So a while back, some of our illustration class, including myself, submitted work to the Unleashed: Best in the North Illustration competition. The competition is looking for the best student illustration in the North, and accepted work from 11 universities (ranging from Birmingham to Edinburgh), with a total of 138 submissions in all.
The competition shortlisted 24 works to be sold at auction, and also puts all pieces in a catalogue to be sold to raise money for the Northwest Air Ambulance charity, as well as the students themselves, with the money raised from selling a piece of work being split 50/50 between the student and the charity; smiles all round!
All work submitted is currently in the exhibition at Mr Thomas's Chop House in Manchester, so get over there and have a look! All pieces are for sale also!
I was really excited to find out that 2 of my pieces of work had been shortlisted and are to be sold in the upcoming auction on Thursday 19th July, and are also in the running to win bronze, silver or gold. Work by fellow Stockport students (now graduates) Kris Sale, Holly McLoughlin and Laura Gilbert was also shortlisted, and loads more from Stockport are in the exhibition and for sale in the catalogue.
My pieces:
Anyway, I think us shortlisted folk will be heading down to the auction/award night, which is really exciting, and hopefully lots of money will be raised for charity (..and ourselves)!
Check out the Facebook page here for more info on this years competition and exhibition!
So last week, a few of us recent graduates headed down to London for the D&AD New Blood exhibition in Old Spitalfields Market. The exhibition ran for 3 days (Tuesday eve - Thursday) and on our stand we had work from illustration, graphic design and moving image students graduates.
Lots of people from the creative industries came around to see the work which was really great, and there was a of of interest in our stand from various agencies and magazines. (My work was featured on the Digital Arts blog here!) I also took the opportunity to visit DDB advertising agency which was really useful and gave me a better understanding of how illustration is used in advertising specifically.
D&AD were also running festival events, going out to visit various design studios, agencies and collectives. Whilst we were there I took the opportunity to go to 3 of the festival events with fellow Foursightians Kris, Jordan and Matt.
The first place event we went on was 'Meets the Agents at the Artworks', where we went on a walk into Shoreditch to meet agents at the Artworks illustration agency. The ladies there talked us through what they did and why, how they chose and worked with illustrators, and fielded questions from the group, giving us all a good insight into how the illustrator-agent relationship works.
We also went to a talk by Jelly London, who are also an agency that represents illustrators, as well as animators and directors. They gave us a presentation on what Jelly are all about and how it all worked, and then had a bit of fun practising what to say on the phone to clients, with various members of the group.
Finally, on the last day there we went to a talk by a collective of illustrators and artists called Many Hands, who have joined up mainly to sell their own work online and collaborate. They gave a great talk at a bar in Shoreditch (was nice to get out of the sun!), and then we split off into groups and could question various members of the collective to our hearts content about anything we wanted. This was really useful and they gave lots of great advice and information. We also managed to have a quick chat with them about our project Foursight, and they helped us out with some names of places we might be able to sell future publications.
So all in all, I think the trip to London was really good and gave us lots of opportunities to go and talk to other creatives and people in the industry that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to do.
I've posted some phots of our New Blood stand below (borrowed from the Stockport Illustration blog Picture Box) Thanks!
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On Friday the 15th of June we took the degree show on a day trip into the centre of Manchester, so we could invite the local creative industry to see our work if they weren't able to make it out to Stockport. In a 180 minute makeover, the blank space of the Kraak studio in Stevenson Square (Northern Quarter) was transformed into a temporary grow-themed degree show complete with a wheelbarrow full of beer.
Despite the rain, a good few people came out from local studios and agencies to see the work and chat to us which was really great. There's a couple of photos below of the place and us with our work. Many thanks go to the Grow degree team who arranged it all (including the 2nd years who got soaked for us!), and the tutors for driving it all there!
Also check out the Grow degree site for all the students work...
Photos borrowed from the Picture Box blog here
