Sean Sims

Recently in our professional studies lectures we had the pleasure of being introduced to a very local Brighton based illustrator and designer named Sean Sims. He himself was a CCAD student between the years of 81-85 which is quite inspirational, as he has gone on to work for big clients such as the guardian. He studied a variety of topics which included design history and illustration, all of which have had a great impact on his work over time. Within his workspace, Sean Sims surrounds himself with ceramic character creatures that he has collected, each are quirky in design and these as well as childrens books, work by Alan Green, motivational quotes and posters from the 40s-60s influence his work and creative drive greatly. He is also influenced by Harry Stevens travel posters, finding their childlike, bold and graphic qualities admirable - and there is quite an obvious link between his and this artists work when you compare them together.

An example of Harry Stevens work found here

An example of Sean Sims work found here

Sean Sims does lots of different kinds of work, ranging from publishing, editorial and newspaper. He also works for a lot of specialist magazines. He regularly illustrates the 'How to' section of People management magazine, although because the work isn't constant but on request, the income and wages he receives are not regular. When illustrating for magazines like this one, he takes extracts from the text and illustrates that one element, because a lot of the time the written work on a whole is difficult to understand. This is how he creates a visual message from the written one.
He uses a quirky, adult kind of style but sees it best to have a couple of styles handy to rely on depending on what kind of approach you are looking for in your work. He often creates montage illustrations and uses what he describes as 'standardised' male and female characters. He takes on each job that comes to him no matter what, and no matter how dull it might appear to be. His work often represents graphic design, if the article he is working for does not ask for much, which he sees as mundane.

Work for the 2012 London olympics found on his site

He advised us to keep an extensive variety of work on our online portfolios, because often companies will seek out illustrators and base their decision of who to use for their project based on what they see there, so it is indeed better to show that you have a variety of ranges and approaches for whatever they might want to use.
Sean Sims prefers to work straight on to the computer rather than a sketchbook, and his choice of software is Illustrator, which he has taught himself to use gradually. He prefers to use this because he would rather his work look 'flat'. When he was trained in illustration, he did not have all of the same advantages as students like myself have today in terms of technology, but since this has developed over time, he has with it, which is a positive for him because as a student of my age he didn't thrive over creating physical pieces and hated using acrylic paint. In spite of this, Sean will occasionally work with pen and ink, but this is before scanning them in and then developing them on Illustrator.
His processes include taking images from google to work from and reference, although if he is working for another, he has to negotiate and keep up conversation with his client. He will also occasionally reuse his old illustrations to further develop for new projects. He enjoys working on character design and will often use limited colour in his studies and also limited shape.
The artist has worked at creating an animation for the yellow pages, which can be downloaded and watched here. Companies like this sometimes give you a colour palette to work from, and if he has freedom on his colour palette he will often harmonise them, as this is his personal preferred way of working.

A clip from his Yellow pages animation, image found here

Some of his work involved adding very simple and small illustrations to accompany pieces of text in newspapers, but of course he more than often has to create very detailed works for companies.
He also often works at creating some childrens activity books where stickers are made, which he finds very enjoyable to do. These can be seen here. And another example of his childrens work:

found here

He finds that different jobs take different amounts of time which can unfortunately but inevitably create difficulties, therefore time management is very important.
Sean Sims has been a greatly successful illustrator, and has worked for and been invited many other big names. Some of these include:

• Fisher Price (USA)
• Marshmallow (childrens publishing)
• Penguin books
• Mothercare
• Sainsburys
• Thomson airlines

His designs have been used for a variety of things, such as lunchbox covers for kids and greetings cards and gift wrap. I found this lecture very inspiring considering this particular artist is very successful and originated from CCAD like myself. I think his work is very nice to look at, and I admire the artists unique, simplistic style and have found some motivation here, as I would like to perhaps have my own work on greetings cards and gift wrap in the future, and to be seen as a familiar designer for children's products. To finish, here are some of his gift cards and wrap designs:

Fruit design found here

'Bon voyage' card design found here

I really like this design, found here

Love is all you need card found here

Overview and finals

Overview:

