Artist: Tim Smith
Website: mypoorbrain.com
Hi Tim how are you? Can you tell us a little more about yourself?
Hi. My name is Tim, I was born and bred in a small town in North Wales, after which I studied Graphic Design at the University of Gloucestershire. After completing my degree, I took a year out to work on some self promotion including my (old) website. However, I soon became side-tracked with internships in London as well as some design competitions and freelance work. I now live and work in London. I have an interest in film and music, frequently attending gigs and cinemas. I enjoy the great outdoors and would love to be able to work from the country one day
Great, I think self promotion is key to being a successful illustrator, how did you go about it? What worked? And did anything backfire horrifically?
Yeah, I think so too. I took some time creating a website that was a little unusual, I wanted it to stand out from the crowd and be remembered. Some people were really excited by it, while others found it very hard to use, and couldn’t find the work on there, so I guess it both worked and backfired. I’ve learnt from that mistake, so my new site is very easy to use, though I couldn’t resist having some sort of quirk to it. I backed up the website with some teaser postcards which I had printed professionally and sent to over 300 creatives, industry professionals and media, followed up with emails. I think the recipients really appreciated this “three-pronged attack”, they saw it as a professional and well thought out approach that also allowed them to view my work instantly. Better than cold calling at least.
I was also fortunate enough to win a couple of awards which drew a lot of people to my site and led to acquiring Orange as a client.
What advice would you give to the new wave of art & design grads who are looking for work, and maybe feeling a bit lost?
Well one very important thing is to make sure you have some sort of presence online, be it your own website or a sample of your work on a portfolio site. Sounds obvious but it’s amazing how many creatives still don’t do this and with so many online portfolio sites and website building sites these days there’s no excuse.
Keep your eye on the industry and try to get featured on the many design blogs, putting your name out there can help acquire clients, and if you do a good job first time they’re likely to keep coming back to you.
If they’re looking for full time employment it’s worth researching what sort of company they want to work for if they haven’t already. Design agencies can vary greatly. Try and get hold of the creative director or the person responsible for hiring and see if they can do an internship. Sometimes these can turn into full time positions.
For those who don’t know, what is involved, or what is expected of you whilst doing a internship? and what would you say is the best way of funding yourself in a city like London whilst spending most of your time working for free?
Internships can differ greatly from company to company, I know this because my experiences are different to everyone else’s I know has done work experience in the industry. Strangely I noticed that coffee and tea making isn’t all that prevalent these days. Expect everything from the mundane like cutting out over 100 animal photos to the exciting like coming up with concepts for the likes of PlayStation. Even though you’re on an internship and you’re being paid pittence, if you want to impress you should behave like you’re a fully fledged member of staff, so work late nights if it helps the team. For this reason I wouldn’t recommend doing any part time work to fund your internship. Sleep on mates floors, be economical with your spending, that said most companies these days will cover your costs which include travel and lunch.
I did find my internships useful, just to get to know the process of working in the industry and getting to know London if nothing else. The real lessons are learnt in the first few years in the industry, in fact I’m still learning today.
Speaking of lessons, you want to set the creature fans some homework? (tell them to do something creative, its great fun!)
Think of a message you frequently find out and about that is usually very dull, anything that communicates a message in a really uninteresting way, such as spam or a “No ball games allowed” sign for example, and turn it into something exciting. I set myself this brief once before.
Well, You heard the man, get working! Send us what you’ve done here.
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