Violeta Lopiz - Everything ever in relevance to my everything ever ever.

This is beautiful.



Les poings sur les iles from Sang hyun on Vimeo.

I found this within the depths of the internet (I even translated a spanish page to find it) and I fell completely in love with the textures and everything about it.
With the idea of Studio Brief 'Moving Pictures' looming over me I think this was a real good find. The animation itself is quite simple, just lots and lots of layers and really subtle moving parts. It's probably more complex than I think but maybe this is something that I can try to make myself.

I didn't realise that the illustrator whose blog I was looking at, Illustrated this as a book and it was made into an animation from that, unknowingly at first, it link really well to 'Printed Pictures' and I didn't even realise! Violeta Lopiz makes really textural illustrations that are really naive at first glance but really deep. She did this Illustration,

and I'm unsure if this is a page from the book, but I think it lends itself well to the intangible by using the colour and texture of the background which juxtaposes the bright colours and busy centre of the birds. Being that her description of the piece is "After getting lost, I left the garden with a head full of birds." reinforces this further. This is where I want to be, I want this.

PEST AND SWOT - The Sketchbook Project

The Sketchbook Project

What do they do?

Based in Brooklyn, they organise collaborative art projects that reach people globally. Part of the company is the travelling sketchbook library, allowing people to loan artists sketchbooks or publications. You can send in a sketchbook for other people to loan. 

Political Factors

They work with artists and practitioners to distribute their sketchbooks, they have to consider copyright and the risks of loaning out other peoples work, What if people don't return them? What are the consequences they have put in place to prevent this?Although they work primarily out of a travelling library, they also have a store in Brooklyn and will need to pay rates and taxes on this as well as their offices/headquarters. If they do not it depends on what sort of company there are as to whether they can be personally liable.

Economic Factors

The primary source of income is from artists buying a Sketchbook to fill. The Sketchbooks are $25 and $60 each if you want your sketchbook to be digitised. I assume that this covers wages and the trade cost of the sketchbooks. They also sell art supplies out of their online store. I think that a concern of the business would be losing sketchbooks, whether there would be a constant supply of people wanting to participate. They also employ around 10 members of staff so when there is a dip in sales can they cover wages?

Social Factors

They are feeding the need for tangible work and offering nostalgia that unfortunately comes with libraries now, because of the online and e-book alternatives.

Technological Factors

Because things are mostly accessed online now, the shop has developed an option to have your sketchbook scanned and available in the online library. This opens up a much wider audience.

Relying on social media, they can connect with new artists and audiences to grow the business. 

Strengths

They are very specialist and are the first people to provide a place where people can read lots of sketchbooks, allowing artists to showcase their work and also people to look and learn about people's processes. 

Weaknesses

At the minute it is only in Brooklyn, though they take submissions from all over the world, this is still a very small catchment of people, without online submissions and the digital library they run the risk of being very insular.

Opportunities they have Taken

They saw a gap in the market for an art based library, took a chance on enough people submitting work.

They don't actually sell work, so they have had to rely on people purchasing sketchbooks to fill to fund them.

Threats they Face

Art and design isn't a necessity so when the economy struggles and people have less disposable income they are less likely to purchase a sketchbook to begin with.

They have to compete with people producing process art books, things like illustration now for sketchbooks.

Online Presence

I decided to look back on my own branding over the years to see how I progressed and what worked and what didn't.
In 2012 I had my first table at Thought Bubble which made me design business cards and stickers and things to give away, something John has discussed using in our Project Packs, give them things to remember us by.
Because I had a business card I also had to include a Call To Action, which meant making and figuring out Cargo.
I've kept it updated slightly over the years but now it looks tiresome and juvenile. I want to create something easy to navigate and visually interesting. Which I guess is what any visual communicator wants in a website.

I also attended Thought Bubble the following year after learning what sold and what didn't. Though I didn't need to reprint any of my cards because I was too shy to give any out! After coming to uni I decided to hold off on Thought Bubble for a year or so simply because I realised I needed to focus on refining my practice. Although the times I went and things I did when I was younger was brave and I gained a lot of experience from, I realise that pushing my work to a professional standard makes all the difference.

Another issue I found was comparing myself to everyone else. As a 16 year old girl doing a diploma in Graphic Design I found myself comparing myself to Kristyna Baczynski and Drew Millward, people that literally had years on me in the industry. This is still something I find myself doing and think I will do without my career but as it becomes a real possibility rather than a juvenile and naive plan I found myself not being able to actually DO IT and GET ON WITH IT. I am my own worst enemy. This year I aim to fix it.

Life's a Pitch: Group Presentation

I don't have the original file for the presentation but I helped to organise the slides and layout.
I got the embed code from Emmanuel's blog, I don't think he would mind!
I think our presentation looked good but I think we were too nervous to deliver it properly, I knew what I had to say but felt like I was stumbling and not getting our point across properly.