Corvus

Recently, I have been involved in a typography competition for the TypoDay 2019 . TypoDay is organised by the IDC School of Design, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT) Bombay, Mumbai, India. It is a weekly celebration of typography and it's beauty. The theme for the 2019 events is Experimental Typography. A part of this typography celebration, along with workshops and conferences, is a Poster Design Competition. Specifications for the poster: Size of the final poster:420mm x 600mm only in portrait format Resolution: 300 dpi File type: JPEG or PDF Color Mode: CMYK The Poster Design theme - The Dance of Typography. I have chosen to use my sketches of young Russian ballerinas. Using their bodies and ballet figures I extracted letters from within their movements. I think, that my poster may not be up to regulations, I wasn't sure if using an image along the type will be acceptable, however, I didn't receive an ...

Starting your Illustration Business- Registering as Self-Employed Becoming a 'Freelance illustrator' means starting your own business. This means that you have to register and fill an annual self-employment tax return form available at the government's website. First thing first - let the government know you have a business. Then each year pay the income tax. If you don't pay the tax it can be considered as tax evasion. This could lead to a jail sentence. Good news is that you can be employed (part-time job) and self-employed at the same time. The employer wage pays your tax and NI (national insurance-state pension) contributions automatically. When you become self-employed you have to do it yourself. You should register within 3 months of your first commission. The forms are available at the HMRC website - clearly and fully fill in the information and details. Income tax - is payable after you start earning 11,000 pounds in earnings. NIC - National in...

During our trip to Kraków, Poland, we have met an Armenian illustrator who currently lives and works in Kraków, Karina Manucharyan. You can find her website right here .   Although born and raised in Armenia, she finished her university in Moscow, Russia. She applied to be a designer, but she became enhanced by the illustrative part of the creative field. Though she admitted that it was hard to find a job in her field when she came back to Armenia, she was able to start a job at the Armenian Cosmopolitan, where she stayed for 3 years, during which she also created books, however, it turned stagnant, which prompted her to try new thing and experiment with her work and style.  That's how she found herself enchanted with botanical illustration.  Most of Karina Manucharyan's work comes from self-initiated projects and experimenting with various plants. She said that it's good when you have something to fall back on, like a day job, as it...

Due to the competitive field of creative industry, every artist, designer, illustrator must be able to sustain themselves in these times, meaning that for some, they have to be able to improve on their knowledge, skills and contacts. Here is my action plan for the next 6 months. It includes what I want to improve on and focus my efforts on.

  Sandra de la Prada is a Barcelona based illustrator, who studied Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona, completed her training with several courses related to design and illustration at Escola Massana, Escola de la Dona (both in Barcelona) and Fabbrica delle Favole (Macerata, Italy). She humorously adds in her bio that she works along with her two dogs, Chicho and Rudo, who help her in everything they can and they are the reason for all kinds of animals in her illustrations: cats, dogs, monkeys, elephants, birds. To see her works visit her website - http://www.sandradelaprada.com/ She has created illustrations for children's and youth publishing principally, although she had also designed various posters. Among her clients are the publishing houses Estrella Polar, Timun Mas, Cruïlla, SM, Barcanova, Planeta, Edicions Salòria, OQO Editora, Pintar-Pintar Editorial, El Terrat de Produccions; The studios Escletxa, Bräva Büro and Tucan, the magazine Barçakids, t...

The past few weeks have been rather hectic, with cleaning, room changes and small projects on the side. In the previous post I have mentioned that I am working on a book. It is a book for children, ideally for 8-10 year olds. The book tells a story about Mr. Telescope who is searching throughout the city of Warsaw for his lost cat, Filka. Right now, the story is finished and went through most of the corrections, therefore I have decided that I am going to start the work on planning the pages and creating a simple dummy book for it. Here are some sneak peaks into it:     Start of the planning Close up into few pages All done The front cover That's it for the update. What do you think?

This post is about the three pieces of advice that stuck with me. 1. From Ben Jones: (BJ) '' I would say two bits of advice. One From Gary  (Gary Spicer - context tutor) that is to always retain your integrity when making works. The other would be from The illustrator Paul Davis he told me to just draw, draw, draw. I think as long as you are true to yourself, work hard and enjoy what you are doing then it shows in your works.''        It is easy to get lost in the work and loose the interest and enjoyment in the process, which is rather sad as we are able to make a living off what we love. We love to create, to draw, to make and yet we sometimes detach our being from the feeling and enjoyment of the work. 2. From a book by Paul Arden (It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be): ''We are always waiting for the perfect brief from the perfect client. It almost never happens [...] Whatever is on your...

Discussion Forum - Gender in Illustration  (Illustration by Miguel Montaner ) Today's discussion forum was led by Emma and Beth. They started of by talking about how illustrators make autonomous decisions about their work based on their own experiences, thus the stereotypes are kept in a circle of art industry.  The next topic that E and B discussed was an illustration by Stephanie Wunderlich for a German magazine. The project was to create an illustration to an article about the chore of cooking around the time of Christmas. (Illustration by Stephanie Wunderlich ) The first illustration that Wunderlich has send to the magazine was of a woman cooking while the rest of the family was decorating the Christmas tree, however the editor of the magazine has stated that it represents a stereotypical image of the task and would prefer if it was a man who cooked (image on the right).   It seemed as a good illustration, therefore it was ac...

Recently I have contacted an illustrator Ben Jones, in order to find out more about art practitioners and their profession.  Jones was born outside Manchester, England. He has studied at Stockport College and is being represented by the Heart Agency since 2014.  Ben utilises printmaking and collage to create his imagery, which are then manipulated digitally. He starts usually starts with a screen or lino printing, he then collages on top of these with textures and found imagery.   His works seem to always reflect on the history and politics of the world, seemingly comparing the history to the present realities.  Ben Jones has a regular commission to illustrate the covers of The Lancet medical journal, as well as he regularly works for the New York Times. His other clients include The New Yorker, The Guardian, The World Today, The Economist and the New Statesman.  Jones has also produced many book covers, working for the French publis...