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Digi mag 1
Winter 2016
Quick Catch-Up
Government Endorsed! We have been inundated with support since the launch for what we are setting out to achieve, so our heartfelt thanks to all for this. We even had a pleasant surprise when contacted out of the blue by MP, Michelle Donelan, who offered some words of encouragement, pointing out that self-employed workers are bolstering the UK ‘s economy and significantly reducing the unemployment . Richard Forsyth and Helen Forsyth launch new freelancer network and job service
We have Lift-Off! New Launch of Website Service is ‘Go’! The first after-burns of launch have been successful for Find a Creative Pro. Three years of talking about it and now we are here! We’ve built a website that champions the freelancer and now we have this little mag to go with it. The Find a Creative Pro service is not a flight of fancy but something that we know has been needed for creative freelancers for a long, long time. Helen and I have been freelancing for many years now and we’ve been through all the dramas, issues and victories of the freelance existence. We know we have started something special and we aim to make this web service as accessible and helpful for all freelancers and also businesses looking to hire. We have seen networks and databases where freelancers tout for work but often freelancers have their prices compromised or have a commission taken from their fee. We just ask for a one off fee for a premium profile of £65 for a year, or if times are tough and you want a basic listing we have an option that is totally free. We intend to promote this website to businesses looking for freelancers in the coming months. The site is still growing and we’ll continue to develop it in time so please take a look if you are not already on it, as it might just land you your next gig!
Richard Forsyth Director, Find a Creative Pro
Letter of support from MP
Join Find a Creative Pro Join our network for businesses to find professional freelancers and contact them direct for work. Search the database for FREE Basic account for FREE Full profile, pay only £65 a year www.findacreativepro.com
New Graduate Course For Freelancers Find a Creative Pro are in early talks with a University over the possibilities for a new kind of training programme designed for graduates who want to embark on a freelance career. Our mission is to find the creative professionals of tomorrow and fuel the industry with freelancers who are ready from day one of their chosen path of self employment. Focusing on a range of essential skills we’ll help form the content and direction on the course. A student course might be in the making with Find a Creative Pro
In the Press and Out and About We have scored a number of press cuttings since launch — with a lot of press in the UK in particular. We have been lucky to feature in business publications and websites for Publishing such as What’s New In Publishing. The editor of this site, Jeremy Walters supported Find a Creative Pro’s mission to champion high quality FCP at a networking party in Bath
freelancers and professional rates. He said “I am a bit jaundiced about how the freelance rates have fallen precipitously, if your service can address that, great!” We have also been attending exclusive invite networking events and meeting directors of businesses to talk about the website as a service, so that they know about the talented freelancers on Find a Creative Pro’s easy access database.” We are intending to continue to talk to company bosses who can use freelancers for creative projects and expect their support.
Lead story in What’s New In Publishing
FCP Member Contribution
Adventure Into the Art of Darkness... Anthony Jenkins worked for Canada’s national newspaper The Globe and Mail where he drew satirical caricatures of celebrities and politicians. Anthony recalls a time when his art became his gift to a tribe after traversing a winding river in the depths of Borneo’s jungle
My sketchpads and I have travelled widely.
cat. Only shyer and with sharper claws (I later learned it was a spiny anteater, thankfully a baby one.) They dropped it in my lap. One time, we found ourselves in Borneo, one Daring-do adventurers don't scream or shirk. of the archipelago of islands that form the They smile, teeth gritted. As did I, even as nation of Indonesia. What one does, if feeling the creature attempted to curl around my adventurous in Borneo, is go 'up river'; find a upper thigh. This aroused much merriment boat down by the river mouth, barter a fare, among one and all. Almost all. It hurt and I hop aboard and head into the unknown, dragging the thing off. I was left with vivid red flanked by jungle, ferocious humidity, with claw lines. brightly coloured birds overhead and butterflies in your stomach. For an artist, the best non-verbal communicaIn Borneo, river boats are hollowed-out trees. My boat was long and thin with a point on one end, an outboard motor on the other and families, provisions, pigs chickens and me somewhere in-between.
tion is to draw, so I produced my sketchpad and gestured to the fellow whom I took to be the head man, a wizened and heavilytattooed elder, to sit. I sat before him in the gloom, with shafts of golden light spotlighting the floor and proceeded to sketch him.
The river was a warm, brown soup as the boat churned up the water, passing eversmaller villages, outposts, swimming snakes, drifting vegetation, strange fish and finally, about five miles before what could only be described as 'Heart of Darkness' territory, a tribal 'longhouse' at which I alighted - with a splash and a belly full of trepidation.
The place was hushed, the kids were in awe, open-mouthed and even the animals below grew silent. The old boy sat solemn and unmoving as I drew him - no preliminaries - in ink, endeavouring to keep my dripping perspiration from turning the work into a watercolour.
