Talking to Nick

Nick Entwistle was a year above me at Stockport college and has really helped and inspired me to produce good work. I think that it's good speaking to people like this who have only just left University and are now out there doing it for real in the big bad world.

It's good that I am able to ask him for advice if I am ever stuck on a brief and he always has time to take a look and give good feedback. I really do appreciate this as he knows what it it like just before you leave University and how scary it can be taking that big step.

He has kept me motivated and has shown me similar kinds briefs that he worked on in college and the kinds of things that he produced. I was fortunate enough to ask him a few questions that would benefit not just graduate graphic designers but any graduates leaving university in the creative pathway. It has definitely helped me a lot and made me realise that nothing comes to you, and that you have to work consistently hard to get what you want and to where you want to be. Here are the questions and answers below:

1. What do you feel you have achieved since you’ve left University?

I was lucky enough to have all my hard work at University rewarded with a job before I left, although it was also good as I was able to still study and gain a First degree. I also won a YCN award for a Castrol brief http://awards.ycnonline.com/news/post/09-10-ycn-student-awards-announced/ which was great as I also won a YCN award last year for Berghaus. These achievements can, however, be meaningless if you don't follow them up with hard work and a willingness to continue to learn as when you leave University you are definitely not the finished article.

Therefore the fact that I am still in the same job after 6 months, and being more and more involved with everything that goes on in the agency, is probably one of the most important achievements yet. Having won pitches for the BBC and CUBE Gallery before, it is good to bring that experience into the work place and it is a big achievement to have my ideas recognised and chosen against some brilliant creatives.

Above all the biggest achievement I believe is gaining respect in the industry and workplace. I have worked hard for it and now have some great friends at work and elsewhere in the industry. Being able to enjoy what you do is an achievement in itself. If you don't then it's not for you.

2. What advice would you give to students just before they leave University?

My advice would be to make the most of your contacts. One thing I have learnt since entering the industry is that everyone knows each other. Therefore, one contact could potentially give you ten more. Perhaps they may recommend you if they like your work. The agency where I work was recommended to me by someone I contacted in the industry after speaking to his sister who is a physiotherapist! It goes to show that the industry isn't all doom and gloom like everyone makes it out to be. With a positive attitude you will do well. Just by chance you might get a break like I did.

Keep a clean portfolio up to date and try and show it to as many people as possible. Even people not in the industry as it is the public you will be trying to impress with your work when you enter the industry. Their opinions count too and can be very valuable when finding what works and what doesn't.

Something I struggled with in University was letting go of ideas. You may have 4 or 5 good ideas and develop them all...if you are really honest with yourself you will be able to get it down to at least your 3 best for example. This will save time and make your final work much better.

Always go with your own instincts. Only take other students/tutors comments as advice. It is your own choice to do what you want with those comments. If you receive any negative comments about your work do not take them offensively. If you believe in your ideas enough then persevere with them. It is all too easy to give up on an idea if someone says something bad about it but be strong minded and you will get results. Sometimes you might be wrong and sometimes right but if you don't feel 100% positive about your idea then don't do it. Although you may make mistakes don't make an issue of them. Over the past couple of years people have said a few times to celebrate your mistakes as they make you stronger but my advice would be to forget about them. Don't mention them and focus on all positive aspects of your work as you will appear a lot more competent and confident.

Overall, my best advice would be to always remain positive. There is way too much negativity surrounding the industry. If you are good enough and want it enough it will happen. Too many people came in and spoke about the negatives of the industry when I was at University whereas there are, in fact, a lot of positives if you look on it in a different way like I do. Work as hard as you can and you will get your chance and when you do, take it.

3. Are you happy with what you do now?

I'm very happy with what I do now as the hard work I put in at University has paid off. I am working on a lot of big client accounts and producing some exciting work for the future. It is hard work with strict deadlines but it is work that you enjoy doing. There is something totally different to do every single day. Not many jobs can offer that. Of course I am lucky to have a job that suits me so well so soon but as you come to the end of your degree you should be deciding exactly what you want to do upon finishing your course. You can then focus on contacting people in that specific area. You then have a lot more chance of doing what you want rather than stumbling across something that isn't for you.

