Evaluation

  Throughout this project I have learnt a lot and found that I need to make a few more changes before the London book fair. As I didn't have a lot of funds for this project I decided to print and create a lot in house, but funds wasn't the only thing that made me chose in house printing when it came to my business cards and postcards.
  I think I made the right choice to in house laser cut my business cards as this represents my work the best and makes my card stand out from others. But this has come with the cost of having to rely on others as I could not work the machinery on my own, I still want my cards laser cut but next time will work in more time for problems to happen with the people I would be working with. I will get my cheaper cards printed at either Moo or Vistaprint as they are cheaper and will be cost affective.
   I am very happy with the way my postcards would work as they show different ways to reproduce my work and would be nice items t keep. I feel though I need to get a stamp made with my name and site on to print on the back of them rather than using cut printed card. This would be chaeper and easier and I will be getting one of these very soon.
   For my website I used the social site Tumblr as this it is easy to use and it was the cheapest option at this time. I have found you can create a good website using Tumblr with a hit of HTML knowledge, but as I don't know any I have tried to use an existing layout and use it to the best of my skills. I feel after looking over my site I would like to change it and make it feel less like a blog and maybe grid my work rather than single post it. I would have done this before but couldn't as I couldn't get the video to stay at the top. I will be creating a newer site but as this will not be up and running until June 2014, I will make changes to my Tumblr after doing some HTML research on how to. Overall I am happy with what I have created to be my website but feel it has much improvement to undergo before I can leave it and concentrate on the new one.
  As for my portfolio I feel I have created a strong in site into my work and have printed the images to the highest quality I could in house. There are a few image I plan on taking out as I feel I need to only have my best work in there even if it makes my portfolio slightly smaller.
  Over all I think I have learnt a lot and been made to think about things I wouldn't have been considered such as agency's and other avenues for my work like reproducing it on other items like mugs. I have also come up with a few new ideas on how to help promote myself such as promotions and competitions.I also have a more solider plan on who and how I am going to approach people.

Agency's

Agency's relationship with me:
- Promote and try to find you suited work as well as negotiate on your behalf on the price and then they will draw up the contract and once the job is complete collect the fees.
-They will sort out your taxes
- They will keep communication with the client
-Collect the money from the client from witch they take there fee (25% upwards)
-They also charge an annual fee for them finding you work
-They will want your best work to advertise and will only want children's book work through them they may be okay with you not putting other work through them like greetings cards ect.

Copyright:
-Copyright remains with the artist
-Unless otherwise stated the artist have write to grant the rights to third parties.
-Client has the right to make objections to the artist using the artwork in ways that are detrimental to there company within reason.
-Client can reproduce artwork as long as its within the original contract. Further fees with be charged for more licenses.
-License not granted if the full fee is not paid.
-Licenses can not be assigned without the artist and agency's consent in writing.

After looking through agency's I decided I only would consider one for my children's book work as some publishing companies wont touch you without an agent. But I need to be careful as I attend conventions to sell my own work in comic form and some publishers may not like this and could be put off. One company I may approach is Plum Pudding as they are always after new artists and are solely work within the children's book industry. Another agency I may consider is Advocate Art as they will let you choose what work you will find through them so enquiring if I could still do conventions they may be more lenient.
http://image.advocate-art.com/artistfolio/
http://www.plumpuddingillustration.com/

When considering what to do about agency or not I found this advice section from an established illustrator and found it quite helpful to read. http://www.claremackie.co.uk/biography/advice/

