Jack Teagle

An illustrator working on mostly editorial and narrative illustration. Worked on comics, t-shirts and posters during his university days and still continues to work on these things for clients such as Nobrow and working on live briefs and competitions for Anorak magazine and The Guardian.

He is inspired by Japanese things and badly drawn comics, and loves to collect toys and ‘Lucha Libre’ ephemera. He is also inspired by artists and illustrators like Gary Baseman and Ryan Heshka, drawing upon their painterly and comic styles.

He has a very bold and cartoony style, that looks almost childlike but his experience is shown is shown through the story telling details and the strong character building. Its clear that his style is heavily influenced by all the things he is interested in, and it makes the illustrations much more vibrant and imaginative. 

He experimented with screenprinting throughout university and did a lot of self published books and sketch booking to develop his style and begin to get a name for himself.  He then began to play with toys and editing them, which influenced his work further and also kept a blog that helped him to keep in touch with other people and students.

He then began to work on a painted style and this continues till now and works alongside his digital work. He got interested in narrative painting and developed characters inspired from his travels. He finished uni and grabbed any work he could before signing on to job seekers allowance to aid his work.

After a while he began to get a lot of work and offers for clients like Nobrow and got his places at a specialist gallery exhibition at Nobrow of his work. He also had a few other gallery offers and some poster work for other clients from his agent ‘D&AD’. He worked alongside other artists on a collaborative comic called ‘Spera’ and worked on a comic for Nobrow.

He took every opportunity that was going and did alot of work for a wide range of people, particularly aiming to grab high profile clients to increase his exposure and now considers to be on the right path and things are going well.

He advised to keep copyrights on illustrations to help keep them safe and provide extra income by selling off the rights. He also said to keep blogging and doing any work you can to get yourself noticed. ‘Keep your fingers in as many pies as you can’, meaning to go for it, and work your way up in the illustration world by doing everything and being everywhere.

Overall It was good to meet a working illustrator and listen to the trails and tribulations of an upcoming artist. There was some really good advice and things to think about. Ill defiantly take on board the idea of doing any competitions or live briefs to get myself noticed and help develop the way I work.

Assertiveness and Negotiation Skills

Aggressive behaviour- The belief is that your personal rights are more important than those of others.

A tendency for I win/you lose solutions/situations

 A tendency to-

·         manipulate

·         steam roller

·         coerce

Passive Behaviour- The belief is that your personal rights are less important than those of others.

A tendency for you win/I lose solutions/situations.

 A tendency not to influence but to:

·         go along with things/people

·         not object openly

·         say, “I knew that would happen”.

Assertive Behaviour- The belief is that your personal rights are as important as those of others.

a tendency for win/win solutions/situations

 a tendency to influence by:

·         seeing from the other person's viewpoint

·         looking for benefits for all

·         trying to overcome problems.

Assertiveness techniques-

Broken Record- A Request is repeated over and over again until desired response is obtained, or a workable compromise is reached.

Fogging- Training yourself to stay calm in the face of criticism and rob the critics works of their destructive power.

Negative Assertion- Agreeing with parts of criticism that are valid but without getting your self down because of it.

Negotiation tips-

·         Plan carefully for negotiations

·         Prepare targets and fall-back positions

·         Be prepared to compromise

·         Know when to make concessions

·         Be aware of the other party and their body language

·         Know when to put your cards on the table

Skills and Pros and Cons

Examples of transferable skills, and skills essential for working successfully-

• Communication
• Organisation
• Time Management
• Teamwork
• Patience
• Felixibility
• Determination
• Practical Skills and Knowledge
• Responsibility
• Ability to follow instructions
• Interpersonal Communication [Thinking of others around you]

Pros and Cons of possible future careers-

Games Designer/Concept Artist-

Pros

1. Prolific area of work, ie. a wide range of jobs.
2. Good financial opportunities
3. Incorporates a range of skills, from animation to 3d modeling.

Cons

1. Can be very technical and time consuming.
2. Constantly updating software.
3. Not much exposure for individuals. [Can get lost amoungst a big corporation]

Freelance Illustrator-

Pros

1. Allows yourself to take on a wide range of work
2. Can be very rewarding.
3. Work on projects you feel comfortable with. 

Cons

1. Have to be very self motivated.
2. Working on your own dosent suit everyone.
3. Can be hard to get yourself known.

Art Lecturer/Teacher-

Pros

1. Rewarding area of work
2. Work in school hours ands school year, so can be good if you have a family.
3. Dynamic and changing work, dealing with different things everyday. [Could be exciting]

Cons

1. Could be quite stressful, and have to put in alot of work.
2. Depending on age of students, can be difficult to work with.
3. Big responsibilities. 

Self Promotion strategies

All the different kinds of Self Promotion out there...

Self Promotions Pros and Cons

Blogs/Twitter etc

• Quick and easy, anyone can set one up
• Can put up a new post in seconds
• Can be viewed by most people [with an internet connection]
• Mobile devices ever more compatible with such services to make it even easier to view/post
• Blogs can be easily modified to show off creativity and personality
• Twitter can be used for instant broadcasting to a wide audience
• Its FREE!

• Blogs can only be commented upon/followed if you are a member [Same for Facebook and DeviantART]
• Can be hard to get noticed
• Its hard to find the real person [many copy cats out there, particularly on twitter]
• Not accessible to people with no internet, successfulness of the blog etc depends on target audience
• Self censorship, have to be careful what you say/post sometimes
• Susceptible to 'Trolls', people who just post random rubbish and spam

Business Cards

• Small and formal 
• Can come in many different forms
• Fairly Cheap to buy in bulk
• Can make them however you like
• Something tangible that the client can keep hold of for future offers
• Can be easily distributed

• If you've got no money at all, then its not easy to print them
• Can easily be thrown away
• Depends on client/audience whether its a successful way to promote [young kids aren't likely to hold on to them for long]

Sticker Bombing

• Depending on audience, It can be a quick and fairly cheap way to promote
• Instant inpact, will get message across quickly

• Generally frowned upon, if not illegal
• Stickers size limits information
• Susceptible to weather conditions... eg. Rain
• Wont work for everyone

Postcards

• Much like business cards, easily distributed
• Bigger then said cards, so more information can be communicated
• Allot of people collect postcards 
• People may be more likely to spend a little money on a postcard beachwear they could be seen as small prints
• Fairly Cheap, depends on paper quality which may affect its successfulness
• Could be found everywhere, shop windows, art fairs etc.

• Not everyone's cup of tea
• Easily thrown away
• Still not much space to put information, have to be sensible what image to use as it may be all the potential client will see of your work
• Free postcards are great, but charge for them and it may not be as successful
• Can be expensive, depends on paper etc.

Competitions

• Big competitions can give great coverage and promotion, but do have to be prepared to put in the work
• There is always a competition running somewhere
• Cash prizes are always great
• Other prizes can really boost career and aid production of art [eg, art materials]
• National recognition, depending on competition

• You don't always win [obviously]
• Some competitions can put an extra workload ontop of current uni work/illustration work
• Have to be very self motivated