4. Where would you like to be in 10 years time?

My agency is winning some big contracts at the moment and growing rapidly so it would be great to work my way up through the company. I'd like to be going on video and photoshoots abroad etc and directing some great advertising campaigns. I would also like to give something back to education by helping people at University to get into industry. Aswell as this I'd like my own businesses to become more successful. Above all I hope to still be happy in what I do.

Hope these answers help you in some way.

Let me know if you need to ask anything else.

Nick

YCN Student Awards 2009/10 Results announced - News - Awards - YCN

awards.ycnonline.com

Here is the link to his website where I have found his work very influential and something that I want to be able to produce as soon as I leave and be able to start adding to it, just as he is doing now.

www.ne-design.co.uk

Jonathan Barnbrook

Jonathan Barnbrook created Barnbrook studio based in London, designing for a variety of clients but also creating typefaces. He showed us some very impressive work that he had created for David Bowie. Here is the image of it below:

Jon told us that languages are still evolving and that new typefaces need to evolve with it. It was interesting to see that he had started creating his own by taking photographs of architecture and logging where he had been and for example used arches from churches to create the letter ‘M’ or ‘W’.

He suggested starting up a business or a company when we leave University, but I would perhaps like to join a company for a couple of years so I know what I’d be getting myself in to and so I knew more about the industry.

I quite liked the way that Jonathan used red slides in his presentation so the audience knew what was coming next and his slides were quite dark and included video clips to keep the viewer engaged. I will try to do this in my next upcoming presentations.

Work for Newclear Design

Whilst I went to meet Phil from Newclear Design we spoke about a lot of work related things to do with graphic design which put my mind at ease just knowing a little bit about what the industry is like. The problems that you come across and how collaboration has worked for him to create his company. Overall we got on really well. To my surprise he phoned me a few days later and asked me if I would help him to design some flyers for a club near me called Heart and Soul and the night was created by Casa. Phil rang me on the Monday and wanted it done for Wednesday so he could have a look at it on Thursday and send it off for Friday. He also said that he was going to create one himself because they have a contract with Heart and Soul to create all of their flyers so they already have a set style that they have used for a few years. He didn't want the same style from me and wanted it to be a bit different to see what they thought of it. The brief said that the colours had to be black, red and white. He said that it is quite hard to use these colours and for the flyers to still look like it had a Christmas feel to it. So I decided to stay away from making it look gimmicky and superimposing Santa on a set of decks. I wanted something that was sophisticated and contemporary. So here is what it looked like above. In the end they went with Phil's design as it looked more like what he had done in the past for them but he phoned me and said he was very impressed and would like to be able to talk to me soon about doing freelance work for them which I am thoroughly looking forward to.

Graduating

Graduating has to be one of my greatest fears and something that makes me wonder if I'll be successful when I finish higher education. I've heard so many stories from people that haven't made it and have had to get a job that they don't even want to do just to pay the bills. It's quite scary also hearing some of the bad experiences from the people that had just graduated within the last 2 years from Stockport. I mean not all of them had bad experiences but some of them did and it is very worrying to think will that be me? I've just learned that I must never give up no matter what and just keep trying. I have been making a lot more contacts this year as it has kind of been a kick back to reality that this is my life and my work nobody else's and this is what I want to do. I do feel a little more confident as I say over the past couple of months as I feel that my work has become a lot stronger and my ideas have become a lot quicker as well with the help of Lisa and I am very happy about this but things need to just carry on this way and I would like to carry on doing portfolio visits before and after I graduate as I've realised that this is another foot in the door to meeting great graphic designers and could possibly be an opportunity to work for a good graphic agency.

