Task 1

What skills do you have and who needs them?

What are your professional/creative aims and how do they relate to the needs of the world at large?

At this moment in time, I don’t really think I have any ‘specialist’ skills, or skills that are developed enough to class it as a specialism. I would say that I am quite strong with research and software skills, in terms of actual designing, I am comfortable with both image and typography but I hope to improve my confidence with image. I personally prefer to work on my own as apposed to collaborative work; input from others definatley benefits my work as I am not a particularly strong idea generator but when it comes to producing the work, I would prefer to work independently and for this reason I feel that working freelance would suit me as I would have input from the clients etc. but ultimately I would get to produce the work on my own.

During my research, I have looked at various freelance graphic designers as well as design studios. One designer in particular that I looked at was an illustrator who goes by the name of Mr Bingo. Regardless of the fact that I like his style of work, the set up that he has and client base is almost ‘ideal’. He works from a studio in his home; not only does this save money on rent for another building, it also saves money and time on travelling to another location. Mr Bingo’s clients have included BBC three, Mighty Boosh, Orange, Oxfam Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times and he has done the illustrations from Stephen Fry’s ‘The Book of General Ignorance’ and more recently Rich Fulcher’s book ‘Tiny Acts of Rebellion’. I have previously attended a lecture where Mr Bingo spoke about his way of working and he mentioned how he started slow but now has to turn work down because he doesn’t have time; this is obviously something I aspire too.