15/06/2017 is the day we went to the London Book Fair and
had spent most of the day exploring and looking into various companies,
publishers and distributors before attending to a panel of art directors and
talking to one of them to discuss about our physical portfolios and giving
advice, which was the intended focus of the day.
Before that we get to explore the entire event and see what
is there, although there is one problem that all, if not, most of us kind of
encountered. When we tried to talk to any of the people whose stands/stalls we
find interesting, they seem appear uninterested when we mention we are students
or have a portfolio we would like them to see. Me and a few others, seems to
get the same response, regardless of how we approach them, where the people at
their stands are more of a representative of the company or distributors and
they have no interests in looking at portfolios. It struck me that they all
seem to be more interested in corporate deals and trades with other companies
at the event. It was really hard trying to find anyone who we would give our
contact details and business cards to and most of us ended up on the same
conclusion where the majority of the people at the London Book Fair seems
uninterested in us students and our portfolios. I resorted to put most of my
business cards as well as the promotional item I had recently created (4 mini
postcard set) on our table that the university managed to get for the event.
Others did the same thing with their business cards as it is perhaps the best
way to get people taking our promotional items.
It was really busy and we had a good browse of what
companies and distributors are there, though like I said before, it was really
difficult to get anyone to look at our portfolio, its either that we approached
the wrong person or in general the people at their stands are just not
interested in looking for potential people (us) to hire. I kind of felt that it
is a little unnecessary to have come to the event early, only to be told by a
lot of the people we spoke to that they are uninterested. However the art
director panel we came for is the one we expected to get some very useful information
so we waited until that time comes.
ART DIRECTOR PANEL
During the panel with a few art directors we get some good
information on how to submit work to them as well as how each work as a team.
Each one, depending on their field of specialising (i.e. graphic novels,
children’s books, fiction, etc.) offers their own approach and perspective on
the questions given by our Tutor Kieren before we proceed to talk to the art
directors personally.
The person who I directly spoke to when we went to see the
art directors was Nick Stearn, who is an art director at Bonnier Zaffre, a
fiction publishing house based in London. I shared with him my interests in
illustration and the type of content I like to create as we go through each
images in my portfolio to support my conversation about my ideas. The ones that
strikes him the most are the children’s book illustrations and one of my
personal work, which he believes they are the strongest images. In the end he
asks what field of specialism I would want to work in (publishing, covers,
concept art) and I actually told him that I am somewhat torn in between
characters and narrative illustrations as I do like to do bit of both. He said
that at the moment, the narrative illustrations are the strongest ones than any
of the character illustrations I have done and personally felt (as an art
director for fiction books) interested in these as he can see them as book
covers, in-book illustrations, etc. He told me that if I were to concentrate on
characters, it is best to look into game companies who specialises them, while
the narrative illustrations are best for books, storyboards or animation.
Giving me tips on how to improve painting characters and how to use brush
strokes to paint in Photoshop is something I will take into account, along with
his earlier feedback on my narrative illustrations and where to look into to
show my content. It was a friendly conversation and I didn’t feel nervous as I
knew exactly what to say and what to expect from this small 1-to-1 talk with an
art director and to end our conversation we both traded our business cards (me
giving my handmade promotional item as well).
The above illustrations are the ones that the art director, Nick
Stearn, liked out of my portfolio.
At the end of the day of the London Book Fair there has been
valuable information given to me in regards to what content I should continue
to create from the talk with the art director. While there hasn’t been much success
in the first half of the day to try and get people to see our portfolio who
appeared to be uninterested, the art director panel near the end of the event
makes up for it. Though I really wished that the people there would be opened
up about looking into portfolios, though I guess it is not their jobs in
dealing with portfolio work and are just there to represent their
company/distributor/publishers, or only to deal with people who are interested
in dealing with corporate trades or contract deals.
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