Journal

For the past 3 months I have been working on my journal which has to have a theme about what you want to talk about. It's all about myself and what has worked for me and what has not worked so well, also who and what my influences are and how they inter-link with my recent projects. I decided to go for the journal as it consists of having to write 5000 words and to do a 20 minute presentation. I felt at the beginning I would be far more confident about writing about my own work instead of doing the dissertation which is 8000 words on another persons work. I started by writing my journal as a diary and found that this was not how things were done. If I'm being completely honest I found writing the journal and preparing the presentation at the same time as working with Lisa on 3 projects really really intense. I did get to the point of breaking down just a week before doing the real presentation but realised for this industry you have to be pretty thick skinned. Nothing has ever made me upset before whilst being at the college but I got very good guidance from Gary Spicer about how to change and better my journal for the deadline. This made me feel so much better after speaking to him about where I had gone wrong and the kinds of things they were going to be marking when our work was handed in. I think it was perhaps just being put under the pressure of having to get everything done and just before Christmas too. However, I realise it is possible I have done my presentation which is a big step forward and I am currently still editing my journal and working on talking about how things made me feel whilst I was working in my pathway and adding more quotes from great graphic pioneers. The theme in my journal is collaboration and how I feel better and I can see how different my work is when I work with Lisa. All I need to focus on now really is looking at more graphic books so I think over Christmas I will be in the Library collecting and finding more sources and going on Athens to see if any other journals have been created relating to collaboration. I have learned that researching things that you don't already know about really does help for the moment that you need to know it and again in the future. I have also learned that it is good to boost confidence for the future in presntation skills.

Working as a Pair

Over the past 3 months Lisa Baines and I have decided to work together on 3 projects which are: Redesigning and repackaging the Pro-Plus packaging, the same for The Body Shop and Repackage and POS for Ted Baker. I didn't really realise how intense these projects were going to be before we started them. Every time we tried to pick a brief together we always went with the one that we thought would excel our skills in what we like to do which is very ideas based. The people that had decided to work in pairs were expected to have gone through 3 briefs and have a final outcome to put up on exhibition boards just before Christmas and the people doing one brief in a pair and one brief on their own had to do two. I think that possibly if we only had two briefs to do then our final outcomes could have been created a little better. As throughout these briefs we we found that actually going to execute the final design though was not that good which is something we will definitely have to work on before we graduate. Overall I have found that me and Lisa have totally clicked as a pair and this is what I want for my future is to have a partner that I can work with and be able to bounce ideas off each other to create some good work. I have learned that the saying "two heads are better than one" is really relevant to the way I feel about working and studying in my own pathway and I will keep in contact with Lisa when I graduate and perhaps we can help each other out with projects and briefs in the near future.

Riitta Ikonen

When I knew about Riitta Ikonen coming in for a talk with us and the Illustrators, I had never heard of her or knew what she did. I decided to do some research and found that she studies Illustration, and has a very eccentric style and notion about her work. There is a lot of playfulness in her work, and she doesn't take herself too seriously. Her main focus is costume and also theatre costumes. She produces her own costumes as she has had the ability to sew for a very long time. She is inspired very much so by nature, and she finds interest in collecting and organising anything she finds and can take home with her. Photography is an important role within her work also, because of the nature in how she works with a variety of locations, it is vital that everything she does is photographed to record her work, as this is the only way in which it can be recorded in stills. I really appreciate this as I myself love photography and try and introduce it in to a lot of my own work. It is something that I am definitely considering getting in to when I finish Graphic Design and perhaps doing Photography for a year afterwards. I like the fact that she challenges herself to work as differently as she can every time she produces a piece of work. I want to be able to have this way of thinking when it comes to doing my final major project.

Brand Orienteering Workshop

Owen Stevens from Brand Orienteering gave us workshop on branding; he has lots of experience in the design industry working as a copywriter for Y&R, Saatchi & Saatchi, Slaymaker and more.

This to me was a very useful talk about how branding and design works and how it can be effective as a design. I am already using this information about branding now as I am working on product and packaging design with Lisa Baines in my class. It will also be helpful for future design work into branding work and other things areas which work in brand or logo design. It helped me to understand my brief and our brand we were working with. He gave us some really good tips we went though them by getting in groups together to understand branding.

I am glad that I had the chance to learn this process because I have thoroughly enjoyed working with repacking and rebranding products so I will probably be carrying this on and doing something like this in my final major project as this is perhaps what I want to get in to in the near future when I graduate.

