saying fuck and other such words). More than once during the talk I expected her to begin a comedy routine.

 scans from my notebook

Fig Taylor's talk was very informative, and hilarious, filled with amusing stories and swearing. Giving a lot of insight into the illustration industry, not only in the United Kingdom, but also in the US, EU and Australia. For example that the US and UK markets are a lot more competitive and specialized than the Australia. Subsequently the overall quality seems to be higher in the UK/US than down under. Her main message seemed to be that art directors have gotten lazy these days as the internet has allowed them to pretty much pick and choose any illustrator and style that they want. She also emphasized that the industry is getting tougher and more competitive. This was slightly depressing to hear as she did not exactly paint a pretty picture of what we can expect. She did give us some very good tips on what to do and not do when putting together a portfolio (all of which can be found above in the notebook scans). This is not only relevant to us as we have to use it after uni to get work, but also because as part of our FMP we need to have a portfolio as part of the evaluation.

After Lunch we sat down as a small group to talk with Fig Taylor (it surprised me we were so few, as this was a once in a lifetime opportunity). Below is the range of Images I showed her:

my (at the time) current portfolio

1. A series of commisioned images for a website

2. DVD covers done for SMILE Entertaintment Aps.

3. Sequential Narrative Project (midway here)

4. Illustrations done in 2011

5. Poster done for our 2011 Christmas fundraiser

Fig Taylor's comments when she came to mine was, that the illustration style seemed very modern and that the images were to a high quality. However she did say that the portfolio was a bit too disorganized. For example she said that it was a bit pointless adding in the DVD covers, as they seemed out of place compared to the rest of the work. Overall it has been a good day, and given us the point that for our FMP everything that we put into our degree show needs to be relevant... more or less. But to definitely avoid throwing in random things for absolutely no reason.