Arts Market December 2015

A friend had seen some of the prints I had been working on for my About the Author project and said I should sell them at the Arts Market, which is a small market that runs in the upstairs of the Belgrave while the feast is on downstairs. The weather was pretty dire that weekend (12th and 13th of December), so I said to myself I'd be happy if I sold just one thing - as I wasn't sure what kind of people would be coming in and whether my work would really be suited to the demographic that visit the belgrave. 

I got some older drawings printed out on nice paper and made extra lino prints of images I was doing for About the Author. I also made some badges from DAS air dry clay as I thought since a badge is a tangible product more people might be interested than in the prints. 

I could't really afford proper business cards so I just did some makeshift DIY ones instead. Hey all of them will be unique! 

Not many people came along because of the weather, but I did manage to sell a few items (as well as some online too) which gave me a bit of an ego boost. I would definitely like to to more tabled events as I think even if the demographic isn't right you can still hand out business cards and get people looking at your work. It also gave me some more confidence in the marketability of my work, as I sold more than I thought I would! 

Business Concept & Manifesto!

Business Concept Personal:

What is your business idea?

'Visuwallise' - A collective of artists offering wall paintings, temporary installations etc for a range of purposes such as events and interior decoration. 

How did you come up with it?

We thought it would suit us as it is a versatile practice & any of our styles could be applied to it. Tom has software that aids the making of mockups too. 

What excites you about it?

It's different to anything I would have considered doing individually. Working as a group but being able to keep your own voice is great! I am excited but the prospect of seeing my work on a much larger scale than I would have ever considered before. 

What industry does it belong to?

Service

What improved features / services do you provide?

Something new? Something better?

Reinventing/rejuvenating wall space, offering interesting and varied designs that are exciting and fresh. Since there are five of us there are different styles and designs to choose from. 

What is your market - who are your potential customers?

Anyone who needs a wall filling with pictures. We want to keep our options open and not limit ourself to one target audience, our business is versatile so we should keep an open mind about customers. Potential customers could be events organiser, venue owners, homeowners etc.

Which companies or types of companies do you think of as potential competition?

Freelance mural artists

'Urban Canvas' and other such mural artists who specialise in graffiti art. 

Illustrators who will design for wall spaces (Mr Bingo etc) - Anyone who's been hired to do a wall for Byron Burgers. 

Business Concept (Global)
What is your business idea?

'Visuwallise' - An Illustrative collective specialising in the rejuvenation of interior and exterior spaces

How did you come up with it?

We identified a gap in the market and filled it with a business that can celebrate our differences

What excites you about it?

Seeing out work on a grander scale, there is a sense of freedom (of process and ideas) as there are few restrictions. Also it's versatile

What industry does it belong to?

Service

What improved features / services do you provide?

Something new? Something better?

Can cater to a multitude of audiences, as we are a varied collective. No job is too big or too small!
We are not just 'mural artists', we are rejuvenating these spaces (with more edge) 

What is your market - who are your potential customers?

Mainly businesses and events, however there are no limits - if there is a demand for something we will do it!!

Which companies or types of companies do you think of as potential competition?

Freelance mural artists

'Urban Canvas', Wallsauce, etc

Illustrators who will design for wall spaces (Mr Bingo etc) - Anyone who's been hired to do a wall for Byron Burgers.

Business Manifesto (Personal)
Core business concept: Visuwallise; a collective of illustrators specialising in rejuvenation of interior and exterior spaces
Core business values: creative differences are there to be celebrated
Core business goals: hire our services out to businesses / events / establishments etc and gain recognition through our work
Core financial goals: profit from our work after expenses
Corporate Culture: Individuality is good!


Business Manifesto (Global)
Visuwallise this, a collective specialising in rejuvenating interior and exterior spaces. A dependable, creative service providing unconventional solutions to like minded businesses, events and initiatives.

Life's a Pitch - Market Research

http://www.susannahbrough.com/

Susannah Brough is a London based mural artist and furniture painter. With her murals she does not
limit herself to a particular kind of space, she will do most anywhere.
Her site does not specify fixed rates, it seems the pricing is mainly based off the space and what's to be done. Maybe there's a base rate that she works from though.

Urban Canvas

A collective specialising in murals and graffiti art, for  "a range of creative products". You can tell the work is very urban and graffiti inspired, it's got the aesthetic and vibe - probably appealing to a younger audience. Their style doesn't seem to have held them back from anything though as they have worked on a broad range of things including Kids Bedrooms and Home interiors - places I would not expect to see this kind of thing.