Throughout this assignment for animals and creatures, I have tried hard to experiment further with my materials, colour and marks. This has allowed me to get a greater idea of what works best for each creature, and what I would and wouldn't like to use and develop in future assignments. In my fourth sketchbook, I tried to focus also on particular animals that I felt were quite interesting, and that may have some interesting features that when working on my finals and my 'monsters', I could combine with other animals and maybe even exaggerate. I worked mostly from the internet, however looked at some of the books I had previously worshiped. Here are some of the studies I have created to help me reach my final images:

I found the image I worked from here at this site

I drew this bear in pencil, and again took influence from the artist E.H. Sheppard, and his quite traditional, simple style. I found it quite enjoyable to draw and took time adding the detail of the bears fur, and I was interested in perhaps using a bear or type of bear in my finals. 

I found the image I worked from here at this site

After illustrating the panda bear above, I found that I could develop some of the features I focussed on in my first bear study like the fur, and add them to a panda which I actually think might have a bit more potential for my final images in terms of character and interest for viewing.

I found the images to work from for these studies on this site and this site

I wanted to have a look at hippos because I think that they're quite interesting animals and I had not yet looked at them. I used fine liner to create simple line drawings but despite enjoying looking at them and drawing these, I found that did not see much potential for these drawings in my finals.

I drew this using pg 79 of 'Skeletons' which I used for previous research.

I thought that it might be interesting to look at bats and bat wings with them being such an interesting feature and bats being such interesting animals generally. I used fine liner to create a semi detailed sketch of a skeleton wing to get an idea of the form of it, although after developing my ideas was unsure of how to fit this in. I originally had an idea of adding them to the body of the panda for a sinister, monochromatic drawing.

I found a photograph of a hare to work from on this site, and have later
realised it actually has a lot of lovely illustrations to view.

I had really been enjoying drawing the rabbits and hares over this project, and this time I decided to experiment further with my media when studying the animal. I used a mix of watercolour, pencil, graphite, charcoal, chalk and fine liner to build up the details of the hare and the textures of the fur etc. I found the process rather enjoyable although I am now quite confused as to what works best - this or the more limited studies I created earlier. I had an interest in perhaps using the head or maybe just the ears of the rabbit in a final.

I found the image I worked from for this study on this site

I thought that an ostrich would be quite an interesting animal to look at because they definitely have some very outstanding and unique features. I was quite interested in their large bouncing feathers, but mostly the long neck and legs of the bird, because I think they look quite comical. I thought that I could perhaps use a couple of these features and combine them with other animals. For this study I used black ink and fine liner for the details of the feathers, and also the head neck and legs of the bird. I thought that because of the interesting marks - like the dots on the legs and neck and the bold blotted marks on the feathers, that this study or whatever I would choose to do with it would work well as a print.

I found the image for this study on this site

I was quite interested in looking at horses because they too have quite bold features and appear quite bold and strong. I was not at all happy with the above study I created using acrylic paint, however it did enable me to look at the body of the horse again and focus on the muscular build and form of the legs etc because I thought it would be interesting to use the body of the horse with perhaps the head of another animal.

Image for this study found here

Here I did another simple like study of a bull because I thought I would like to look at the animals horns, and after went on to look at them in more detail, as well as the horns of the buffalo:

I found the images I worked from here at this site and this site. 

I tried to focus on the main features of the bull, the horns,
because I thought that it might be quite interesting to add these to another animal. I wasn't able to get my studies to a standard that I was happy with, however the idea of adding them to another animals body I think is still quite interesting.

I found the image I worked from for this study here

I used only ink to sketch out this elephant quickly using a stick to work with the media. I wanted to briefly focus on elephants because I think that they are quite magnificent creatures, and definitely have some astounding features which could be very fascinating to look at in further detail, and combine with the features of other animals bodies. These naturally include features such as the trunk, tusks and ears of the animal, but also the height and general structure of the elephants body.

