Talk by Holly Wales (Illustrator) - Tuesday 11th February

Today Holly Wales came into college to give a talk on her work, clients, methods and offered some really helpful information about the industry. Holly Wales graduated in 2005 and since has worked for many high class clients such as V & A, Esquire, New York Times and Converse to name a few, her style is loose, colourful and playful and she uses felt tip marker pens and collage techniques to make her work.  Holly explained how she responds best to briefs that are more controlled and where the content is provided, for example she explore a lot with the idea of maps as the content already exists.

A really useful point on portfolios was that you should fill your portfolio with the type of work you want to get commissioned and that best suits the needs/theme of your client.  Holly's work also is moving with technology as she is starting to animate her typography in essence with the ipad, she mentioned that illustration really is content driven and obviously you would and may be illustrating things you have never done before or that you hadn't thought of, it's still great experience to try new things and to also constantly be exploring personal work and methods in your own time, for example Holly showed images from her sketchbook of some print exploration using a Riesergraph and Omnipron to produce textures and shapes.

Other interesting points that emerged from today's talk; collaboration is good, being able to apply your work to other surfaces such as cushions will further expand your work and portfolio and that producing a seasonal limited wrapping paper can be a great marketing tool to get your work out there as a starting point.

Below are some images of Holly Wales work and were sourced from: www.hollywales.com