Mr Bingo

While I don't think this is a way of speaking to potential customers we could employ on a website, I think it's pretty funny. (and a reminder to not underprice work just to attract customers, your work and time is worth something). Below is a piece of work Mr. Bingo did for Byron Burgers - which shows that it is a feasible project for an illustrator to undertake and is not just for specialist groups / people. (this broadens the hypothetical competition for 'visuwallise' though)

I googled the rate of this kind of thing and this was the first estimate that came up on google, it translates to £13.49 - £23.62 PSF. The artists websites I checked did not have a rate shown, as it generally depends on the size of the space, I'm wondering if it would be good to have a base rate though? This will need further research for sure. 

VISUWALLISE

In this session we discussed our separate traits to find out what we've got going for us in our groups. By writing about each other's traits rather than our own we were able to find out more, as then we could  find out what others see in us rather than what we think of ourselves. This was good because I'm quite self deprecating so I probably wouldn't have written anything good about myself! (Also I wrote Frazer's traits down, but I don't know Frazer very well so I found it a little difficult!)

My Good Points - By Frazer

•  Comic / Dramatic style
• Humour
• Drawing
• Talking/ Articulating
• Narrative
• Colour and shape
• Nerd

I agree about most of these points - People think I'm good at talking when actually I'm very nervous all of the time, sometimes I nearly cry just from talking to people (conceal don't feel) 

We started to think about where we'd like our work to be seen. Our business is based around wall art, so what establishments would we want our art on? Thinking ethically too like we wouldn't want to be doing work for the BNP or anything against our moral values. To quote Frazer "not seaworld, they're bastards" 

 

Places I could imagine my work on the walls are include

• Comic shops - Or other similar places 
• Niche/themed bars
• Cafe's
• WALLS - barriers for building works etc
• Temporary pieces for events - Conventions
• bookshops
• sweet shops?

To describe our business we each wrote Haiku's:

"Collective of five

together we will strive, to

Make walls come alive"

was mine but I hate it, Haiku's are so hard and this just sounds disjointed and just BAD in this context. Others had much better ones.

A helpfully written business concept by Tom

Sectors & Services

The Crumpled City Junior - Illustrated Maps for Urban Jungles 
This product is in the tertiary sector. It is a retail item, mass produced and sold in many different places, including online. These maps are designed for children and are made from materials that make them durable - thus appealing to parents of children in a retail environment, they'd probably be more inclined to buy this so I think that makes it pretty successful. The maps show 'must go' places in these cities, and are visually interesting to look at. I think because they are maps and show activities and places to go, rather than just the streets this product also relates to tourism. 


Sailor Jerry Rum - Packaging / Poster. This has been made for the secondary sector as it relates to breweries and bottlers, (though the imagery may have initially been tattoo designs which would be the creative industries and tertiary sector(?), they have been repurposed for this product). By using the Sailor Jerry name and imagery it relates the product to a longstanding and well known and respected 'brand' that is Sailor Jerry tattoos. The traditional style is ever popular, and with resurgences in vintage aesthetic the look promotes sales of this product.



Editorial Illustration by Jillian Tamaki
This also relates to tertiary sector as newspapers are somewhat of a retail product, being mass produced and sold. It also has links to entertainment and media. Though I think as newspapers spread current events, information, news etc it could be loosely related to the quaternary sector. The imagery frames the text, making a visually intriguing layout. Viewers are more likely to read / buy an item that is visually appealing.



Album art by Heidi Taillefer. This would be part of the tertiary sector as it is a CD album cover, making it part of the entertainment industry. It is a concept album, so the artist has had to work closely with the musicians to encapsulate the feel of the music, and the themes of the story in the image which will overall represent it. It is clear that this is a sci-fi story.



Emily Carroll - Through The Woods.
Again this falls within the tertiary sector as the book's main purpose is entertainment. The stories started off as web comics, so I believe they must have been successful enough to warrant compiling them into a mass produced book to be sold in retail.

Life's a Pitch

This session started off with us writing all the jobs an Illustrator can do. Like the tasks of "where is illustration" we found that there are indeed LOTS of jobs an illustrator could do. People tend to think illustrators just do freelance illustration or kids books or whatever but there is a whole range of things an illustrator COULD do. This nicely led us on to 'Life's a Pitch' as it started us off fresh in the brain that we could basically pitch ANYTHING as our business, what's holding us back? NOTHING that's what!