We didn't make it!!

Whilst I was in Berlin one of our first visits that had been arranged for us by our tutor was at an agency called Hello Me. We went as a big group and spent about 30 Euros getting to a destination that we had been told to get there for at 14.00. In total there was probably about 10 of us perhaps more that met up outside a building. There were no signs or buzzers to go through to the agency that we found a little weird, however, we got in the building and starting walking up some winding stairs. When we'd all got to the top we rang the bell and a lady came to the door and explained that we had come to the designers house and not the actual studio!! We were all mortified and made our way quickly back down stairs. We started looking at different routes of how to get to the agency. We made our way across a busy road in the pouring rain hoping that there would be another bus running by to take us there, we found that the only bus that was running had already been and gone at 9.00am. I was not prepared to spend any more money on transport as I didn't think I needed that much money and had already spent most of it getting to a place that wasn't correct. Most of us decided to head back to the hostel and save money for our other visits we had planned. I don't necessarily think that this was our fault but in all fairness we should have checked that the information we were given was correct before we went and looked in to taking the tube where it wouldn't have cost us as much. I must admit that I am useless at map reading but when there's a will there's a way.












I had arranged a portfolio visit with my friend Chloe Hollinshead at Smack Communications. We knew that it was about 15 minutes away from our hostel if we were to travel by car. So together we had decided before we even went to Berlin that we would split the taxi fare equally there and back. We had spoken to one of the designers at Smack Communications previously whilst in the UK. Her name was Susan Schutze. She had planned for us to be at their studio at 14.00 on the 19.11.2010 which happened to be the day that we were leaving. As we had previously spent so much money on getting taxis here there and everywhere we had only a limited amount of money left and because we had problems at the airport when we arrived in Berlin as our transfers didn't turn up, we decided to not take chances and save the remaining money in case our transfers weren't to turn up again.

Out of this I have learned that I need to be more organized and not only to let other people down but to not let myself down. Also to sort out transport before leaving. I put a lot of it down to being in a foreign country where I found the German language to be very difficult to understand. But I have taken this as a learning curve and will organize myself properly next time.

Deadline!

Whilst I was at home one evening I came across a television programme called 'rudetube' on channel 4. I saw something that was very inspiring to me and helped me massively in a recent project for I am doing with a friend in my class for Ted Baker.

This short film was created by a guy called Bang-Yao Liu. I looked online to find out a little more about him and came across a blog post that another girl had created where she had asked him a few questions about his animation I was unable to copy the interview on to my blog so here is the link to the questions asked below:

http://www.8asians.com/2009/06/17/8-questions-for-bang-yao-liu-the-creator-of-deadline-post-it-animation-piece/

I really took a shine to this animation as I know and understand how much pressure us students are put under to finish our work to perfection for the deadlines.

As I mentioned previously I have decided to use a similar kind of idea for my work. I have decided to use ambient media in my Ted Baker brief as I think from seeing this it has a big effect on the public social networking sites and can get passed around like wildfire if it is funny and witty enough. This piece of work actually made me say wow.. So I hope to get the same effect when I finish my brief.

Here is the animation below:

Come design with me...

Come design with me was a night that our graphics pathway had put on to invite graduates that had been through the same degree as me at Stockport College graduated and are now in the big bad world.

We decided to invite them to our college at around 6pm until 8pm on the 07.10.2010. We all gave £3 in the kitty to get a couple of bottles of wine and some nibbles. Then anyone who wanted to afterwards could head over to the pub the Nelson to have a couple of drinks to end a good night.

We had discussed as a group during the day what we were going to ask the ex graduates and how we were going to ask them questions. We understood that the people that were willing to come and talk to us would have to literally most of them just finish work and set off to our college , so we wanted to give them a nice relaxed environment so that they didn't feel under any pressure.

We decided to go with the idea of having a tombola with sweets in it. We were going to sit in two circles and bring the couches in so that it didn't feel as awkward for them as well as us. During the day we all wrote down as many questions that we could think of on little pieces of paper for the tombola so that when we span it we all had different questions to ask everybody.

