How Innocent am I?

Following from Part Five of the scratch card saga, I decided to go for an extra effort in order to entice Innocent drinks to meet with me after a few months worth of delays.

They'd been in contact twice, but nothing really materialised from the emails we exchanged - it seemed they had every intention to meet me but couldn't find the time.

I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I wanted to create a new prop that would grab their attention once more and get this chin wag in full force. In collaboration with Hellsize Park Brewing Co (here's their Twitter link too), I obtained a few of their tasty beers with an idea to deliver them to Innocent personally. 
In the package there are: 
2 x Phantom Urns (IPA)
2 X Bonestorm Boc (Bock) 
2 x Pedigree Chum (Pilsner). 
A fine selection brewed by Josh of Hellsize and all designed & branded by myself and compatriot Louis Valenzuela. 

So the thinking for this is similar to when I did the scratch cards - everyone loves to receive post. Everyone also loves Friday beers. It's not bribing...

I wanted to make something hand held and individual to package the beers in - my own packaging with a personal touch. I'm all about hand made and hand crafted artwork - I do believe personable and hand made items speak volumes in terms of thought and skill. For me, it would have felt very easy and fake to get a design printed onto a case - I like to see the paint strokes of a painting by the artist kind of thing, you know? My main man Saul Bass touches a bit about this:

Did a bit of ideas generation to get the juices going:

Even did a Periscope broadcast when I was painting - even more surprising is that people ACTUALLY watched it. 27 to be in fact. Which is also my lucky number. I can't say they're anybody I know personally but I'm massively flattered and creeped out in equal measures. This can be watched but only on mobile phones, if you want to hear me blabber to myself.

Got me box from the local Oddbins. Time to paint!

I wanted to create a chargrilled look, as if the box had just been freshly branded with a red hot iron in HELL.

Few more smarter and finished shots:

The finishing touches:

I added a consignment note and letter to make sure it would be well received and not be just a random samples delivered to the company.

Then I was on my way!

So here I was, a faux courier. Dressed suitably in all black with a leather jacket, I was half tempted to borrow a helmet to make the appearance a little bit more convincing but decided against it I think it would've looked quite silly and anonymous hopping on off public transport and walking on foot in London..

Cheeky snapchat.

I was absolutely bricking it at this point. I envisioned the worse case scenario, security being called, dropping the bottles, a car chase, spilt smoothies etc. I didn't know what to expect in all honesty. Below is a video of the act, you'll have to excuse the vertical filming and terrible camerawork. I was trying to be incognito..

What I was going for:



More like:



Following from my blog post in Part Five, I mentioned Innocent in the blog and it notified them. A mini dialogue begun:

I continued the dialogue before and after my sneaking shenanigans:

Yep. Definitely.

 Now I wait....

To be continued...

The Scratch cards - Part Five.

Here we are at Part Five.

If you need any catching up, here is the Original post as well as the sequels in Part One, Two, Three and Four.


Jumping off the overground, I swaggered into the familiar village-esque area of Forest Hill and knocked on the doors to my latest interview at Place in Print,  a company who specialise in word play and location/geography artwork, which if you know me well is right up my street. 

I was a whole 5 minutes early.

The owner, Ed, answers the door. A sudden look of surprise spreads across his face. 

"Oh! You're... early!" He exclaims.

There I stood, all smug. I'm a man who prides himself on his punctuality and usually shames people on being late. 
Finally! Some recognition for my timekeeping!

He continues.

"I thought we said next Friday?"

"Ah!"

Oh I'm early, a week early. We had a case of classic email miscommunication that both of us agreeing to meet on a Friday... but not the same one.

It kind of reminds me of a miscommunication I had once when I was referred to as 'Ms Kyle' in an email. I can only assume that this was because of my unisex forename. 
The cheek - I didn't even get the chance to be called a 'Miss'! Humph.

But regardless of this we ended up having a great chat, I'd highly recommend checking them out as a company as they have great work and a great attitude. 
Unfortunately, this opportunity didn't work out for me. Ed seemed to like what I had to offer but he mentioned that there had been over 80 applicants for this new position in his currently, one man company. That's massive competition. It makes you think that what sort of numbers you're up against for the bigger companies - two, three times that? More? It really puts the creative job market into perspective. 

