Sleep 2: The Sleepquel.

Blowing the dust away from this sleepy blog, here's the second instalment of my Sleep series. 

The first one can be found here. Enjoy!

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...

General Election 2015 - The next televised debate.

The Scratch cards - Part Three.

Here we are at the third chapter of the scratch card saga, it's been quite an adventure so far hasn't it?

If you need any reminders click here for the first part and the second part.

Anyway, in the middle of all this scratch card action I actually had a holiday booked to Budapest with a couple of mates  - a welcome break amongst all the paparazzi and media attention.

You could say it was the Budabest..

*tumbleweed*

Upon my return I got a better idea to the conclusion of the Innocent Drink's situation - basically, if they had the space they would have me in. After talking to a few people in the business it was clear to the fact that this is because they're owned by Coca Cola.

But what do you mean? I hear you ask. Surely, if you're owned by the world's biggest conglomerate, they'd be plenty of room for financial and personnel leeway?

Quite the opposite in fact.

Coca Cola were brought in to help manage and control finances better within the company - if anything when they bought Innocent they had to let people go. If Innocent were still the independent company they once were then obviously they'd have more direct control over such matters.

But hey ho! They're keeping me on file for when a position opens - I'm aware most companies have a tendency to say this but it does seem a bit more genuine considering the events over the last few weeks.




From here I had interviews from companies including Ralph, Cadogan Tate, SMC Design and The Carpenters Workshop Gallery to name but a few. The roles varied creatively which is ideal as I really want to cast my net as wide as possible to see what really grabs my attention.

One element that is still completely surprising to me is that I've had a few offers from companies (whose names I won't mention) of unpaid internships. I thought these were a thing of the past? Any company executive or manager that accommodates and authorises this should be quite frankly ashamed of their work ethos.

But that's another rant for another time.

Moving on, in a bizarre twist of events, I got an interview at a modelling agency.

I know right!

I'm not sure if it was through the DASH magazine launch party where I managed to hand out a few business cards and make exceptional small talk or just through the scratch cards themselves but I got called into Fusion Management, down in Victoria.

I was sat down and taken through the skinny.

"We love your look." They said wide eyed and enthusiastically.

"Yeah, we always need Shoreditch hipsters and cockneys on our books, even though you're from West London." They said very matter of fact-like.

On the outside.

In the inside.

"So it's only £200 to sign up, it's not like you'll be breaking the bank or anything..."

Didn't like the sound of this. I went away with the relevant information and did some research by asking my acting and modelling chums. The general consensus is that you pay sweet F-A up front.

They were probably trying to make a quick buck out of me and get me on their books at the same time - which is rather cheeky - and £200 is an awful lot just to go into something without much guarantee.

My good friend Louis suggested going to an open casting in Shepherds Bush instead if this was the kind of thing that interested me. Being the vain individual that I am, it totally did appeal to me so off I went!

After a 40 minute queue I got my details and photos taken. I actually got called in to be an extra in a feature film a week later - which turned out I need extensive fight experience rather than my street cred, so unfortunately I couldn't do it...yet.



So a slightly hilarious and surreal tangent in many ways in this job search - like I said though, it's good to have a lot of options on the burners. I'm holding out for that awe-inspiring moment for the time being, which I have a feeling is just round the corner...



Next time: Double or nothing? Will Jamie survive against the odds? More interviews! More shenanigans! And foxes? Find out in Part Four..