This worked really well and we did this for about an hour and a half. The only criticism I would have about this is that the graduates didn't swap half way through so we didn't get a chance to speak to everybody.

This night really did help me to understand what it's like and what to expect upon leaving University. We got lots and lots of answers that all seemed to be pretty similar... word hard, and never give up. One big factor that they brought up is that they stressed that it was better to make contacts now whilst we are still in college so that when we leave we are not going out there with having no engagement with the graphic industry. I didn't realise how important this was really but I have started E-mailing different companies not necessarily for a portfolio visit but just to ask a few questions so that they become familiarised with who I am. Even though I would say that portfolio visits are a real help in making contacts as you are meeting them face to face, they get to know a little bit about you as a person and likewise and they can give you good critical feedback. It also builds confidence to actually go out there be confident about your own work and to be able to talk about it. I thought it was good to meet these graduates as again it adds to the list of contacts and it was nice to see what kinds of graphics they went in to. Some went in to product design working for big companies Adidas, some went in to advertising, some have even collaborated and made their own company for example last years students that worked with Thoughtful have now created their own group called Lost in The Forest, which to me is very impressive.

Some parts of the talks were quite tedious and scary though because a lot of them had a lot of bad luck with actually getting a job or getting anywhere or having to move on because the job that they liked wasn't for them and that they had to work until early hours of the morning to meet deadlines for not a highly impressive wage. This really has opened my eyes to this course. Since the graduates came the workload has seemed to pile on but it is a challenge. I have to get my head down and work solidly through it and be prepared as some of the ex grads said "to not have a life for a while". I do love what I do and I am prepared to make this happen. I'm just glad now that this has made me realise that everything is not so rosy and it is definitely not going to come to me, I have to grab the bull by the horns and really go for this if I want to be noticed.

Newclear Design

When I came back from Berlin I spoke to somebody who had a friend called Phil that is a director of a company called Newclear Design based in Manchester.

I didn't get to actually go to the offices as he said there was a lot of work lying around that his company are doing at the moment to do with huge canvases they've started creating. So we met at a local coffee shop where I showed him my portfolio and explained the kind of pathway I want to go down when I leave University which is to do something in either advertising, packaging/ product design.

To me this was a different experience to my previous visits to agencies as it was in a much more comfortable environment and had taken out a lot of time to sit and talk to me about his past experiences from leaving University to being where he is now. It was very interesting to find that he started in product design, then did a bit of freelancing and then decided to collaborate with his friend Ben who he went to University with who studied psychology but is also a photographer. He explained that this was good because clients trust their company a lot more as they have knowledge of what works in the industry and how peoples minds work and how we understand different designs.

Phil also told me that there are many stresses and strains of graphic design such as people wanting to change things at the last minute but its all part of the job which is a challenge and if you like a challenge you're right for the job.

He showed me a brochure of the kinds of things that his company creates such as:

Logo Design

Corporate Branding

Advertisements

Brochures

Posters

Leaflets

eShot Campaigns

Magazine Design and Layout

Product Packaging

Exhibition Design

Graphics for Print

And much, much more

He told me it would be worth perhaps E-mailing different graphic companies and do a placement for a couple of weeks for free. This then boosts skills and confidence in the industry and he said that sometimes they may even want to take you on for a job with them. This is something that I will definitely give a go because it's all about making contacts too.

He also told me to E-mail him some of the canvases I paint in my own free time to see what he thinks of them and if any contacts he knows would be interested in buying them. And he told me to stay in touch and keep E-mailing him some new recent things that I get up to and create.

This is the kind of company that in reality I would like to work for. It seems fast paced, a challenge and a good small group of people that work well together. Their work is flawless and to work as a collaboration can only be a good thing as they learn different things from each other all the time.

Hesign

Whilst on my travels in Berlin I went to an agency called hesign run by Jianping He (on the left). He has two agencies of the same name one based in Berlin and the other in Shanghai.

He was a lovely man who has a very witty nature about him. He always sees his problems as being funny and he will make his creation out of it.

