Master of the trade- Oliver Jeffers

I decided to write about Oliver Jeffers as my master of the trade because I know a lot of information about him already and he is very successful in his career. Here is the powerpoint presentation that I created.

   I was chosen by my group for the best presentation because it was concise, had a beginning middle and end, and flowed well. I feel as though if I was to choose a presentation that I liked most it would be May's because she talked about the artist that she thinks is a master of their trade and she also gave some  historical background to the techniques that that artist uses. I feel although this gave a really good historical background to the artists inspirations and techniques. It also had really nice images that that artist had created on it.

Exhibitions

Galleries are a prefect platform for self promotion and selling your work. They are also great to see what people seem to like most about your work, this in return will help you to develop and refine creatively.

There is different types of exhibitions to suit everyone's target audience and style. To hold an exhibition or have your work on display it should be well thought through and considered before going ahead and showcasing your work. There are a few things in particular that should be considered:

• Your target audience, are you showing your work in the correct setting where your target audience will see it?
• Layout, will how you've displayed your work be visually pleasing and intrigue viewers
• Price, if you are selling your work think about and consider who will be wanting to buy it e.g business men  and women or young students. Does your price fit with the target audience.
• does your work represent your target audience well.  

Here are a few examples of exhibitions that i really like and think work well. I decided to focus on looking at the layouts and overall look rather than the art itself.

William J. O'Brien, 'The Lovers', Installation view, Almine Rech Gallery, Paris. © William J. O'Brien. Photo 

I really like the installation above because i think the bright patterns stand out really well against the white walls. I think it brings out the paintings in a really nice way. I also like how they are placed a bit mis mashed it is a nice change to the average perfectly placed gallery picture. This kind of exhibition would be good for all types of different people as it looks fun but at the same time professional.

Chicken Leg Window on the Moran Street Installation

I really love how the artwork above is displayed it is so unique and the colours work so well together. I really love the fact that the artist has utilised an old house to show art work in a creative way. This approach wouldn't really work for commercial sale unless it was done on the side of a building to promote people to come to an exhibition you might be holding. 

  I love the simplicity of the way the space within the above exhibition has been used. the layout and frames compliment the work beautifully and the monochrome colour scheme works perfectly within the art work. I think the natural wood frames bring the whole thing together. this exhibition would work well within a small gallery with a target audience of the every day person or art student i would say. I think the setting doesn't look high end enough to be targeted at more wealthy people. 

After looking at a few different exhibitions that i like i have discovered that i like exhibitions that have a bit more of a unique quirky look to them. I prefer a more junk shop look to a clean sterile looking gallery with everything placed perfectly in the centre of a wall. 

Professional studies: The consumer Childrens books statistics

After looking long and hard i eventually found some demographics on children's books. I wanted to do research into children's books because that's the part of the market that i am most interested in. 

 I decided to start with looking at who actually buys children's books. I found that around 78% of women buy children's books where as only 25% of men buy them. I also found out that the majority of people that purchase children's books are middle class people. they are also more likely to buy that book in a book shop as 75% of men and 77% of women would prefer to go to a shop to buy a book for a child.

 I then found that 61% of the children's books bought were by people aged between 18-44. The average age to have a child is 29 so there is a correlation between the two statistics as this age falls in between the ages of people that buy children's books. This is most likely because they will be buying books for their own children. 

After doing further research i found some information specifically about children and e- books here are the results that i found. Almost 40% of parents with children under 14 are planning to buy a new e-reading device for their children this christmas. This information came from a study of a new york based children's research firm, playScience and Digital Book World [1]

[1] J Greenfield, Parents Primed to Buy Devices and Ebooks for Their Kids This Holiday Season, New Study Finds, http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/parents-primed-to-buy-devices-and-ebooks-for-their-kids-this-holiday-season-new-study-finds/, accessed 13/02/2014

professional studies: The Consumer Genral statistics

I started off trying to research the demographics for children's books but there wasn't much information about it. the only statistic that i could find is there has been a 13% rise in sales in 2012. The lack in statistics is probably due to the fact that children cant buy their won books or fill in surveys.