I found the image I used to work from for
this study here

I used the same image for both studies

 I chose to look at parrots for a moment because I quite enjoyed studying birds earlier in my work and I thought that these tropical birds would be particularly intriguing to look at due to their brightly coloured feathers. To bring out the vibrancy of the colours I used brusho, and on top of this used ink in the same way I had with my study of the yellow lizard, and am still finding influence from Quentin Blake's illustrations when looking at these. I found putting them together very fun and interesting, however wasn't sure about how the first one worked because of the limited detail, so in the second study I also used fine liner in an attempt to bring out some more of the details. However on reflection, I think I prefer the first one more and so will remember this when approaching my finals.

I found the image I worked from in this site here

This is another simple line drawing using fine liner, and varied shapes to express the pattern of the zebras stripes. I had chose to look at the zebra because after struggling depicting the image of the horse, I thought it might be good to look at this animal because they obviously share the same characteristics but the zebras have an added bonus of the interesting stripes which I decided could have potential amongst my finals.

I found the image I worked from for this study here

I created this study using watercolour, pencil, fineliner and acrylic. I wanted the giraffe to perhaps feature in my finals also, because of its outstanding characteristics. I was however very unhappy with this study. 

My finals: 

When I began planning my finals, I decided to start crossing over animals that I had enjoyed drawing, and that I thought had interesting quirky features that might work interestingly together. I thought showered a few ideas and then started to put them together roughly in simple sketches to try to put the different shapes and forms together which I found quite challenging. 

For my first idea, I decided to cross a panda bear, a horse and a zebra, here were my initial sketches when I was struggling to get my creature together: 

A grazing panda (again unsuccessful!)

First sketch in pencil

Side view attempt (awful!)

More detailed fineliner sketch from front

 I found it quite difficult to get the features to combine together well, and so began trying different drawing techniques so that it was not as vivid and noticeably ineffective. Here are some of these:

I am still very uncertain of these studies on reflection, but I do think they work better in this style than in my previous attempts. I decided to use the face of the panda (which I studied with an image found here) and then I looked at the body and the build of a horse (using an image found here) and then the legs of the zebra for the patterns (here). I chose to combine these animals because I thought that the black and white patterns could help provide some camouflage as this creature would live in rocky areas, and the stripes (as with zebras) they keep irritating insects at bay. I used the body of the horse and legs of a zebra so that the animal would have strength and the ability to run fast from predators.

Here is my final for this creature:

Final 1

For my next imaginary creature, I decided to swap the features of a giraffe, ostrich and bull. I decided to combine the characteristics of the giraffe and ostrich especially because I find that they each have quite feminine qualities, the giraffes being its facial features like its long eyelashes for example, and the ostrich having its very long bare legs and huge feathered coat. Also, both the giraffe and the ostrich have long necks which is quite interesting. I then decided to add the horns of the bull onto the giraffes head due to them already having stumpy horns for fighting each other with (the males) and so I thought that this could help the creature whenever they were in battle. The long legs of the ostriches body would also help with running away from predators and the neck to continue being able to reach food. Here are some of my initial sketches:

2

1

3

4

5 

I had decided after drawing these that the media best worked fluidly, using ink, watercolour and fineliner rather than just fineliner alone or pencil. I also recognised that the animal was best drawn facing the left like in my later studies. I then went on to draw these:

1

2

Before completing my final here:

Final 2

For my next animal I decided to put together a mix of a bear, a hare and a fox. I wanted to combine the ears of the hare, the face and body/general build of the bear and the foxes tail into one creature. I decided that the animal would have huge long ears to help listening when hunting, and that the body would be big and strong with sharp teeth and cunning eyes. The fox tail would help to keep the animal warm and hidden when sleeping. Here are some of my early studies of this imaginary animal:

Initial first sketch in pencil

Adding detail in watercolour and graphite

Practicing with brusho and ink

Brusho and fineliner

After creating my first attempts, I found that the one that worked better was a study I did using just fineliner, a detailed drawing building up short lines in an attempt to create the textures of the animals fur. I then decided to base my final on this. Here are the drawings:

Sketchbook attempt

Final

For my last and final creature, I based it on two very different creatures, an elephant and a parrot. I did this because I had the idea of wanting to give an elephant wings, and so did not draw the parrots wings on to scale, but to suit the size and mass of the elephant, giving it the ability to fly. I wanted there to be a contrast between the dull shade of the elephants skin and the bright vibrancy of the tropical bird wings. I first sketched this idea out quickly, and then after liking the look of the rushed, basic drawing, I decided to repeat this same drawing process through monoprinting. Here were these results:

Quick pencil sketch of idea

Print 3

Monoprint 1

Monoprint 2

 I quite liked the way the images looked so childlike and rushed, and decided to stick to this idea to complete my final, here:

Overall I found this project very interesting and very beneficial. I was given many great opportunities to study real live animals up close and practice drawing them both still and moving. This project enabled me to study the anatomy of various animals and focus on their varying qualities. It has gave me a chance to strengthen my skills and also my imagination by thinking creatively when designing my own pretend creatures.

The Consumer

Recently we learned about the consumer. The consumer is the person who pays to consume the goods that were produced by a particular service. The consumer is an important person involved in the sale because they are the final user of the end product. Within marketing, from beginning to end of product design, everything is aimed at the consumer. As artists, we have to design and create what it is that the consumer desires (or at least advertise it to them in a way that makes them believe it is what they want!) Selling the product to the consumer is becoming more difficult due to designers becoming more and more unique.

Previous agencies I have looked at that are relative to this and aim to create and produce for the consumer are:

• Pearlfisher - focus on food
• Big Active - small audience, focus on music
• Debut Art - western market
• El Roboto
• The Outsiders Gallery

A way to stay successful and keep sales to the consumer up is by getting to know them properly and therefore know who exactly you are aiming your product at.

Who am I?

• What do I buy? I am interested in quirky handmade products made by small, not very popular companies.  I am also interested in books by most genres.
• What demographic am I? I am a part of the young adults who are interested in quirky individual/creative makes. I am also apart of a wide range of different categories in terms of my literature interests, but within the age range of teen/young adult - adult.
• How am I targeted? I am mostly targeted through the internet, because whilst using many different sites including social media, it is easy to be introduced to, or see an advertisement/link to a small sales page that might look inviting. Also pop ups on sites, if I have previously browsed things that are of interest to me over the internet, I can be shown a pop up which will display things to me that I have been known to look at before. This as well as leaflets, posters and advertisements on the television and radio are also a way of targeting me when at home or out and about.
• What sets me apart from the general public? I would not say that anything much made me stand out from others in terms of my personal interests, however most people my age are more interested in things like modern day technology rather than crafts and literature. As a student of a creative industry however, I am more likely to be surrounded by people of a similar interest and am likely to tell others about particular companies.

The market 

The market is a very broad and extensive thing, which is ever changing. This in turn means that the consumer is also ever changing, as new trends come and go, as do consumers. Within the digital world for example, wants and desires change and develop much faster, due to produce constantly updating, meaning everybody wants the latest. Marketing is a way of telling the consumers exactly what they want or need to keep up to date, thus knowing the consumer is highly important, so that advertising produce to an individual ends successfully.
When looking at literature, it is obvious that with this being such a broad and detailed market, the consumer interested must be targeted exactly. The world is constantly changing, and technology is striving further and further forward, meaning that many people do not even wish to purchase the actual book itself, and would prefer to purchase just the words to read on a something like a kindle. There is a massive amount of options available to a reader, not just in terms of age ranges, genres, authors and themes but also in the latest equipment, story CDs, reading for the visual impaired etc. This also in turn means, that there is a massive amount to consider for an author or designer who is ready to put their work out onto the shelves. This site explains just a few of the things that are necessary to consider for an author who wishes to become more known. If you are looking to become more known within this kind of market, you cannot just work with something that you personally are very interested in. It is very important that you research every aspect possible in terms of what is popular today in order for the vaster majority of people to take a keen notice towards you.