The Scratchards - Part Seven.

A 4 month hiatus since the last update!  I know you've been waiting patiently...

Here's the skinny..

(Catch up posts: The Premise, Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five and 'Six'.)

As we left things in the last post, I successfully Jason Bourned Fruit Towers...

...and now, I was awaiting further feedback following Innocent's lovely social media plugs, huzzah!

As this was churning, I recycled this new campaign to aid my job applications further to the roles that I was applying to - with the hope that it displayed initiative, enthusiasm and shaky camera skills. It was at this point I was 3/4 months into my whirlwind adventure and it was fast dawning on me that my finances were at an anxious all time low from being out of regular work - I needed to sort this and quick.

Now don't get me wrong, since taking on the responsibility of Chief Adventure Extraordinaire - I always had an eye on my finances and because of my escalating popularity I was getting more freelance work in than before, so perhaps it helped mask this impending doom. In particular, the housing company Greystar who specialise in student housing - had been giving me a lot of work over the coming months with a view to take me on a retainer level - which would be ideal.
As well as this, I took on a catering/barman role for the company Hubbub Catering - who I still work for every now and then. They're a fantastic group of people and it was great to have a very good mate as my boss there at the time too.

On a side note, I've discussed this with a few people and I've come to the conclusion that retail and/or bar work should be compulsory for everyone to do. Much like compulsory army service in some countries. You always hear about how difficult and annoying it is to work in retail, with general lack of respect from customers, strenuous tasks, late shifts, generally low pay - if everyone did a year or two in this area your empathy and compassion for shop assistants, bartenders and even other humans will increase ten fold and everyone would respect each other a lot more - maybe this could even lead to world peace? Anyway, I digress..

I had these roles ticking away in the background and I would get stuck into them when called upon, which suited me fine. I work very well in irregular routines and odd hours (I'm currently typing the first draft to this at 9.23pm on a Friday night). Now, the only problem was exactly this, it was all flexible work but inconsistent and unpredictable too. I needed to begrudgingly take something on more of a daily routine (and regular payment) to help me carry on developing my shenanigans.

I'll be the first to admit I definitely placed all my eggs in one basket with Innocent, I just wanted them so bad. We have similar styles and ethos - they seemed keen too. After the beer probe in my last blog post, they seemed to tease me on with nearly monthly email updates saying something similar each time along the lines of 'We're too busy to meet, but soon - we'll organise a meeting" After the 3rd/4th time they did this my patience was dwindling a bit.

(Update 2/10/15:  Innocent got back to me recently and thanked me for the Hellsize Brewing Co beers saying they enjoyed them a lot - they continued to say that they're re-thinking what they need for the creative team at the moment in terms of recruitment and hence why it's taken so long to arrange something. Sounds a bit limbo like so no point in waiting around even more than I need to! Onwards!)

To date I've had nearly 20 job offers from a range of roles and specialisms. Some did genuinely seem interesting and the rest, well, just awful. I've always had a huge gripe about the job market well before this 'social campaign' that I started for myself.

But man, no wonder millennials feel depressed in job searching and even when they are in a job itself. It's that feeling of underachieving in a grossly underpaid role - especially if you're in the creative field.

After a break from direct applications -  I awoke on a bright Monday full of glee. I buckled up and propped myself in front of my laptop with my coffee hand ready clawed around a super large porcelain Starbucks mug. I then commenced to figuratively headbutt my way through tedious clicks, attachments and sycophantic opening lines.

Two days later. I'd gone to 5 interviews.

Without bragging too much I've become pretty good at interviews as you'd come to expect by this point. But this week felt different, I felt a buzz of excitement. 

Then, the Friday hit. Three new job offers. All looked interesting.

The following was my decision making behind the outcome - allow my indulgent thinking out loud but I think it'll be good for me to write and document this - especially now when I'm looking back at it, these were my notes from my notebook so please forgive if tenses are a bit all over the place:



1) hiive - creative hub for opportunities and networking - digital/journalism work looks really fun. Offered full time internship but with a low salary, good networking - proposed increased salary or flexible hours instead. No dice.


2) Gander - start up, coming in as sole creative and right hand man. Seemed very exciting but unpredictable and confused what the exact role would entail. Wanted me in full time freelance which is a bit of an oxymoron - meaning no job security. Money was okay. It's a no from me, strike two.


3) Design Against Crime - now this was an interesting part time role social media/designer role at a research design innovation company based in Central St Martins in Kings Cross. 3 months initially, with good network and opportunity to stay longer. Any sort of social media experience in this day age is gold dust on a CV -could really make the role my own too.

I decided to go for the 3rd option. Now, I'm currently 3 months into and it seems like it's going well, learning new things but I'm keeping my eyes peeled on the horizon.

Especially because I have 2 cards up my sleeve: an idea for my 3rd campaign and an idea for a very big idea for a project which may well involve you, dear reader.

All will become clear in the next few months, in the mean time, let the adventure continue... Until next time..