A 'longhouse' is a block-long bamboo dwelling; a covered platform on stilts rising above the muddy shore. Inside is a long row of attached, doored dwellings – like some crude motel - with a central dimly-lit bamboo alley, that serves as a communal courtyard. Chattering naked children, trying to rub my freckles off, drew me by the hands up steep flights of stairs to the platform of the longhouse. Pigs, goats and god-knows-what screamed, clucked and grunted from below. Inside, in the half light, I found myself facing the entire longhouse population, perhaps a dozen families-worth of nut-brown denizens with not a sock between them. They wore tattoos and little else. I smiled, pantomimed, displayed all the features of my old Swiss army knife to the hushed and gaping throng. It was intense non-verbal communication, in draining humidity. The villagers warmed and seemed to get the hang of non-verbal show-and-tell. From somewhere they produced a dusky olivescaled anteater creature about the size of a
Done. Satisfied that I'd caught and honoured him, I presented the drawing to the fellow with as much dignity as a sweaty stranger in second-hand army shorts could. He held it, looked intently and smiled. Them slowly, he turned the drawing sideways. And smiled. He liked it that way too! He turned it and upside down to the other side and any which way at all, apparently pleased.
HIRE ANTHONY FOR YOUR PROJECT Anthony Jenkins is available to hire on the Find a Creative Pro database. Just type his name into the search feature – register for free and you can find his contact details. Here are some examples of his artistic impressions of political figureheads that have been dominating all the news headlines.
Hilary Clinton
It dawned on me. He was visually illiterate. He was a fellow who hunted monkeys in the jungle his whole life. He had no experience of printed text, photographs or drawn images. To him, my portrait of him was simply a pleasing collection of lines, like one of his many non-representative swirling and stylised tattoos.
Jeremy Corbyn
Ever since that day, I've tried to make the lines in my drawings themselves elegant and interesting. If they capture a likeness and a personality at the same time, grand, that is a bonus. FCP Nigel Farage
Snaps Tips-Up Advice
Find A Snapper www.findacreativepro.com If you are looking for a photographer to commission for your project, magazine feature or to work on an assignment, there are several professionals who have work they can show you to prove their skills on the Find a Creative Pro network. It is free to search so just register your details so we know you are a real business and you can access some of the best photographers around.
TAKE AMAZING ACTION SHOTS
Position yourself well – pre plan your spot and make sure you have the background and space around the shot that’s interesting
Use a tripod for stable frame or hand-strap for ease of movement
Have a big memory card
Make sure you are at the same level as the subject Shoot in bursts to capture multiple moments Fast shutter to freeze the subject or a low shutter for action blur
Focus on the facial expression where possible Think about how the picture is telling a story Use fast light sources
Photo Caption
Go Full Tilt Fun effects with Tiltshift Maker. www.tiltshiftmaker.com Tilt shift photography is a technique best known for its ability to transform real life panoramas into surreal toy towns, through selective focus. It’s particularly effective for busy cityscapes involving people and objects a long way away, making them appear like static painted toys. The effect works by contrast of very out of focus and in-focus areas in the image. It has really come into its own as a trend in photography and filming. Whilst originally the reserve of the photographic professional it’s now a method available to everyone through free online software. Tiltshift maker is possibly the most fun you can have with your photos and will give your images a new lease of life. If you are submitting photographs for a commission, it might be worth taking a look at this site to produce something a little different and unique for your next assignment.
A scene at Bradford on Avon during a war reenactment.
Great Free Picture Resources It’s always best to get a pro in for a picture if you are trying to impress with a feature, as an editor of a magazine — but for writers and PRs required to provide images without budgets here are three of the better free sites to use which can really bring your words to life.
Unsplash — www.unsplash.com High res and beautiful, this is the Rolls Royce of free imagery. Some wonderful images that regularly get into the most prestigious magazines.
Pixabay — www.pixabay.com Classic library choc full of everything you might need, especially for the corporate business features. Whilst we all need a picture of a business guy for some features there are also some really great gems if you dig deep — go to the editor’s choice to find some of the good ones.
Gratiography — www.gratisography.com Quirky and fun shots galore and of a high quality. This site really makes you smile. If you want something different and you can find the fit for the feature, then this is a classic for unusual imagery. The images to the left are in order top to bottom from each library — Unsplash, Pixabay, Gratiography.
Advice Tips-Up
Craft A Professional Microsite With The Premium Package
As a freelancer, where do you discover new clients? Business breakfasts? Friends of friends? Or do you spend hours reaching out to businesses in emails and phone calls? Creating a Find a Creative Pro premium profile can help here.
Entrenched in client-hunting? Few enjoy this part of the freelancer experience. We have created the Find a Creative Pro website to make it possible to get all the right messages across to land a new gig. Those messages include the elevator pitch, the qualifications and history, the individual projects you have worked on and the clients you have worked with. The premium site costs less than the equivalent of £6 a month for a profile that acts as a website of your own and this can be your business marketing – so don’t forget to put it against your marketing expenses for the taxman. Cash savings count as a freelancer.