I don't have the pictures to hand but he showed us a presentation that he had made using his own photographs which nobody has a copy of to explain some of his ideas. One example would be that he said a client rang him up and asked him to create a publication and after designing it he realised he didn't have enough paper so he made the book but using around the size of an A5 piece of paper and half this size constantly throughout the book, so the end result of the book looked as though it was a wedge of paper almost like a 3-D isosceles triangle. It looked fantastic, very unique. Also he explained that he was supposed to be putting on an exhibition in Shanghai to show the public his publications that he had made, his contact that was putting the event together rang him a day later and told him there wasn't 50 people turning up there was 5000! So again he realised that he didn't have enough books and he didn't want lots of people touching his work so he took his books down the road and had them put in what looked like a transparent pillow so people were unable to touch them. They were all then set out in a contemporary room spaced apart on long white tables. In my opinion this looked fantastic.

Here is one of his books that he created in 2006 which has been a massive hit to many graphic designers.

Overall he seemed pretty impressed with our portfolios and said that if we were ever in Berlin again then to pop back and E-mail him some of our ideas sometimes. He also had a guy from Scotland that was a interim for him which has opened my eyes a bit to perhaps gaining experience in another country which is what I plan to do with my future anyway. So I would definitely class this as one of my top portfolio visits as perhaps making a bit of a contact

123buero

Whilst in Berlin a select few of us that was interested in typography and had examples of good editorials and typography in our portfolios were chosen to visit a small graphic agency called 123buero. The main man was called Timo.

My first impression was that I could not believe how much space they had in a room where they work. It consisted of 2 chairs, 2 Macs and a huge shelf of design books. Here is an image below:

Timo was very nice and completely honest and critical about our portfolios. He firstly made us some ginger tea which seems to be quite popular in Berlin and we after we had all settled in a little we started going through our portfolios. He told us straight away if he didn't quite understand why something irrelevant was put in our work and he gave good constructive criticism about how we could make our portfolios better. He said that with mine I should have more scamps and the thought processes behind the final idea as he said it would be easier for a employer to understand your way of thinking. I found this very useful and have since

changed it and added more recent thought processed work.

He then started telling us about his company and what he had been up to recently. He also showed us his portfolio which obviously consisted of mostly typography and he showed us his high quality print outs that he had made in to books. One piece of work that I was very impressed with was A.D.Deertz which they are currently working on the future positioning and rebranding of the fashion label ADD, which will be redefined toA.D.Deertz with the collection of Fall/ Winter 2009/2010 and will be shift from a unisex concept to an all menswear line. He had directed the photography too.

Here is an image of one of the catalogues below:

Timo and his colleagues have also created a few of their own typefaces using Fontlab which he showed us the basic of how to use it which was very interesting. A couple of fonts to look out for when they are ready to be downloaded are: Maison and Naiv.

I overall really enjoyed this visit as it gave me an insight to how a small company works hard and is now getting big clients. He said it's always important to be able to get on with and work with somebody that is on your wave length so that there is no conflict and this gets the cogs of the company turning.

David Airey

David Airey is a design author and brand identity designer. He have a passion for design, and makes a living by creating visual identities for companies of all sizes. His client-list includes the likes of Yellow Pages (Canada), Giacom (England), and Berthier Associates (Japan).

He writes two popular graphic design blogs, logodesignlove.com and davidairey.com, attracting more than 250,000 online visitors per month and approximately 1 million monthly page views. He is the editor at his newest venture, Identity Designed — a site featuring the work of some excellent studios.

I chose to write about this David Airey as I was looking through his portfolio and his advertisements and some of them are really just fantastic. They are humorous and really make you say.. "oh yeah! I get it" Those kind of design to me are the best. Here are a few examples of the ones I found the best below:

Deborah Sussman

Deborah Sussman has worked at the interface of graphic design and the built environment for more than 30 years. She has created striking visual imagery and devised its imaginative application for architectural and public spaces both permanent and temporary, including the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Seattle’s opera house, and Disney World. Throughout her career Sussman has claimed an ever more expansive role for graphic design in the urban landscape.

Sussman uses graphic design to emphasize aspects of the built environment and to provide rich connections to the communities and cultures in which it will participate.