Understanding Finances

  I am aware I would need funds after I finish university to buy supplies and to fund attending conventions and fairs, so since the end of second year I have been saving money to self fund my part time illustration jobs. Although before I get a normal job I will attend interviews with publishers and greeting card companies. I do have a interview with Hampton Bond International who recently have began to publish children's books, and I need to make sure I am fully prepared so may have to put off getting a part time job this means I need to fund myself until them. After I have attended interviews I may need to get a part time job until I am stable enough a few years down the line to become a full time illustrator.
  For my promotional items are mainly made them in house as this saved costs and adds the hand made affect like my actual illustrations though this came with its downfalls as it meant I spent a lot more time creating them than if I had just sent them to a printer. I also had to rely a lot on other people as I couldn't use the machinery needed on my own without a professional. This caused many issues of having to work my time around them meaning I haven't been able to get things as finished as I wanted due to the technician having to have time off work, this pushed me back even though I had been working with them for over a month planning this. The only item I sent off for was the banner as I couldn't print such a large image to a high quality, though luckily due to a contact I made at a convention managed to get a good deal.

Presentation notes.

These are the notes I will take into my presentation so not to forget anything.

Hello my name is Alex Lloyd.

- Paper craft illustrator, mainly narrative based

- Enjoy illustrating children’s tales from around the world as I feel children need to be introduced to other cultures earlier in life

- create colourful delicate hand cut illustrations that I apply to children’s illustration, comics and merchandise such as tote bags and mugs.

-  Predominantly my work is aimed at children; recently I have branched out into comics for teens and making images for home products.

- I plan to create children’s books while self publishing comics to sell at conventions, sell items and prints on society 6

- Range of children’s publishers at London book fair, main being Tango books Limited, and greetings card companies

-Simple site with an easy navigate layout, video to show off skills and that its hand cut make more personal

- Temporary site having a more professional one built, show image

- Until then site shows artist CV so employers can see prior experience, but I also added blog, Facebook, events and my shop. Events show conventions and galleries I will be attending that year. Also added social media as not only potential client will see this and normal people will find it easier to follow them. Keeping everything linked. Will add pages for comic once I have more solid work on it.

-Portfolio is aimed at children pub, contains mainly children’s book work but towards the end I do have some comic related work, had range of narrative and non narrative work showing my paper craft skills and styles.

- Promote self in a variety of ways and have different strategies for each aspect of my work.

       -children’s book- make contact to make interviews to show portfolio, great chance to meet a selection  when I attend the London book fair, have contacted Tango for an interview. After that will continue to look for companies and email them for interview.

      -Comic- attend conventions around UK and maybe after a year branch out to France as they have a large comic market with variety, here will sell self published work and prints. Founding member of collective called POP collective, self publish zines on variety of topics. Audience if teens, but still currently working on business model.

- 3 items business card, postcards, banner

        -business card- I created laser cut business cards as these are a staple and handy as they are small and can fit in wallets, I wanted my cards to stand out and represent work so laser cut then but these card are only for formal occasions and publishers I will get cheaper printed cards for conventions as these have less chance of being kept.

        -Postcards- I created 2 different showing different ways of reproducing my work, I chose this to show work can either be laser cut or printed both work. I will leave these with publishers as a sample of work they can keep and take away to think about, also will sell these at conventions making them dual purpose. Also has details on as so if they lose my card they have my website on here.

        -Banner- sole purpose conventions, this shows who I am, and can be seen over crowd of people. Attract people to the table, I created an image especially for this purpose and thought it is from a fairy tale so it shadows my other work, striking image to grab attention. 

Collectives and zines

Recently I was part of a zine called 'I love my anime boyfriend' and this has developed into a string of ideas of zines we could produce in the future, but we felt if we were going to start making a lot of these zines we would need a name to sell them under. This idea came more developed when two other students wanted there collective business 2 cute 4 U to join Tea house art at conventions where we could sell our zines and meet new artist to work with on our future zine projects. We then went about putting together a meeting at our local tea house where we discussed what we wanted to make under this name and potential collective names. The first name that we took to was Cute cut collective this fused our 2 current names together but we felt that it was to girly and we don't want to put males off our products so we tired to think of a name that was diverse but stood out and was memorable. I like the name Rainy day collective as it is gender neutral but still sounds cute and sounds professional. But before we jump into using a name we need to make sure that this name isn't already in use and we wont get confused with something else.
Once we have a safe defined name we talked about how we would promote our new collective and who it was mainly being aimed at.