Demonstrate Your worth We’ve been listening to freelancers we know and also those who have recently come to know us through the website – which has only recently been launched (thanks to everyone for the welcome feedback, by the way). Those who have a premium site have found the profiles work well. Some have even said that they would be fine if we took a percentage of any new client deal but we don’t want to do this because you as the freelancer, should have 100% of the money from any new client arrangement. We want to be a service that offers value for freelancers and we want freelancers to know we are onside. We are freelancers ourselves, after all.
to videos and your own website, if you have one already. When the whole profile is filled in you will have a potent package of your work and give a clear impression of who you are, what you have achieved and what you can achieve.
A Little Prep Is A Good Step Before you fill in a profile, it’s useful to prepare a bit. Have a JPEG image of yourself that you like – something that is either professional, creative, or that shows off your personality. The text boxes for the projects, when you fill them in, will leave you with plenty of room for copy, so it’s best to write this beforehand, to paste in. The projects work really well with good representative images if you have them available. The most effective way to prepare is have a few folders ready – one with your projects, one with logos of clients, a picture of yourself and an up to date CV. If you can’t be bothered to fill everything out – this is obviously up to you but this is a great opportunity to impress new businesses that browse the profiles.
What Next For Find A Creative Pro?
When you have completed a premium profile be assured we will be doing our best to promote you and the site externally to Be Your Best Advocate businesses looking to hire. Beyond our many social media sites In addition to this we want you to show how good you are through (please do follow them and contribute, if you can) we are telling news editors about our story and are featuring in the press your body of work. Our goal is to attract professional freelancers regularly. We’ll help with publicity where we can so if you sign up who know their worth and can demonstrate it. Many freelancer networks simply want to drive traffic – there’s less insight into who and want to contribute a blog on the site, please do drop us a line. is who, which means jobs can be picked up by people who do not The Future Is Freelance necessarily have the right skill set. This is not so good for the business hiring and may not be good for the freelancer either, if Freelancing is no longer a profession in the shadows, the homethey can’t complete their assignment to high standards. We ultimately want to match-make each freelancer to clients that suit worker that is an oddity to 9-5ers. The amount of people freelancing in the EU rose from 7.7 million to 9.6 million between them well, rather than throw all freelancers at all clients in a desperate scrum. We have categories and subcategories to make 2008 and 2015 according to the Association of Independent sure you are in the right bracket if someone is searching for your Professionals and the Self Employed (IPSE). It’s a pattern around the world. If you are one of these people, please join our skills. This site has to be a community of people who know their professional club and let’s work together to show your unique trade well. talents to new clients.
Your Own Website In Moments When you sign up to the premium membership, it’s important to try and fill out the profile sections, especially the projects. Why? Because the projects feed to the homepage Gallery and link back to your profile – and they are your portfolio of work. Normally you’d have to go to great efforts to explain and route out links, in order to present your work to each new client. The projects page has the breadth for multiple projects so fill them up. Do get permission for images or logos used, if needed. You can also link
Try out our premium service at www.findacreativepro.com
Scribe Advice
HOW TO WRITE FICTION FOR KIDS Christian Oliver, known to his friends as Olly, is an award winning writer and illustrator from Devon in the UK, as well as a member of the Find a Creative Pro community. He has had two hardback children’s books published, Po-Tolo, Plan Bee from Outer Space and The Monster Scared of Children Under its Bed but has contributed art to many more.
What’s your best advice for writing for children?
Olly: The only reason I wrote the books in the first place was to impress my son. He is a constant Olly: I just wanted to make my boy source of astounding revelation and I laugh. Enjoy it! If you don’t enjoy it, am extremely blessed to be in his what’s the point? Don’t talk down to presence. The books are all his and a child, they hate that. Remember were simply ghost written by me. what made you laugh when you were five. Don’t take it too seriously, What other skills apart from you will never be a millionaire. creating content for the book do you need to consider to get your With the Po-Tolo book – the book successfully published? underlying message is educational, about saving bees. Olly: The ability to compromise. In Do you think it’s better to have an the real world you have to comproeducational theme than not? mise every day and if you want to have your book published you have Olly: No, I don’t. The death of bees to listen to the fella risking his money is something I am very worried about to put you into print. Don’t be a diva. and I thought I could get the message out. There will be no bees What’s it like to be edited by book in 15 years time. No bees means no publishing company – do they food. It is very hard to convince a make significant changes? child that education is fun which Olly: Po-Tolo started life as a 60,000 means it is very hard to convince a word book as I fancied myself the publisher that your message is good next Roald Dahl. In the end the book enough to overcome a child’s was edited by the publishers to just suspicion of anything ‘educational’. around 400 words. Does being a father make a Olly currently contributes to books at difference to your writing, do you www.houseofmarbles.com. think? Find great authors & artists at www.findacreativepro.com
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