Anorak Magazine Talk

Cathy Olmedillas, founder of Anorak Magazine came to speak to us today and although children's illustration is not a strong interest of mine, I found what she was saying really interesting and inspiring. 

About Anorak

• A magazine for boys and girls aged 6+, bringing young boy and girl culture together instead of dividing them like most other magazines and not giving an age range that is unnecessarily specific. 
• Founded in 2006
• Quarterly, themed issues - themes can be educational, philosophical or general. 
• Almost entirely illustrated. 
• Some parts are written by children but still illustrated by adult professionals.
• Range of items for sale spreads beyond the magazine into activity books, colouring books, 'The Best of Anorak' Book, Dot Magazine for under 5's (a simpler and smaller publication'. 
• They have 'Studio Anorak' which has about 12 illustrators who work on briefs to fund the business as well.
• Sponsorship from H&M at the beginning. 
• Now sold online and in independent retailers. 

I particularly liked how Anorak takes a totally different approach to other magazines aimed at children. It avoids the 'cheap' look and takes more of a sensible approach to what children should be looking at and reading about. Because of this, it stands out on a shop shelf against other publications using typical selling techniques. 

What would they be looking for in a portfolio?

• Consistency - it shows that the practitioner is reliable and you know what kind of image you will be getting. 
• Hand drawn and colourful. 
• Retro?
• Unique. 

Cathy genuinely seemed really passionate about Anorak Magazine and this shows through in what I have seen of the publication so far. I am inspired by her confidence to keep pushing her idea even though so many places turned her down in the beginning saying that it wouldn't sell. I also found it interesting to say that she isn't very business-minded which is something I can connect with. She seemed to say that the business probably would be doing a lot better if she had made decisions based on business rather than creativity but with a publication so fun and playful as this, I can see how it would be difficult to think so formally about it. I suppose it is about balance and finding what works for you. 

Opportunity to volunteer at a family event at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. 

• Volunteering for workshops. 
• Creating an event - proposals by 7th March. 

I can't say I am totally taken in by this opportunity, it sounds fun but I don't think it is that relevant to my practice because my illustrations don't really connect with an audience this young. 

This presentation has made me think more about children's illustration as a whole and whether my practice would ever fit under that umbrella. I never thought I had the right style or tone of voice for it but looking at the wide range of covers for this magazine, maybe it could. A lot of the designs were heavily shape based which I understand works for this age group but it is not something I enjoy. However, seeing the detailed work of Amandine Urruty on one cover shows that a range of different styles can work. It's no something I have written off entirely, I would just need to find the right project to keep me interested and educate myself more on how children look at pictures. 

Tutorial with John

We had a quick group tutorial with John about self promotion and getting yourself and your work noticed. These are the key points raised:

• Look at websites like theispot.com where illustrators show their work but also share their contact details. 
• Read practitioner's blogs and comment on them. 
• Ask them what made them do what they do. 
• Target my method of promotion, who are the right people to be in touch with? Who do I find interesting? Where do I want my name to be seen?
• Ask advice. 
• Ask who else would be good to get in touch with. 
• How will I be remembered and how will I make sure I am remembered?

This chat with John was actually a bit of a boost for me, I feel a bit more positive and motivated to work on all of my modules now. I think the key to PPP for me will be to gain a bit more confidence and not to be afraid of not being responded to or maybe making a fool of myself. 

Colours May Vary Launch

I was meant to be on the hanging team, but due to illness I couldn't make it in on the day this was being done. I really wanted to do my bit for the exhibition because everyone was contributing in some way so I joined the refreshments team because there was a gap that needed filling. This went okay on the night and was a manageable task but we ran out of alcohol a lot sooner than expected. I think the team did well making the most of our budget but if we were to do this again, we might have to look at a way of getting some sponsoring to help with being able to buy enough drinks to last longer. 

I thought the work looked professional and well organised, it was nice to see such a wide range of imagery all in one place and it all seemed to work together even though everyone's was so different. It was nice to see so many people looking at and talking about our work, it shows that the outside world are interested in what we are making and that our work can exist beyond the studio. 

Prepping Prints for Off The Page Exhibition

Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to the session on Wednesday when everyone prepared their prints for the exhibition because I was unwell. I then thought I would be able to do it on Thursday or Friday but I wasn't well enough to come in to the studio by these days either. Jack has really helped me out with this and brought my prints home to me so I could sort them out in my own time, sign them, edition them and wrap them ready for sale. He then took them back to college for me and framed one of my prints which was such a help because I knew that if they weren't ready for Monday morning then I wouldn't have met the deadline and my work wouldn't be able to be put in the exhibition - big up Jack!

I am happy with how my prints look now they are trimmed down and presented well. While I was unable to come in to college, I couldn't remember how my prints had turned out and I started to doubt that they were good enough to put into the exhibition at all. I know that they aren't perfect but I think this process has helped me to embrace the imperfections of the printmaking process. I think this task has helped me with that more so than the process and production brief because here, I have had no reliance on digital methods whatsoever so everything is done by hand and therefore is bound to have some little slip ups. I just hope people at the exhibition agree that it is the imperfections that gives them their unique aesthetic. In the end I selected twelve prints that I was happy with which I think is a good number for a limited edition set. I made sure I destroyed the unsuccessful prints so I can honestly say no more will ever be made. 