Are we churning out too many creatives or do we not have enough jobs for them?

Cheers, Conservative Party.

Next up - I had been liaising with the creative lead at Innocent via email for about 2 weeks now trying to squeeze in a date to meet, kept being pushed back and back until things had to be put on hold until April 30th as they had a holiday booked. So unfortunately I was put back into limbo.

But fortunately for me, I also had a trip booked. I was invited by a friend to go for a long weekend in Athens. That's one benefit of having time off, you can scour for cheap flights and go on them when you want. Good food and shenanigans - with one perk of the trip being taken along to the Olympiakos women's water polo semi final. It was quite the experience:

When I returned I had an interview with Havas Work Club with one of the creatives there called Dan.

This was the view as I waited, they hired an illustrator to re-create all of Bart Simpsons chalkboard detentions. The illustrator hired even dressed up as Bart too!

We had an awesome chat and got along really well. Dan said he liked the cut of my jib and liked my work - which was great. Only criticism and it has been mentioned before is that there's not enough digital/campaign/social media work in my portfolio, which is true. This slightly irks me as these kind of campaigns are usually obtainable once you're in the job - it's a slight catch 22. It's not the end of the world by any means but it's no where near as bad as when 'Junior' roles that were advertised in 2010 needed to have 2-3 years experience (!!).

Regardless, it seems like this is the main weakness of my 'folio - so I'm pursuing some set briefs to tackle this and make it a bit more well rounded. Dan was awesome enough to give me a few pointers which I've happily taken on board and I'm grateful for.

All in all, I've had to reflect on this whole experience. The scratch card saga has lasted about 3-4 months now, the sails aren't as full as they were but I'm recycling the campaign further into new job applications which is still giving me exposure.

When I started this, I had 2 goals I wanted to achieve:

a) Increase my profile and exposure as an illustrator.

b) Get a brand spanking new job.

I can definitely say (A) has been completed. I've obtained crazy exposure, attention, commissions, contacts, you name it. It's been great and so much fun.

Now, (B) hasn't been achieved just yet - I did anticipate this may take a bit more time - especially for a creative role - and I've been very diligent and patient towards this goal in particular.

The dream job I want is to work for Innocent. I've been in and out of contact with them over these past few months without much flourishing from it. 

I'm going to get them.

I thought of an interesting allegory. My scratch card project has been like me qualifying for the Olympics. I'm here now at the games, now I need to win the Gold medal. 

So I'm making 'something' to really get Innocent's attention...


I'll be talking to Innocent whether they like it or not.

Stay tuned for later this week...

The Scratch Cards - Part Four.

Right! Part Four! If you need any catching up here is Part One, Part Two and Part Three. Here we go:


I got in contact with a company called Dirt and Glory, based in the Havas Work Club in London Bridge. They had an exciting new role as a Social Media Creative which sounded like the type of gig I was looking for. I met with the co-founder (they're literally a company of 2 right now) who was very pleasant and an added bonus he was a Gooner! They needed a creative type and I seemed like the perfect fit - clearly impressed by my scratch card project and saw the potential I could bring to this sort of role. They wanted to bring me in as the 'first man of the hour'.

It sounded exciting, it'd be part time so flexible with my own work, a decent day rate and exciting projects on the horizon. Could this be it? I left the interview with the conclusion that an offer will be sent over the weekend and we'd go from there. Jolly good, off on my way to a merry weekend.

Continuing my search (always safe to cover your bases) I was pointed in the direction of Whistles thanks to my pal Chloe - they were looking for maternity cover for a Junior graphic designer role - I had a solid telephone interview and was invited into their head office for a more in depth one on one interview - which seemed to go down very well and I felt fairly confident about it afterwards.

It was similar to the majority of roles that I've been applying to - digital design that is needed and popular for the requirements of todays modern companies. Work like layouts, web stuff, mock ups, product shots, touching up etc. For the most part and forgive me for sounding blunt, I don't find this very entertaining. However, an opportunity to learn and develop on skills should never be dismissed.

I'm by no means a natural choice for these kind of roles as my background is more of a left wing one stemming from illustration and design. Which unfortunately is likely to go against me - but I think it's important to maintain an element of individuality in your work rather than just be a 'Mac Monkey' like the rest of the designers out there looking for work.

But nonetheless, you should keep your options open.