In my Life's a Pitch group are George, Ellie, Tom and Frazer - people that I've not really spent a great deal of time around but I know their art style is very different to mine! This project seems like it's gonna be fun since we're all so different, we have different things to bring to the table.
We had 10 minutes to create a business idea! Normally this would have me screaming internally as I'm not very decisive at all! But luckily we had Tom in our group, who is decisive and knows a bit about business - a helpful asset! After some discussion we came up with the idea that for now we've called "Wallustration" (though... this is subject to change) (Wall + Illustration = Wallustration). Which would basically be a service offering bespoke wall art, for venues and events and including a live drawing element.
This idea capitalises on the fact that we have different styles as it gives us more to offer a client!

Product, Context & Function

Product and Packaging

Product: Juice drink cartons

Context: Food packaging / General supermarkets

Function: Appeal to children (by looking fun)

Product: Rum packaging 

Context: General supermarkets 

Function: Decorative, Limited edition poster & box to appeal to tattoo enthusiasts

Product: Tea

Context: Box and tebag wrappers. 

Function: Hold tea, Decorative, appeal to intended audiencs (most likely women, these designs are typically feminine, and feature a female body)  

Caleb Heisey

Product: Liquor packaging

Context: Shops, 

Function: Decorative, Illustrate folk tales, appeal akvavit to an american audience

Product: Tote Bag

Context: online store, conventions

Function: humour, fashion

Product: CD/ Record

Context: Record Sleeve / CD Case, I'd class this as packaging for a CD. Music shops

Function: Communicate the tone of the music, decorative (I've bought CD's based on the cover before)

Character and Narrative

Product: CD Cover and booklet

Context: CD Booklet artwork (?) 'concept art' kind of

Function: Goes along with a concept album, illustrates narrative & characters of the songs

Product: Video game (Fallout) & Paraphernalia 

Context: Mascot for in game corporation "Vault-Tec"

Function: "provides iconic representation of stats in game (skills, perks, etc)", recognisable - can be applied to different products as merchandise. (Bobblehead pictured above) 

Product: Illustration of Gandalf by John Howe 

Context: Book Illustration (& Concept art)

Function: To entertain, to illustrate a scene of a story. (& to base and develop the costume & look of  the film character on) 

Product: Emily Carroll's - "His Face All Red" 

Context: Webcomic, physical publication- Through the Woods, 

Function: To entertain, to scare the audience

Product: Jack Skellington concept art

Context: Nightmare Before Christmas concept art, film production, Disney?

Function: character creation, informing model makers, storyboards & film production.

Editorial and Reportage

Theresa Berens

Product: Omaha World Herald, Editorial Illustration

Context: Newspaper

Function: Set the scene for & 'Illustrate' an article - (This one about the psychology of sad songs) 

Jillian Tamaki

Product: Sunday Review (cover)

Context: Newspaper & online article - Editorial Illustration

Function: Illustrate article about damage on wildlife from hiking & outdoor recreation of humans. 

Inform & Draw in reader. 

Product: Reportage Illustration by Greg Betza

Context: Online blog/ portfolio

Function: Capture the event - The Tour De France 2007

Sebastian Thibault 

Product: Editorial Illustration, for article about learning charisma

Context: Premium Magazine

Function: Illustrate article in a non-literal sense. (quote "Transform yourself into person others want to follow" is features with the image on his website)

Product: Reportage Illustration

Context: personal / initial research for a more final "journalism comic" on human trafficking 

Function: to inform the public and create awareness about human trafficking. 

Publication and Book Design

Product; Through The Woods - Graphic Novel by Emily Carroll

Context: Comic shops, conventions, online 

Function: To entertain, to be scary as heck.

Product: The Anonymous Sex Journal (Masturbation issue, illustrated by Laura Callaghan) 

Context: Specialist art book shops, 

Function: to entertain, (real life) storytelling. 

Product: The Crumpled City Junior - Illustrated Maps for Urban Jungles 

Context: bookshops, travel shops(?), specialist art shops

Function: It's a map! A funky map!

Product: Fold out box / book by Alison Woodward

Context: specialist art bookstores, conventions

Function: to entertain, decorative 

Product: Soppy - Zine by Philippa Rice

Context: conventions, zine fairs, online store 

Function: to entertain, being cute.