This project was a follow on from the "Macro Micro Diary" task, and therefore much of it is based on aspects of that.
There's no sketchbook work for this, unless you count the contents of the diary itself, given I started these whilst doing the diary.
I wanted to do patterns because I enjoy them and I know they're a strong point in my personal work, but I never really can think of many themes.
For example, I did a Stormzy pattern based on the tiny Twitter emoji that shows up for #GSAP (his album), and the little Stormzy head I mindlessly doodled on the cup in the comic about the album. This is nice, but I think highlights one of the problems with this brief- this didn't sell well because there's very little crossover between people who like grime and people who like cutesy stuff. My actual personality and my work don't neccesarily mix?
It also seemed obvious to do some Danny Phantom patterns since a few of the comics and a lot of my personal work at the time (which is included in the project, since it's a diary thing) was related to it. I originally pastisched the art style, before realising that because it was a project relating to me as an artist rather than my love for the art style and ability to pastische, therefore redoing it in my own style and pastels.
I also did two more patterns I didn't use, not because they were bad but I didn't see them selling hugely well.
SOFT BOI is probably my favourite pattern, even though it's quite basic compared to the others. I think it has the most sense of fun and the strongest aesthetic, as well as obviously being an original idea as opposed to simply a pattern based off something I liked.
I also worked on a pattern I wanted for personal branding but which fit into this project nicely.
I'm well-versed in designing for my own personal branding and the business cards I did were relatively simple but I'm pleased with the design. I shall point out my evident fluency in being able to "sell myself" from this.
I turned these patterns into badges, mostly out of ease. I really wanted to make notebooks with them as that's both originally what I designed them for and what I thought they'd sell best on, as well as some of the patterns being too detailed to properly appreciate on a badge. Unfortunately, I barely had money for printing on the uni printers at the time, let alone a run of notebooks. However, I have a badge maker, they're pretty cheap to make and because of their low price and my style of design tending to appeal to younger audiences, as well as their functionality, they also sell pretty well as a general rule.
I also obviously designed a nice table, and brought a minimal amount of other stuff I made of my own accord to sell with it. I would have had prints up too but Roberto told my my display looked too cut off from the rest of the group (because I mean, I love and enjoy uni and I totally want to be associated with the group?? what) and for some reason I listened to him and took it down.
ALSO since I apparently don't evidence it enough, here's what my table set-up looks like for the 20+ events I do every year, as my literal, actual job!
Here's a nice picture from the Metro from Hyperjapan Summer 2016.
And here are some more recent events (February and May 2017 respectively).
The fair went actually went better than expected- I wasn't keen on the venue at all (it was in a police station that had been converted into an art centre) and my class can be easily split by people who don't care and people who care so much they won't listen to other ideas, but people worked surprisingly well together!
Also these are all Insta stories because my phone had no space on it no matter how much stuff I seemed to delete ahah.
The work of the other students was really diverse. The actual event was really cool and inspiring in this sense but I think after I got home, afte taking payments on behalf of other people, thinking about how intensely I was struggling with money (and always am) and how much work I put into this compared to other students, I guess it was pretty depressing. I feel like art comes so naturally to other people and no matter how hard I try, I will always be a step behind them, no matter how good my business plan. I guess part of that does come into my inability to experiement, and I guess I resent that; not having the time or money to try new things and grow as an artist.
I somewhat regret not taking a bigger role in organising because it'll probably negatively affect my grade, but after it became apparent the police station was going to be the venue, I kinda didn't want my name associated with it. That said, I helped out extensively with cleaning the venue (it was Nasty) and worked the till with a girl for the duration of the event (8hrs or so) so I did more than the average and had as much as a say as I wanted to on the layout and working (for example, stipulating that having one or two people working the till was more reliable and safer).
It was a nice and surprisingly lucrative event though, we definitely collectively impressed our tutor and made £1829.50 as a class!
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