Contact time #1

As a Visiting Lecturer I am often asked question by students about Freelance Illustration either in passing or in the form of questionnaire emails and essay questions. The topics range from general practice, details on client relations and occasionally more abstract themes surrounding the nature of creativity and commercial activity. Somehow these questions are missed during the allocated contact time one has with students, but which are important in the formation of independent practice.

It woud be a shame for these questions to remain locked away in emails so I have decided to post them here.
If you have questions you would like to ask, please send them to

info@davidcallow.co.uk

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Q - Do you think illustration as a practice is one that means you need to be both objective and subjective?
What I mean by that is, objective in the sense, you are a professional who has to make money from it, but subjective to the extent that your work still has emotion and you yourself still enjoy producing work.

Elliot Coffin

Illustration Student at the University College of Arts and Bournemouth

A - First i will begin by clarifying one aspect of your question which is fundamental to all my answer. The nature of your conceptual apparatus is subjective, however you have a choice to align the activity of your conceptual apparatus, your mind, to the facts of reality, this alignement is termed objectivity. Now onto your question.

There need not be a divide between commercial success and an honest integrated, self-fulfilling practice. The reason why I state this is because the essential factor concerned in your question is creativity. The professional John D Rockefellers of the world who discover grand innovations in the production and commercialisation of energy and the Michelangelo Di Vinci's of the world who discover the very nature of human physicality expressed within pictorial form - are both creative, degrees of talent and areas of technical specialisation aside, they both commit the same fundamental act, that is they think. In other words they formulate new concepts based upon their observations of the facts of reality.

The formulation of a concept is the product of an orchestration of observed abstract facts into more complex integrated units, abstract facts are impressions composed of percept information, percept information is perceptual information absorbed or recognised through sensory faculties (predominantly sight as far as illustration is concerned). Creativity is the act of integrating information from its most basic sensory form into vast arrays of complex inter-related conceptual units.

Illustration as a practice is one that requires the application of your mind to the context of reality just as other industrious activities do. It requires focus at every level of your activity, from the functionality of your portfolio, to how your portfolio looks, to what is possible to produce within a given time scale, to the accuracy/relevancy of your representation of a given concept within a commission, to how best to maximise the profitability of your personal investment (be it time or materials etc). This is where we come to the crux of your question, so far as you are the thinker, the individual who exercises this faculty of concept formation for every aspect of your enterprise, there need not be a compartmentalisation within your creative practice between what is profitable and what is rewarding on a deeply personal level. Fulfilment itself pertains to ethics which means the essential question here is what is the good for man? if the good is to live, and if man is by his very nature a conceptual animal, then this activity of concept creation - if consistent with the demands of reality and therefore successful - is the means in which man achieves, maintains and excels in the act of living. So far as you are the individual who exercises this faculty of concept formation in order to sustain your own practice, and do not place that responsibility onto anybody else, your practice will be fulfilling in a broader sense.

To conclude, yes this profession is one composed of both commercial considerations and personal fulfilment, but these two veins are fundamentally the same. The challenge presented to most illustrators is to develop a working methodology that supports the range of activities necessary to make what you enjoy producing, possible.

Creative Review OPEN

I thought I'd tickle your attention with the documentary piece

Creative Review

did for

OPEN studios

. Its gives you a real sense of the value we generated by converting the space. ♥



Thank you

Creative Review

My first article - Illustration: a definition - Part 1

This article is part of a study that I have been working on privately. The need for a clean cut definition rose from a combination of my own exploration within the field and my experiences with students.

As I started to map out the initial framework for a definition, I began to recognise a need for a consciously realised understanding in the students I was working with at the time. After in-depth tutorials throughout the term it also became clear that decisions enacted fundamentally stemmed from a students conception of what their active role was, and what it was, by initiating that active role, they were producing.

This is a study I will continue to explore as I think that it has great value, not just for those in education, but for bringing greater clarity to this rapidly expanding industry. As more professionals enter the field each successive year, an increasing demand for innovation is placed upon individuals to succeed, Understanding the nature of what you do is imperative to producing value, for formulating yet unforeseen avenues for application.

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llustration: a definition - Part 1

Synopsis
What is illustration?
If you have been introduced to the discipline through the production of, commissioning of or have a friend or relative in the professional field, this question has no doubt crossed your mind. My personal experience has been that instead of answering this question directly, the responses encountered have largely consisted of a speculative… What is illustration? That is a question we must continue to ask… I propose in the following series of articles that a definition can and must be made in order for its requirements, its nature and the scope of its utility to be understood universally by practitioners, students and potential clients alike.


Proposition
As the synopsis suggests, I intend to introduce a definition of what constitutes an illustration, and by extension give an indication of what activity committed defines an illustrator. This article is part one in a series, it contains propositions that for the purposes of presenting this piece as an article (instead of a thesis) have been condensed into bite size statements. Upon completing this initial introductory series, I will continue to apply my definition to areas of inquiry concerning illustration, demonstrating the full extent of its validity through application to real world, practical contexts.


Acknowledgements
Before we begin I must first make an acknowledgement to the philosopher Ayn Rand and her writings on Objectivist epistemology from which the following proposition is greatly informed. I would also like to mention my appreciation of the philosophical writings of Dr Leonard Peikoff and Dr Harry Binswanger for their continued work on integration and concept formation. Inherent in the intellectual material applied in the writing of this article is the philosophic view of man as a conceptual animal with reason as his tool for prosperity.