I was tucking into some new beer label designs for Hellsize Park Brewing Co. on a Friday night when my email icon spun into action. Surprised and curious, I opened this rogue email straight away- who sends an email at this time? Shouldn't people be out socialising and doing things? He said, lurching over his laptop and tablet in dim lighting. To my surprise, an animal had got in touch called Stevie. Stevie The Fox to be exact.

Now, if you hadn't heard of Stevie The Fox - it's on trend with cafe's of a similar theme that are featuring animals. You heard of the cat cafe's, owl cafe's and yep, you guessed it - this was the Fox one.

They needed me. They came across my work and noticed my enthusiasm for foxes - they saw me as a perfect fit to design their logo for their shop and merch. I jumped at the chance. They needed a logo for Monday morning. This was an incredibly tight turnover but in my excited state I churned it out in record time by Saturday afternoon, much to the delight of Stevie. The logo is below:

A few days past and I was super excited at the prospect of my shiny new logo being on a cafe front and on various merchandise. Look at me, all shop front famous. 

But unfortunately for both Stevie and I, bad news struck. Stevie up until this point had overwhelming attention, a mixture of excited glee of the idea of playing with some tamed foxes, (and a few other critters too) excited curiosity and concern.
The concerns over the welfare and safety of the animals for their duration in this East London cafe was rising, in which campaigners against it assumed it would take the form of like a Cafe Nero with a few cages thrown in. Matters got out of hand, as campaigners got louder and ultimately compromised poor old Stevie, he was left with no choice but to shut down this exciting project before it even opened. Stevie goes on to talk about it more here in this blog post explaining why he decided to close.

There was certainly no malicious intent behind this project, but never mind, life goes on. I'm sure this won't be the last time we hear of Stevie The Fox..

Back to the search, a couple of weeks had passed and there was still nothing concrete from Dirt and Glory, had one phone call saying that we're still both keen to get things rolling - but nothing serious yet.. Granted that a small start up business will be extremely busy but time's getting on. There's only so much waiting one can do..

A few days ago I was hanging out with my good buddy Will and I got a buzz from my gmail app.

It was an email from the creative team at Innocent, they're back! They want to meet...

To be continued in Part Five...

The Scratch cards - Part Two.

All this exposure was immense, I got other notable mentions from Design Taxi and Elite Daily which was beyond fantastic. There were numerous Twitter accounts who post and re-post Buzzfeed articles constantly, this probably explains how I got articles about me in France, Netherlands and Estonia.
The Estonian link in particular was actually one of the most in trafficked articles to my blog - usually my audience is predominately the UK or US in terms of stats, but Estonia completely leap frogged USA by a couple of hundred views.

Maybe I should go there for a job?

Estonia, if you ever need a honourable Eurovision contestant you know who to call.

I was feeling pretty good about myself - look at me, all internet famous.

 But it's a fickle limelight. It got quiet for a few days again, I was waiting for another ripple in the ocean...

I continued to be patient and carried on with my otherwise 'standard' job searches. I was given an interview by an entertainment company called Sternberg Clarke as a content writer/blogger of sorts. This would be a fun job - getting paid to go to events etc. I confidently took the interview and felt great about it, making sure to showcase my new found internet fame in the interview itself too. The show off.

I took the bus after the interview - my phone buzzed with excitement - a new update on the scratch cards.

I got an email from the Editor-in-chief of Dash Magazine NoéMie Schwaller:

I did think at one point that some of the scratch cards would get lost in the post but didn't think there would be a penny thieving postman on the loose. Will our streets ever be safe? Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves..

Regardless, I was really happy with the email and NoéMie was kind enough to instagram this to her followers on the DASH account and her personal account:

That's not all - about an hour later I got another instagram mention in the form of the lovely shop Lik+Neon off Brick Lane:

Super sweet,  I'm currently talking to the owner about showcasing my greeting cards there which is great. These responses were definitely more what I wanted; exposure, opportunities and that horrid word... networking!


I'm a firm believer that there's always 2 sides to every coin, so everything good must have something bad. Any praise should have criticism too. I had an abundance of praise up until now and karma was kicking in and knocking on my door. I was due my comeuppance to restore the equilibrium, this took the form of popular aggregator site Reddit, which some of you may be familiar with.

