WORK EXPERIENCE REPORT Dominique Marshall
“Remember, however, that your favourites are probably everyone else’s favourites. So be wary of approaching only the cool, hip studios, or the better known ones. They get lots of approaches from good people, so be clever and look into the less wellilluminated corners of the design world.� Adrian Shaughnessy, How To Be A Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul
When I began looking for a work placement to do during the summer, I initially tried to look for design companies that focused on creating music graphics, as that is the area of graphic design I wish to progress into after my studies. However after much research I found that it would be a better choice if I focused on finding companies that work within other design fields as well, such as illustration, typography, web design, moving image etc. A large number of the companies I came across during my research were very popular with regards to students looking for work experience. Some of these included Pentagram, Big Active, Intro, Immprint and Blink Art.
Having formed a list of my favourite companies and after creating a PDF portfolio to send, contacting each one and trying to get a response about whether doing an internship was possible turned into one of the most difficult things to do. It emphasized the fact that trying to get a placement in such a competitive industry was one that should not be taken for granted, as it requires a lot of dedication, active chasing, disappointment and attention to detail. Most of the companies I contacted were either too busy to take on interns, had all of their places full already, or did not reply with an answer.
One of the few that replied and which had intern vacancies was design agency Advocate Art. As they were fully booked for interns during the summer, I was able to do my minimum of ten days experience during the Christmas break. This was booked in 7 months in advance, and overall I completed 13 days experience. Before I began my placement, I was invited into the company for a quick introduction as to what they do as a business and what I would be doing during my time there.
Advocate Art was founded over twelve years ago as an artists’ cooperative by managing director Edward Burns. After being a practicing artist himself for a few years, Edward realized that he was much better at selling other peoples’ work than his own, and thus set about creating what is now arguably the largest and most successful illustration agency in the UK. Since the very beginning, the four core principles of the business have been fairness, ability, creativity and trust. Sticking with these principles has meant that Advocate still represents artists that were recruited when the agency was first started up, as well as attracting contemporary artists that are trying to build their personal name today.
Advocate Galleries, Wimbledon Village
Advocate Art as a whole is mainly viewed as an illustration agency, but it is in effect three agencies in one as the work they represent is split between three agents: Edward Burns runs the greetings card, art publishing, lifestyle gifts and licensing section Kate Johnson runs the book publishing Francois Aquesbi is the international agent. They deal with a very large number of high profile clients, some of these include Hallmark, Clinton’s Cards, Penguin, Harper Collins, Little Tiger Press and American Greetings. As well as being an illustration agency, Advocate is also a gallery, managed by Richard Yates, that sells high quality prints, reproductions and originals.
Advocate Art portfolio flyer sent out to international clients to help promote the represented artists
They are also the UK agent for the character Newton’s Law, which is currently the mascot for the National Fund for Kidney Research. They have also recently started up a new business venture called Vendetta Art, which is focused on digital media and moving image. When researching design studios and companies, I found that Advocate Art was one of the few that view internships as an essential part of their agency. Five of their current members of staff were recruited this way, and interns play a crucial part in keeping on top of their workload.
One of the key differences between working in a design agency and working in a design studio, which became apparent during my time at Advocate and through my design company research, was that an agency is more concerned with showcasing work by other artists and presenting them in the best possible light to clients, whereas a studio is based more on presenting their own work to clients, showcasing their own definitive style .
Live design work at Advocate mostly consisted of creating portfolio sheets of artworks by a large number of artists they represent, that were then collated into a range of portfolios, according to the style of work, and sent out to clients both in printed form and online. These portfolios expressed the different forms of illustration that are popular within the current market, and it also helped me to familiarise myself with particular illustrators and the style of work they create. Some of my main responsibilities as an intern were mainly based on updating the company image library through key wording, scanning and importing original printed artworks into the library system, and referencing. For these tasks I was shown how to use the image cataloguing software Cumulus and the workbook software Filemaker Pro. Along with Photoshop and Illustrator, Advocate Art use these to complete their workload.
These were important daily tasks as clients mailed regularly requesting to be sent a collection of specific images. When creating these images collections I had to be wary of copyrighting and licensing issues, as a majority of the artwork may have already been sold to other companies for a similar purpose, whether it be for greeting cards, tags, for use online etc. To keep on top of these issues at Advocate, all of the images in their online library are clearly referenced in Filemaker and catalogued as to whether they are available to use or not. Copyright and licensing issues are things I need to be very aware of as a growing designer, whether I go into freelancing or begin working within a design company, as a lot of problems can arise if images have already been used or are owned by others, and I or the company I work for tries to use the same image without any written permission or usage rights.
Examples of portfolio artwork sheets I created. Sheets were first printed A4, shown to the managing director Edward, then printed A3 on glossy paper
As well as the portfolio sheets, I also had the opportunity to amend a few pieces of artwork and create greeting cards that could be sent out to clients. For the greeting cards I was given a selection of artwork to draw inspiration from, and was asked to create my own versions. This was quite a fun but tricky task to complete, as I had to fight the urge to emulate the inspirations piece for piece and create my own versions of them.
The shed containing hundreds of original pieces of artwork
Creating my own versions of existing designs is a process that I practice regularly, as I have found it to be a very good way of learning different design techniques and it also helps me to learn more about how designers in the industry create visually interesting artwork.
Greeting cards I made
Artwork I was asked to amend by removing the robins
On the final day of my internship, I had the chance to create a portfolio website for myself which would then be uploaded onto the Advocate Art website, available for all of their site viewers to see. This was not as daunting as it may have initially seemed, as I had already had experience with creating a portfolio web site. As I did not want to create an exact replica of my already existing online portfolio, I decided to keep this one a lot more simple and refined, rather than include a large amount of information and work.
Being given the chance to display my work on an online platform run by a design company emphasized just how important web design is becoming within the current industry. There have been many articles written about the growing trends of web design, and it is becoming an important tool for growing designers to have. Patrick Corrigan, who runs the internship programme at Advocate Art along with Lesley Carpenter, stated that I was the only intern that had worked there recently that was able to make a website from scratch without the need for him to show me how to do it!
Pages from the portfolio website I created
Overall, my experience at Advocate Art definitely helped to show me how an agency works on a day to day basis, how they deal with client requests and how important interns are to the daily running of the business. It also helped me to realize how competitive the illustration market is when it comes to the different styles, current trends and client requirements. It can be quite difficult for illustrators and designers to get their name out there in the industry, but with companies like Advocate Art it can become less of burden when compared to being self-employed and freelancing.
After doing my first work placement in an agency and dealing with other people’s creative work, a future step of mine would be to gain a placement in a design studio, and see how much it differs from an agency regarding the work created and the day to day tasks. Having that experience would help me to figure out if I would want to continue working in a studio once I have graduated, or whether signing up to a design agency or freelancing would be a better choice for me.