Lets begin!
So why do we need a definition for illustration in the first place? This may seem like an odd question to ask, but its one we must answer to emphasise the relevance of this intellectual pursuit. To put it simply, a definition is useful. It gives us the conceptual basis from which to act. If you ever have the pleasure of producing an illustration you will at some point be faced with the question; how do I illustrate? not simply how do I illustrate this particular article or how do I render this particular reference, but on a more fundamental level how do I go about the activity of illustration? what makes the image i am currently working on an illustration? Perhaps you have been faced with the task of commissioning an Illustrator, in which case I assume that you have likely been faced with a similar challenge What do I ask the Illustrator to do? How much guidance do I give? Do I need to provide them with any information? What should I expect from an Illustrator?

Having a comprehensive definition provides you with the full spectrum of intellectual equipment required to answer these questions and proceed with the task at hand. Just as a F1 driver requires the knowledge of what F1 racing is in order to complete a circuit successfully and unscathed, so we need a definition of what illustration is in order to understand the activities required to produce an illustration. If we were to reach for an answer from a regular household dictionary we’d strike nothing but examples of the word itself in application, although vaguely informative, these definitions are dependant upon an assumed understanding of what illustration actually is on a fundamental level. To elaborate, an example of this would be; Illustration, noun ‘a picture illustrating a book, newspaper etc’. Although there is an indication of what an illustration does and how it is used, it is not a comprehensive explanation. For anyone trying to gather an accurate, practical understanding of illustration, this definition leaves a foggy void in one’s knowledge.


Observation and Formulation
To form an understanding of what illustration is, it is first of all important to gather an accurate observation of the evidence before us, then to look for commonalities present in our observations that most accurately identify the profession in totality. In the process of forming a proposition we must seek statements of pure uncompromising consistency. Logic is after all the art of non-contradiction and if our definition is to remain applicable to practice it must remain water tight.

Take a moment to look at how you come across Illustration in your everyday life, the products you buy, the clothes you wear, the websites you visit, the newspapers and books you read. Continue this thought by considering the popularity of commissioning Illustration for magazine and newspaper articles. Think of how, despite a recession, the popularity of Illustration with clients involved in advertising, fashion, interactive media etc. has not faltered. These musings demonstrate that Illustration contains an intrinsic value that the market is responding to, sure functionality is an obvious attribute, but how is an illustration functional? Yes Illustration is decorative, but what does it decorate? what links can be made between these attributes and the scope of its current application.

One very clear observation can be made and that is how illustration is employed to convey ideas, products, topics, themes, dimensional observations and fully formed concepts. The functional quality of illustration is intrinsically linked to the versatility demonstrated by the industry on the whole in doing so. This versatility gives us an indication on what level an illustration operates. From this I conclude that an important unifying attribute of Illustration is in its relationship to concept formation. Whether or not it is initiated through client commission, marketplace application or personal exploration, we can see first and foremost that Illustration has the capacity to convey a seemingly limitless variety of concepts.


Shine a light
A definition can’t be made on this observation alone but we can continue in the following article to explore how this unifying attribute of versatility is possible, and by extension illuminate the true nature of Illustration.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned for part 2!

OPEN online

Open is now live thanks to the collaborative efforts of

Holly Wales

and

Telegramme

.The site features the latest news of our creative enterprises and will continue to expand in correlation to the growth of studio educational activities.

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OPEN Creative Review

Thats right folks, OPEN Studios has been featured in the latest issue of Creative Review. A glorious six page feature including samples of work from each member, wonderful photography courtesy of

Owen Richards

, quotes from members of the studio and a summation of our studio philosophy.

If you are interested in our activities at OPEN then this is a worth while read.
Above photo courtesy of

Ciara Phelan

.

OPEN studio life

OPEN is a new studio space for nine illustrators, a screen printer and a publisher based in De Beauvoir Town, London.
Our philosophy is to provide support, criticism, dialogue, opportunity and fresh ambition to both our creative work and independent businesses.

The two main objectives of Open are education and entrepreneurship.
Photography curtesy of

Owen Richards

Riso

Thank you Hugh Frost of

LandFill Editions

for these epic Risograph print samples.

Seeing as Hugh and I share a studio space, we recently began discussing the possibility of printing fine pencil drawings on a Risograph Printer. An obvious consequence of working in pencil means a great deal of my portfolio is monochromatic, Hugh enthusiastically demonstrates here the dramatic range of colour available to me through the Risograph process which could offer a refreshing take on fine pencil work.

What I like most about these samples is the quality of production, the colours are vibrant and the detail is sharp, picking up even the lightest tonal range. I think if contained within a limited edition published collection, this process could make for a truly unique product.

Studio Process

All tables and trestles are installed, walls and ceilings painting finally complete, furniture and plant life on its way. The only task left for us now is a thorough clean. With a desk space three times the size of what I am used to and more natural light that you could shake a stick at, the prospect of producing extravagant renderings has never been so enticing.

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As promised here are some more up to date photos of the space. Hugh of

Landfill Editions

depicted above alongside Loren Filis of

Loligo

has been able to relocate his Riso equipment and paper stock to the space and we have finally begun cleaning and painting surfaces. We are currently waiting for the electricians to install the light fixtures into ceilings and the extra plug sockets around the space as requested.

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After months of tongue holding and finger crossing I can finally announce that I shall be setting up shop in a new studio located on De Beauvoir Road in Dalston. I will be sharing this beautiful space with some of the best looking minds I have ever had the pleasure of meeting; Hugh from

Landfill Editions

, Bobby of

Telegramme

,Loren of

Loligo

, Anna and Grace of

Patternity

and

Holly Wales

who originally invited me to join this adventure.

Photography courtesy of

Holly Wales