Creative CV

Thoughts:

• Must catch the eye and begin to 'sell' a potential employee
• Contain specific information such as experience and understanding of personal goals and achievements.
• Communicate quickly, that include something interesting about the applicant
• Must stand out
• It is important to communicate both visually and with the written work in a professional presentation.

Initial content for my CV:

Profile:
I am a productive, self-motivated, enthusiastic and creative individual. I am both organised and work well to deadlines. Although generally quite independent, I also work well alongside other people and is reliable, responsible and have good communication skills. I have a friendly and open personality, enjoy challenge and acquisition of new skills. I am interested in children’s illustration and working for visual development/concept art for animated feature films and television.

Education:

BA Hons Illustration

Leeds College of Art 2013 - present

A-Level: Textiles (A*), Art (A), Business Studies (Pass)

12 GCSEs, 3 A*s, 2 As, 5 Bs, 1 C, 1 Merit

Patchway Community College 2007 - 2013

Previous Employment and Work Experience: (ask john if just creative work experiences or general as well)

May 2010 – Admin at Atkins Aerospace Department. Working with different people and performing different admin tasks such as booking courses, finance tasks, quality check, preparing a staff conference meeting, travel and marketing.

May - June 2012 – Event Organiser at Patchway Community College. Organising and running (in collaboration with other people) a Music and Arts Fusion Festival which aimed to bring the community together. I was involved in a number of different tasks, from visiting and working with primary schools to producing posters and programmes to manufacturing large windsocks which was brought down and was a part of the 2012 Olympics water sport opening ceremony in Weymouth. 

Creative Skills:

• Good computer skills
• Familiarity with Adobe programs (especially confident in Photoshop)
• Quick to learn
• Attentive eye for detail
• Good eye for layout and composition
• Good drawing skill

Attributes:

• Good time management
• Effective problem solver
• Approachable personality
• Responsible
• Team player

Interests: 
When not disappearing under piles of paper or sitting in front of the computer, usually found reading, travelling, visiting, photographing, walking, watching, drawing, spending, sewing, talking and sleeping.

References: Available on request

Online Presence

As part of our creative presence brief/promo pack we were encouraged to set up our own blogs separate from our uni blogs. I have already a Tumblr that I use all the time - but its content is a collection of both other peoples work that inspires and excites me as well as my own work. There is a link at the top of my page which will enable people to see and browse through only my work, however, I am not sure whether to actually create a blog where it is purely my work on show. I will ask John what he thinks about this in our next PPP session.

Like the Tumblr I have now, my Instagram is also a mixture of both my work and more personal stuff although I think my Tumblr is still sort of more professional in content than my Instagram; I mostly use it to post work in progress/behind the scenes of my work but I also like to post other bits and bobs happening in my life.

Very bare right now, but I've also created a LinkedIn!

Off the Page!

I was part of the hanging team, but unfortunately I wasn't able to participate in the hanging when the time came as I had family matters to attend to, which I felt really guilty about but I have said that I am willing to help take down the work at the end of the exhibition on the 13th of March if my help is needed.

The night of the launch of the exhibition was pretty hectic! The turnout was really great!

Thoughts:

• Great turnout
• Bar created a nice atmosphere - busy and sociable
• Quality of work was great
• Work was hung and displayed well - very straight
• Our end of year show has got to top this!
• Pricing wasn't totally clear
• Work to buy (separate editions) aren't available for customers to look through

Creative Presence - Task 1

1. What should your identity convey about you?

My identity should show my tone of voice and what I am capable of producing. This should then hopefully show the kind of work that I like to create and what I might be more suited for. 

2. Is it actually important to have an identity as an illustrator?

I think it is very important that you stand out from others that may have similar tones of voice and produce similar work to you. I think giving yourself an identity can help you to do this; to separate yourself from the rest. As well as this I think it would also help other people understand your voice as a practitioner.

3. What could be included in your pack and why?

Main products: (important ones as they contain details about me and show the type of work I'm interested in and what I am capable of doing)

• Business cards
• Creative CV
• Work samples - maybe small postcard size art prints

Additional products:

• Stickers
• Bookmarks
• Notebook

All presented in some sort of packaging/box

4. What are you wanting to achieve by producing promotional items?

To help me, as well as other people, see myself in a more professional manner.

Business Cards

I consider myself a happy, friendly person and the work I usually create usually reflect this bit about me. I want my promotional materials to also be reflective of my personality and the type of work that I like to do. As we have an exhibition coming up for our print module, I decided to make some business cards to put with my work so I can start promoting myself. I didn't really spend a lot of time on this as I had some other things that were higher on my list of priority - I decided to use the work I did during the summer as I thought they were quite playful and the mood of the work basically sums up what I like.

Because the front of the business card is already so full on, for the back of the business card, I decided to go with the simplistic approach. I want it to be quite professional looking to reflect my professional and organised side.

For our exhibition, the work that I will be exhibiting is my Coraline series so I decided to make some business cards with one of my Coraline artwork so people are able to identify me through the imagery. 

I had some help laying out my design in InDesign from Mike and now I know how to lay out my own business card so that I can print some out myself. Below are the printed business cards:

Also put it in with my packaged work to sell:

Creative Presence

Today we had our first PPP session with John. I am really quite excited for this brief and I am pumped to create all these print based promotional packs that we talked about and get myself out there into the real world! Notes from this session:

Deliverables:

Print based promotional pack:

• Business cards
• Creative CV
• Letter heading
• Online Presence - Blog/Tumblr
• Any other materials appropriate to my practice
• On-going evaluation

Promo Packs: Start researching and thinking! 

• Be as creative as I can
• Think about how I want to present myself/be seen by other people.
• Should be reflective of my personality and the type of work that I like to do and my interests.

Creative CV: Think about formats! Be creative and stand out!

• Who I am
• Where I am
• What skills do I offer
• What USP do I offer
• Can they use me/is there a demanded for the type of work that I do/the style etc.
• Showcase some examples of my work
• The way I work
• The skills I have
• What excites me outside of working life.

Don't hesitate to get in touch with friends/family members who have connection to the creative world and people!