GRAPHIC GURU EVENT.

Yesterday afternoon the first (I think there’s more to come) Graphic Guru’s even took place in college, where tutors had selected a small number illustrators that had graduated from Stockport that are now working successfully in the professional trade of illustration. This talented bunch of people consisted of Chris Madden, Ben Jones, Liam Bardsley, Natalie Wood, Rose Lloyd and Pete Adlington. They’d been asked to talk to the third years to open our eyes a bit to what we had to come and share their tales of experiences in the real world working with clients and live briefs. If you haven't already seen their work, have a jump over to their sites as they're all amazing at what they do!

It was a really good experience to be able to go around and casually chat to each of them about what they were currently working on, previous work, what they were interested in and their inspirations and motivations. We didn’t really have massive amounts of time but I still gained some good tips when dealing with clients through their own personal experiences with studio visits and art directors. It was nice to hear it face to face from them and that sometimes it doesn’t always run the smoothest but you learn from the little mistakes and build up more confidence as time progresses (not too much though).

After working our way around each of the illustrators we were then separated into smaller groups and assigned to one “Graphic Guru”. I was incredibly lucky to be placed under the watchful eye of Chris Madden, which I’m massively happy about. As well as being  in reality, really talented he’s a genuinely nice, down to earth person that I’ve met a few times before and be full of quality advice along with …. Criticism. The idea of Chris’ role is to act as a sort of mentor over the next coming months that we’re able to contact in relation to our work, I shall try to my hardest not to pester.

I’m really looking forward to the remaining time in third year and feel that with the confidence of having a Guru to aid my pleas it should hopefully work out just nice.