TTFN.

Making my own luck - starting from scratch.

Aloha!

I was staring at my green tea one morning and it occurred to me. Not only is Saturn fast returning, but it's been a good while since I've done any sort of interesting project. So I decided I wanted to be proactive and do a 'social design experiment' (ohhh err).

When I graduated from art school nearly 5 years ago, we were in the middle of a toxic recession.
Job applying was extremely hard, tedious, depressing and down right nearly impossible for creative types. Despite sending out numerous CV's and portfolios, you would rarely get anything in return. Even getting a reply in the form of a template rejection email was a rare treat.

At the time it encouraged me to go and do my own thing - freelancing and gallery work. These days the economy in general seems in much better shape and jobs are now more readily available. I figured it was a good time to approach this again in a creative way, unique to Jamie Kyle.

Anyone who knows me well knows I'm a sucker for a scratch card. I'm not a betting man in the slightest but as soon as I scratch away that silver foil, I go all giddy inside! I've won okay amounts in the past, the most being £100. I even won £40 on two consecutive cards. That was immense. Even when you win £1 it's exciting. This got me thinking, what if you had a scratch card that you'd always win on? Instead of winning money, what if you won a person? What if that person was an exciting creative?
"What a great prize!" I hear you shout!

Well, that's the concept of my idea - scratch away at a scratch card to reveal my portfolio. Interaction is always a strong tool to grab one's attention, even more so if it shows initiative. I'll be making the whole scratch card from, erm, scratch!

With scratch cards, notice how the odds of winning are displayed on the back, which I feel will ring true in this experiment - the odds of any sort of reply or interest are probably against me, making me very much a human scratch card.

In this case, I'm literally making my own luck.

I'll be sending these out to all sorts of companies: global, corporate, design, illustration, editorial and music to spread my odds (pun intended). I'll send these all out via post, everyone loves receiving post don't they?

Depending on the replies and the amount of interaction I receive, I'd like to display the results - perhaps as an infographic - but we'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

Let's see who takes a gamble (Pun also intended).

I've worked on this project for the past 2 months, updating this blog post as I've gone along so apologies if tenses are a bit all over the place. 

So, here's the skinny - the card stock and design I'll have no problem with. It's the scratch-able silver foil which will be the challenge. I managed to find this helpful online step by step guide how to do it with basically uses washing up liquid and acrylic paint. Photos below:

I tried the mixture with two types of paint to see which was better suited, I wanted to avoid any colour other than grey/silver to give a more realistic silver foil finish. When I was at home for Xmas my Mother had at a hand the perfect metallic silver that I needed.

Thanks to a suggestion by my Father I even tried a silicone gel to see if that would have a more beneficial finish/setting quality.

Mixed results, the silver paint coming through nicely but definitely needs several more coats. Promising all the same.

Decided to stick to the silver and introduce the silicone gel to a batch (the sample on the right above). As you can see, it did not take at all, it just congealed with the paint and didn't spread at all in the slightest, which was a shame. Oh well, I'll miss the strong ammonia smell.

Few more coats later and I decided to scratch away. The finished looked good, but as soon as I started scratching it all went to hell. It's definitely down to the coated paper, I have a feeling it absorbs too much of the liquid and would prefer a surface that lets it sit on top of it better, either by using a gloss or matt finish with a thicker stock.

Found a matt stock at 160gsm which was thinner than I wanted, printed onto to it to give a test run.

A few coats and a scratch later and really great results. The mega downside to this though is that once I apply the foil mixture it goes really wavy. Need to try and flatten it or find a thicker stock to accommodate the moisture and at the same time be thin enough to be able to be printed through my printer.

A teaser:

 

Mysterious...

I settled on a garish design fairly quickly, threw in a couple of foxes to keep it relative to me. In the picture above: Left is 160gsm card, middle is 300gsm card with the scratch-away answer on a separate piece of 160gsm which is stuck on top  of the thicker stock and on the right is 300gsm.

All foiled up.

Worked on all 3! Pleasantly surprised by this. The least convincing card is the thickest stock which is the bottom sample in the picture above, it was practically tearing apart when I was doing it. But the 'compromise' card in the middle is my favourite. Overall, this will mean a bit more work for me to do but glad it's worked.

I also decided to try it on a gloss finish stock, which ultimately would be a closer match to an actual scratch card aesthetic. Despite the much better aesthetic it became too wavy for a finish product so I'll combine the two stocks = Print the silver foiled answer on the matt stock and the scratch card on the gloss.  Hurrah!

Getting down to print.

First coats.

About 4 coats in.

Looking good.

Ta daaaaaaaa.

Corr.

All addressed and stamped.

Each one will have a shiny tuppence too. I'm practically giving money away!

So here we are. All ready to send. 52 envelopes. So like I mentioned earlier, I'll be sending them to different types of companies with the likes of: corporate, design, editorial, illustration, advertising and music. In all honesty I'm just really intrigued to see who will take the bait and get in contact.

