Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Hello, allow me to dust off the blog a bit.

There are some great interviews with Jillian Tamaki on her blog and website (under FAQ) recently, my favourite one consists of questions given to her by her students (the lucky dogs). There's also some great imput from John Hendrix.

Excerpt:

If I have many different styles, how should I promote them?

This is a question I hear often. I suppose it’s because my own portfolio contains a variety of “styles”. I should say that putting together a portfolio is more of an art than a science. My thought is, however, that your portfolio should be more consistent when you are a starting illustrator. But consistency can be more nuanced than “all 12 portfolio pieces should be identical”… consistency across a body of work can be more about a consistent tone, flavour, or conceptual style. Not just aesthetics. But back to the question: I think you should tailor your promotional materials, sending images that are most appropriate for the potential client. But at the same time being open-minded about what is and isn’t appropriate. For example, the NYT Op-Ed runs dioramas, children’s book-style art, photo-illustration, etc. Not just black and white, metaphor-heavy line-art. You can only gauge your portfolio’s effectiveness after probably 6 months of earnest promotion.

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