  Naming
Coming up with a name was a lot trickier than we thought as this name would be a permanent name. These are a list of name that we considered.

-sugar plum collective

-galaxy pop collective

-shooting star collective

-crystal comet collective
But after doing some extent market research we found that these names were either to feminine or to much of a mouthful. So we went back to the drawing board and in the end decided on a shorter sweeter name of POP collective. I feel this name is suits us and will be memorable, I looked into weather this name was in use but couldn't find anything by this name making it a safe name to work under. We are still constructing a full business plan but have worked out our audience will be teenagers and we will promote and sell publish our work to sell at conventions. Once a full plan is made we sill split the work evenly, we plan on having a large web presence using YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Further if we become popular we plan to sell our zines on an Etsy on-line shop where we will create a stamp with our logo on to stamp any letters or packages we send out. 
  Future zine list
-slimy boy 

-cheltonia

-pearls of the sea

-anime girlfriend zine

-Legends
-Monster girl 

  Current Zine Anime Boyfriend

Our current zine that we just finished is called I love you anime boyfriend, each person was to draw fan art of a character they once liked when younger, many younger girls would understand this and relate and find this zine funny. This is my image I submitted, the image is black and white as these were the specifications of the zine.

 We are currently re making the cover of the zine as we plan to print it in cover in colour and the rest in black and white. Here are current photos of a mock zine.

 Printing prices

This is the cost if we got our prining from Inky Little Finger, they were the cheapest printers we could find. Split between the 4 of us the cost would be £14.67 each and we would sell each zine from £2-£3. Once we have a logo and have re designed the cover we will send this zine to the printers. 

Fairs

  Along with attending conventions for comics I would like to attend fairs witch are more formal and professional as publishers and agents will attend these. The two main fair I want to attend this year is the London book fair and the London illustration fair. These would be great places to make contacts with other illustrators and publishers.

  I will be attending the London book fair only for the Thursday so have emailed Tango books, a publishing company I am very interest in as they publish laser cut novelty books and greetings cards. Here is the email I sent them but I have yet to hear a reply as they are probably very busy preparing about the book fair.

 The London book fair will be really important to scouting out publisher and making contacts and getting advice on my work.

Conventions

  Conventions will be a big part of promoting myself and selling my work once I finish university. I have already started exhibiting at some comic conventions in the UK to help promote my work, and am finding this very successful way of promoting and making contacts.

   I have already attended, Bristol comic expo, Cardiff film and comic expo and Birmingham MCM and from these experiences learnt a lot form other vendors and artist on how to sell myself in the environment successfully. Like when behind the table you should always stand up and interact with the passers-by to bring people over to your stand, everyone likes a friendly face, this will also give you a good reputation if your friendly and nice to everyone. Also making sure the tables are covered with a cloth so you are presenting the table in the best way, we are starting to use a red cloth as white shows stains and black shows fluff. Another thing was no one likes an empty table so if after an hour no ones turned up next to you and the table is empty move over and use the table because you will be overlooked if there are empty gaps, presentation is important. Also I wont be handing out my laser cut business cards out at conventions as only about 50 percent of the cards are kept most end up in the bin, so I would rather keep these for publishers and illustration fair. So instead I will use the same image but get the cards printed at moo's so they are of high quality but it wont matter so much if they end up lost by the receiver. This is also because it will be more costly to get the cards laser cut after I leave university so I wont want to waste them. This is also how we learnt about the importance of having banners to attract and inform the passers-by. 

  At the moment I attended conventions with another illustration student and we split costs making it more cost effective to go but have found sharing a 6ft table isn't enough space as our work grows so we plan to start getting our own tables but under the business name' Tea house arts' this is so the tables will be together and so if we do collaborative works we still be together, also it means we can help watch over each others tables if we need a break. We use the name Tea house art because we want the name to be gender neutral but still feminine as we are both female.