If you're an agency or company who came across this post thanks to the scratch card, make sure you say hi! Drop me an email at jkdraws@gmail.com with your thoughts.


If you're a pal or kind stranger, I urge you to share this post too. G'wan, pretty please.


Let's see what happens!


Until next time.

Trending insight and freelance advice yo

Well hello,

I realized the other day that I haven't posted here for about a month, I want to apologize to my dedicated fans (Mother) and give an insightful reason why that's been the case.

Well this past month has been crazy busy, I've been making out card orders and invoices, 4 artwork commissions and a host of other small bits and bobs that made me lose track of this beloved blog.

Then it occurred to me.

It's April. Of course. It's so bloody obvious!

I'll elaborate, (slightly nodding to a previous blog post about trends) I've noticed after the last few years of doing freelance (coupled with working in an art gallery/retail environment) That times of the year peak. It seems obvious now you think of it, different parts of the year are obviously more popular than some parts, with some being in particular very slow and inactive. I have made this rather amazing crude line chart based on my experiences, to give a better visual example to what I mean:

You can see that the most popular time of year is April and November - December.

April - beginning of the new tax year, people will be tight leading up to this but soon as you pass go again, it all kicks off.

November - December: Leading up to Christmas, hugely popular and busy.

Least popular months are January and July.

January - Everyone will be a bit sore after Xmas and the New Year, so wouldn't necessarily indulge in art and design bits and bobs.

July - This is a bit of a vague one as June and August can apply too - it's holiday season. The majority of people would rather spend their hard earned cash on a break away and with a few cheeky cocktails in the sun.

Like I said it's seems completely obvious when you notice it, and explains why freelancing in a creative career can not only feel massively inconsistent but can also feel like your career is a living manic depression.

Point is - for anyone who'd like to take my advice that is - don't get discouraged. It's bloody hard, but helping notice the trend in your field (I do feel that chart above can apply to a lot of different areas) can help you address where you need to improve. For me, I needed something that sold consistently which is how the greeting cards came about - because everyone has a birthday! This has proved to be a successful venture as I've sold 480 cards in the past 12 months (more than a card a day!) I'm sure you can find your 'greeting card'..

 

Anyway, enough of me trying to solve life's problems. I'm going to do a follow up blog post later in the week so you can get your fill of stimulant for your visual palette. 

Apologies for a more wordier blog entry than usual - it feels good have to a small break from making/thinking about visuals to be honest. But nonetheless reminds me of what my old tutor used to say me at art school, in his thick Belfast accent:

"We're visual animals Jamie! We need to be taught how to read but not how to look"

Until next time. Toodle do.

Recently..

I've been working a lot at the gallery in my extended role and neglected this space, so I decided I would do a post about the design aspects I do at For Arts Sake. I'll start with the a-boards. I design visuals for the a-boards, an a-board is basically a double sided poster in a typically wooden frame that stands outside the gallery (I did a post about the Mother's Day a-board which went down a treat) The most recent ones I've done are:

This was our Olympic a-board, offering discounts in the form of medals.

This a-board went up earlier in the week, was really pleased with this as I just wanted to create something simple and bold for our newest exhibition based on London.

(Better pictures of both a-boards here )

I also completely forgot I did this little hand-drawn sign for Father's Day. I've been trying to teach myself calligraphy which is a bit stop and start at the moment but I thought I'd give it a go on this. 

It turned out fairly alright although I was a bit gutted it was thrown away straight after Father's day!

Pencil outlines.

Typically you would use a proper calligraphy pen but I pulled it off fine with a big ol' juicy marker.

I just wanted to post this little video up too, it's one of my new roles at the Hendon workshop in which I use the mount cutter for framing jobs. I've become used to it now and you get a great sense of satisfaction and achievement when you understand how a new machine works. I made loads of mistakes to begin with and feared I almost broke it on a couple of occasions or that it was about to explode - it uses a compressor which you have to switch on/off to relieve pressure for it otherwise it will actually explode which wasn't a great thing to be told when I would be working by myself the following day.. 

So I always had an anxious wait/half of my foot out the door whenever I turned it on as it would go like 'ffffffffffffffffffffffffffiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii' for a couple minutes then 'POMF' when it was done. 

The 'POMF' was the worst part. 

Just as you're getting used to the 'fffffffffffffffffffffffffiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii' in the background the 'POMF' would interrupt like an annoying dangerous friend. Make you jump 3 feet in the air and then you open your eyes to reveal that you're still alive.. close call this time..

One of my other main roles is now bringing For Arts Sake into the 21st Century by fine tuning them into the world of online social networking. The blog I set up has made good progress so far and can be found here . Also, the Facebook and Twitter accounts have been developing at a steady pace so please check them out.

But yeah, I've had a few job offers recently which is great as this summer has been a very quiet period in terms of freelancing, just realized it was about this time last year I was assisting on that Samsung animation. So there'll be more exciting news to follow soon, smell ya later!