5 months is a long, long break

after basically half a year off I was pretty relieved to be back at uni, being independent of schedules and deadlines was brilliant for a couple of weeks but when the sun's out and the beach is a 10 minute bike ride away it's difficult to force yourself to stay indoors and work. Without a structure, keeping motivated to produce work is a struggle.

At the beginning of Summer, Me, Rich and Matt (link to blogs) had started up a project which was to simply complete a single drawing everyday and upload it to a group blog (scrawlbrawl). Collectively we found it difficult to upload something everyday and after a few days when nothing was posted, the project sort of fizzled out.

I felt disappointed with myself for not keeping the project going but I continued to try and draw whenever I had spare time and have a fair amount in my sketchbook to show for it. I also embarked on some actual projects.

One of these was a live brief which got sent out on the AIB email for gobbledegook theatre company for some flyer and poster designs for a production about a beach hut called 'the hut' which they liked and actually emailed me telling me they had narrowed it down to a choice between my design and one other person's. In the end they opted for the other designer's but assured me they would consider me for future projects so it was a constructive experience.

Another was a T-shirt design for sorted surf shop which was well received but is probably going to be used next year as they had plenty of unsold t-shirts at the moment.

I also have an ongoing project for my girlfriend's sister to create an illustrative piece based on Lymington for display in her house. For this I am working on some simple line drawings that I will screenprint onto fabric bunting.

Being able to draw purely for pleasure over the summer has helped me to realise a few things about how and what I like to draw which is the starting point for an illustrative style which I felt I've lacked so far. My aim for this year is to start working within and developing this as it's abundantly clear that Graphic designers, Illustrators, Photographers (or whatever other branch of vis com) are successful because they have a certain tone of voice, style or niche which art directors or clients feel is suitable for their product/publication/exhibition or whatever other application. To avoid a formulaic, predictable way of working is a good idea as a portfolio which looks too uniform, with each image a slight variant of the last, will not capture the attention of potential employers as well as a body of work which is clearly identifiable as my own but contains distinct pieces, memorable in their own right.