Final Presentation and Evaluation

Completed Presentation

Evaluation of Presentation

I managed to do the presentation even though I was poorly, I actually hadn't spoken for all of Sunday because my voice was so bad and I really wanted it to be better for Monday. I know that my presentation skills were not so good because I was struggling with this, standing up in front of a group of people is a nerve-wracking experience but knowing that your voice sounds funny and that it might fail on you at any moment makes it that little bit worse. Anyway, the overall presentation went okay in my opinion, I probably shouldn't have used cue cards because I became more reliant on them than I actually needed to be because I had practiced my lines and knew the content I needed to say. When you have something written in front of you, you tend to use it whether you need it or not.

Evaluation of Life's a Pitch

I think communication did work well in our group overall. We met up a fair few times as a group and we also had a group chat on Facebook so we could get in touch with each other outside of college. At some points I felt I was the go-between to make sure everyone was kept up to date with all of the information being shared on the Facebook chat as not all of us had Facebook. This wasn't a real problem or anything and I barely noticed it during the actual process, I just feel it would have been more sensible and efficient to use a communication method that involved everyone in the first place. In the sessions I felt like most people contributed freely and I feel everyone tried their best to be fair and encouraged all team members to have their input.

When it comes to the actual idea for our business, the deeper we got into the idea, the more doubts I had about Platform being a viable business. Looking back at our original idea of the travelling truck which hosts art fairs, I think it is clear that our group's downfall is overcomplicating things. We made this idea so complex and involving so many different things that we decided to ditch it and move on to something totally different. Then I think the same happened to Platform in the end, we tried to be too specific with things, adding loads of minor details which it made it very difficult to understand and explain and therefore led to its downfalls. When it comes to building a business proposal, simplicity is definitely best and I can now speak from experience after seeing the presentations from other groups.

If I was to do this project again, I would definitely spend more time on research because I think a lot of the statements we made in the presentation were not supported very strongly with fact. I feel like we could have also done some better research if we did things first hand, for example, actually selecting a printer and going in and talking to them rather than just relying on what they have on their website. We could have also contacted companies like Illustration Friday or Quertee to ask about the response they got when they first set up their websites, this might have given us a better idea of the numbers we should be working with. 

I think working in this group went well and it was a good project to work on alongside other people but I will always be one of those people who prefers working alone. I am fine working to a deadline but when I know people are relying on me more consistently, I become really conscious that I don't want to let anyone down by not having work completed or to the standard it needs to be. This is good in some ways because it makes me work harder but I also put a lot more pressure on myself which stresses me out which isn't healthy when working as a team. 

Reduction Lino Printing

I cut my first colour out of a 30 x 30 piece of lino, taking a bit off around the edges to ensure it fit comfortably inside the mount of the frame. I tried to cut the outer circle as best as I could with the linocutting tools but then cut away the excess lino with some scissors to leave jagged edges. I didn't want the whole piece of lino to be perfectly round because this would have made it really difficult to line up properly for the second colour. The edge of the print should still look nice and round though. 

I took a piece of A2 photocopier paper and drew out one corner of where I would line up my paper, I then placed the lino where I would want it to sit on the piece of paper and drew around it, making sure to mark on all the details of the imperfections. When it came to putting this in the press, I could use these markings to make sure the circle was in exactly the same place. There is probably a much more effective way of doing this which is much neater but this was working for me so I was happy. 

I had a bit of an issue with the inks seeing as there was no white pot of the normal inks used for lino printing. I spoke to the print room staff and they said that etching ink would work just fine and would still mix with the other type of ink. I found that the etching ink was a lot runnier and the white didn't seem to be as strong so the colour didn't end up as pale as I actually wanted it to be, even though I kept adding more and more white it didn't seem to be making enough of a difference. I did a few tests and continued to add more white until I reached a colour I thought would work okay.

After printing about eighteen of these, I stopped and cleaned everything up so I could cut out the next stage of my reduction lino. This is my outline with black ink on ready to be printed from in the press. I am using the registration sheet from before to line up my lino and the corner of the pages I am printing onto, I'm not sure its very clear on the photo but the lines are drawn on in pencil. 

The first few attempts were okay but not perfectly on the mark, I started to spend more time making sure each one was lined up correctly and I did get a few which I thought were almost perfectly lined up. It was typical that as soon as I started making prints that were lined up as they should be, I realised that I actually preferred the ones that were slightly off-registered. Overall, I was happy with most of my prints and thought I had done well seeing as this was only my second attempt at a reduction lino. 

I do feel that I may have rushed my cutting a bit because I was feeling the pressure of my workload a lot but I am glad I chose to do this process rather than print my existing design digitally, I would have just ended up feeling like I should have put more effort in if I hadn't done these lino prints.