It's a fun site with the latest memes, articles and jokes. It's self described as 'the front page of the internet'. As much as this can be a fun site, the members or 'Redditors' or 'Le Reddit Army' are widely known for being absolute trolls. I naively put a link on their Design section, thinking I could get more praise and feedback on the scratch cards.

Oh man, was I wrong.

Within a couple of hours I got a tirade of abuse in the form of about 70 comments or so. It was a lot to take in and quite frankly a bit upsetting how personal the abuse got. The majority of the people commenting missed the point of my project in that I intentionally designed a garish looking scratch card to capture attention of prospective employers and that was my goal.
I'm a designer who majored in illustration and quite often consider myself an Artist rather than a Designer, whereas in this section of Reddit lurk pure typographers who scrutinise everything. You could say they were jealous and perhaps they were, but there's no point dwelling in negative interactions.

DoWn WiTh ThE hAtErZzZz!!  Onwards and upwards!



Earlier I mentioned how NoéMie instragrammed my scratch cards for me, to top this treat I got an email from DASH a week later inviting me along to their fashion launch for their SS15 issue. 

Look at me all fashiony and that.

Thrown in the deep end for sure! As you're all completely aware already - I have fantastic (Kyle) style so I'll be able to slot in fine visually, but this is to the next level in terms of networking. 

Unfortunately I had no plus one on my invite, which would make breaking the ice ten times easier. Undeterred, I ventured to Holborn, ready with my conversational quips.

"So.. clothes eh?"
"We have so much in common! I like to wear them daily."
"Black is so in"


(Disclaimer - I thankfully didn't say any of that, here are some snaps)

Fashion people!

Clothes!

Clothes! Fashion!

Fashion!

It was a very unique experience, which I really enjoyed. For the life of me I couldn't find NoéMie but I managed to make small talk and hand out a few business cards so not all was lost. The event photographer followed me for a bit and was snapping away at me. Nailing the Kyle style. Then another guy asked me to hold the events sponsored soft drink called Laimon, so there's a photo somewhere lurking in the world of me posing with a can of lemonade. Alright! If any photos happen to float about I'll make sure to stick them up here.

(Edit: 16/03/2015 - only gone and found the photo haven't I!)

The adventure continues in the next episode: Budapest, interviews, modelling, despair, excitement and more in Part Three..

The Scratch cards - Part One.

It's been a manic few weeks to say the least.

I thought I'd start elaborating and explaining the events that have happened to me in sequential blog posts - this post is about the initial response and reception to the scratch cards I sent out:


Initially, I got nothing.

I sent all the scratch cards in the post with 2nd class stamps, this was mostly to be cost effective but forgot how slow they travel. About 5 days had passed and I feared the worse and that it didn't work in the slightest. "All the effort of doing this, for nothing!" I said to myself, cradling myself in the foetal position.

But then, a light. I got a tweet.

Michael Acton Smith OBE is CEO and founder of kids entertainment company Mind Candy and Moshi Monsters. Both really cool and creative companies. My Twitter essentially snowballed from there. Lots of tweets, retweets, favourites meaning I amassed approximately 70 new followers in the space of a week or so. Absolutely bananas.

Within a few hours of this tweet, I received an email:

Declan sent me over some questions which I answered in excited glee. A few hours later it was a live Buzzfeed article.

Probably the only time I'll be in between Jaden Smith and Benedict Cumberbatch.

From there, I got mountains of congratulations in messages and emails. It's been really amazing and overwhelming how many people were pleased for me, I'm incredibly touched.

THEN from here - I got a message through an old friend asking if I wanted to go onto London Live for a TV interview. 

It was all rather surreal. A cab picked me up the next morning at 5.30 am and I went off to telly land.

TV land.

The green room with appropriately green chairs.

Living the high life with all the instant free goodies.

The other guest in our slot was an exotic animals handler. Managed to play with a snake and a gecko!

(Blurry) Security pass.

On the telly - click here to watch.

Oh dear. Not too impressed with that last shot.

It was an hourly segment in the news show which was repeated meaning I did the same interview 3 times with slightly differing questions. What an experience! The first time round I was fine, I was actually a little nervous the second time round but otherwise it was an absolute adrenaline rush.

As if that wasn't enough, that afternoon when I got home I got another email:

To be continued in Part Two...