After discovering that there was hardly any information on children's book demographics i decided to do a general search on book demographics. The survey that i found was answered by American people aged 13+. After looking at the article i found that 45% of books bought are paper back, 27% hard cover, 22% e books, 4% other and a surprisingly low 2% audio books. i also found that 42% of books were purchased on line compared to only 15% of books that were bought in chain stores. This shows that although the amount of hard copy books bought is still reasonably high it is quickly getting caught up by e books. The amount of books bought on line is also incredibly high compared to books bought in shops. This proves that the Internet is the best place for books to be discovered and advertised at this moment in time. 

Next I started to look at who is actually buying the books i found out that 60% of people that buy books are woman and the other 40% are men. When looking at the stats for e books i found that more younger people buy them as 60% of the consumers are under 45. I think that this statistic is because the Internet and e books are a pretty modern thing and the younger generation are usually more clued up on the current technology like computers, tablets and e books. Therefore they will know how to buy an e book are more likely to buy a digital book as it is a lot easier and often cheaper. 

From looking at these statistics it is clear to me that the Internet is changing the world of books but hard copy books are still going strong for the time being. In the future i think that the Internet will take over from paper backs and not many books will be printed. Personally i like to have a physical book to read as it feels nicer than looking at a screen to read. But who knows what the future for books will be. 

Professional Studies: Agencies

                      Advocate Art
Advocate art is an agency that has been going since 1992 . They supply illustrations to all different parts of the industry.
I decided to look at this agency because i like the style of art that they represent. Their style is mainly hand drawn more traditional looking. They usually supply art for Children's Illustrations, Seasonal, decorative, Art and Photo realistic drawings. I am not certain how many people this agency represents but they have around 15 staff that exhibit the work of their artists at shows around the world. They also own a Gallery that shows their artists work all year round.



Debut art
Debut art is a big agency owned by Andrew Coningsby. They represent some of the worlds top artists, illustrators, photographers and graphic designers. It is based in London but it also has offices in paris, New york and Edinbrough. They have a very modern contemporary style a lot of their artists work has the same aesthetic. They have gotten work from some of the biggest companies in the world such as Coca-Cola, nike, Livi's and many others. This agency also run a gallery that holds about 30 exhibitions a year.

Beehive Illustration
Beehive Illustration is an agency that specialises in children's books. I decided to look at a children's illustration agency because that is the part of the industry that i am most interested in. The agency was started in 1990 by Paul Beebee. The agency started small and is still ran by a small team of only 5 people, but it now represents over 100 of the top children's illustrators.  


Illustration LTD
Illustration LTD is an agency that represents over 150 of the top illustrators, animators and artists. They have a total of 17 staff working across the world including their director JulietteLott. Because this company has agents across the world they will have more contacts compared to an agency that is based in only one country. This agency has won a number of numerous awards from emmys to design week awards. 

Professional Studies: Publishing

Publishing company research

I decided to research children's book publishing because is the part of the industry that i am most interested in. I started off with looking at walker books, I remember loving all of the books from this publishing company when i was little so that seemed like a good place to start.



Walker books is a 30 year old book publishing house that creates children's books. It was created by Sebastian Walker in 1978. He sadly died 12 years later. The company started off small with only 18 books but has grew significantly since then and now publishes up to 200 books per year.

The chairman of walker books is David Lloyd. The people who work for Walker consists of a large group of writers and illustrators that all work on different books. Some work together and some create both  the story and the images.

To get a job working for walker books the usual route is to send in a CV and a portfolio of work but it is usually hard to get noticed this way because of the large quantities of people that send in their work each day. A better way to get noticed would be to network with people in and linked to the company. A good way to do this would be to add the company on a social networking site such as twitter and tag them in your illustration posts.