  As we become more adept to selling our work at conventions I would like to expand and attend more and more to help people recognise us and make friends who will also help spread word of mouth about us attending these conventions. At the moment I am thinking of at least attending at least 5 conventions a year that spread across the UK, but I would like to go further afield as France has massive comic conventions and over there the idea what a comic can be is freer so I would like to next year attend Paris's July anime and comic convention. This would be an amazing experience to make contacts and see what conventions are like in other countries and get a feel of what's hot in there comic industry at the time. I feel attending conventions will be the main way I promote and sell my comics and young adult material so travelling and selling in other countries will really help promote me and find a gathering who are interested in buying and following my new comics. I am aware that this wont be cheap as attending conventions in the UK aren't cheap, so France will cost even more but this is why I will have a part time job to fund these events and I have also been saving money since the end of my second year to fund me when I finish university.

  List of UK conventions 

I will highlight the conventions I plan to attend this year and once booked will make a timetable of the year so I have a timetable to show deadlines for these events.

February  

- MCM Midlands comic con 15th, Telford international center

March

-Cardiff film and comic con 1st-2nd, Motorpoint arena

-Newcastle film and comic con 8th-9th, Metro radio arena

-London super comic con, 15th-16th, Excel

- MCM Birmingham 22nd-23rd, NEC

April

-MCM Ireland 12th-13th, Bailsbridge Dublin

-Wales comic con 23rd-25th, Glyndwr university Wrexham

May

-Bristol comic expo 10th-11th, Future Inn

-MCM London 23rd-25th, Exel

June

-Wigan comic con 22nd, Robin park arena

July

-London film and comic con, 11th-13th, Earls court

-MCM Manchester 19th-20th, Manchester central

August

-ICE International comic expo 2nd, The studio cannon street Birmingham

-Sunderland comic con 9th-10th, Sunderland software centre

-Sheffield film and comic con, 30th-31st, Motorpoint arena

October

-MCM London 24rd-26th, Exel

November

-Thought bubble 15th-16th, TBA

-MCM Birmingham 22nd-23rd, NEC

-Cardiff film and comic con 8th-9th, Motorpoint arena

  Luckily I will only need to pay accommodation for when I attend Cardiff and Thought bubble as I live close to Birmingham and know someone who likes in Manchester. But when looking at cons I still have to take into consideration train fair, accommodation and table fees. Train fair isn't to bad as I have a 16-25 card making my fairs cheaper and as I am small press table prices are £50 per table. This sound expensive but I get the table for the duration of the convention, and it includes my pass into to convention. From the conventions I have attended I broke even each time, but I found Cardiff the most successful as after that weekend I had a lot more traffic through my blog and my Facebook. At the moment I have looked into accommodation for Cardiff and Manchester just in case staying with a friend fall through.

 Manchester accommodation- prices for one night

-Premier inn city centre, city centre 0.5 miles away from convention, 10 minute walk, 2 people per room £78

-Premier inn central, 0.4 miles away from convention, 9 minute walk, 2 people per room £89

-Travelodge central area, 23 minute walk to convention, 2 people per room £51

-IBIS centre, 36 minute walk from convention, 3 people per room £48

-IBIS quays, 40 minute walk from convention, 3 people per room £37

Cardiff-prices per night

-Nomad backpacker, 15 minute walk from convention, 1 person £27.50

   Considering pricing and booking is important, you don't wan tot be to far away from the convention as you have to carry your things, I don't mind a 15 minute walk but wouldn't go out to much further than a 20 minute walk as at the end of the day you are really tired. 

   I feel at the moment I am not advertising the fact I attend these convention, so other than my usual announce it on my blog and Facebook I would like to have a section on my website call upcoming events, where  I will talk about events I am attending and what new work will be previewing there. I want to build more hype and start announcing on the social media pages about the conventions that I am goin and maybe start small promotional ways off attracting people like the first 50 people who visit my table get a free sticker that could contain my details and a illustration. So its almost like they will walk around and promote me at the same time they get a free small sticker of my art.