I chose to put Sussman on my blog because she is a legend and shes a woman! Most of the greatest graphic designers are men so I wanted to do a little research on what woman have played their parts in graphic design and how well they have done for themselves and other companies. I am not very familiar with Deborah Sussman but I have seen her work around and about and it is very good.

“Although environmental graphic design started as architectural signage—hence, graphics—a flat discipline turned out to be inadequate in a round world. An exhibition, for example, is more than a book on a wall or an arrangement of artifacts under glass. It is the engagement of people as they move through space. Sussman/Prejza carries this engagement into stores and other public spaces, and into designed events—a contextual approach that brought the company international renown with the 1984 summer Olympics.”

—Ralph Caplan, “Beyond Sussman/Prejza: Jungle Rhythms in Environmental Graphic Design,” Process Architecture 124, 1994.

Marc Quinn

Marc Quinn (born 1964) is a British artist and part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs (Young British Artists)

Perhaps best known for Alison Lapper Pregnant, a sculpture of Alison Lapper which has been installed on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square, "Self", a sculpture of his head made with his own frozen blood, and "Garden" (2000). He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) and is known for his innovative use of materials to make art, including blood, ice, faeces, etc., his use of bringing scientific developments into art, and his designs for "discussion-generating" artworks.




















I have chosen Marc Quinn as one of my artists as I am always intrigued with what unpredictable designs and concepts he will be coming out with next. He always produces exciting statues/ sculptures using different materials.

The thing that I like best about his work is that he has made people such as Alison Lapper feel so much more confident in herself as she was put on the plinth at Trafalgar Square (well her life sized statue was) and people could not see her as being a freak but see her body as being beautiful and see how different yet amazing this art was and how she lived her life with her child. He truely saw something in her that he knew the public had to see. Some say it was cruel, yet others look at her and other amputees in a different light now.

Antony Gormley

Antony Gormley OBE RA (born 30 August 1950) is an English sculptor. His best known works include the Angel of the North, a public sculpture in the North of England, commissioned in 1995 and erected in February 1998, Another Place on Crosby Beach near Liverpool, and Event Horizon, a multi-part site installation which premiered in London in 2007, and in 2010 around Madison Square in New York City.


















Gormley describes his work as "an attempt to materialise the place at the other side of appearance where we all live." Many of his works are based on moulds taken from his own body, or "the closest experience of matter that I will ever have and the only part of the material world that I live inside." His work attempts to treat the body not as an object but a place and in making works that enclose the space of a particular body to identify a condition common to all human beings. The work is not symbolic but indexical — a trace of a real event of a real body in time.




















I remember going to see his work in Liverpool on Crosby Beach with my old college friends. It was a good day out, but I was just a little worried if boats were to come in and not see them when the tide comes in as they have no lights on them etc. But they are a spectacular sight to just stand there and watch as the sun is setting.












The sculpture consists of 100 cast iron figures which face out to sea, spread over a 2 mile (3.2 km) stretch of the beach. Each figure is 189 cm tall (nearly 6 feet 2½ inches) and weighs around 650 kg (over 1400 lb).
In common with most of Gormley's work, the figures are cast replicas of the artist's own body. As the tides ebb and flow, the figures are revealed and submerged by the sea.

Quirky yet random design that in my opinion is brilliant.

Niki De Saint Phalle

Niki De Saint Phalle has always been one of my most favourite artists. She was a French sculptor, painter and film maker.

De Saint Phalle rejected the staid, conservative values of her family, which dictated domestic positions for wives and particular rules of conduct. However, after marrying young and giving birth to two children, she found herself living the same bourgeois lifestyle that she had attempted to reject; the internal conflict caused her to suffer a nervous breakdown. As a form of therapy, she was urged to pursue her painting.

After the "Shooting paintings" came a period when she explored the various roles of women. She made life size dolls of women, such as brides and mothers giving birth. They were usually dressed in white. They were primarily made of polyester with a wire framework. They were generally created from papier mache.




















Influenced by Gaudí´s Parc Güell in Barcelona, and the garden in Bomarzo, de Saint Phalle decided that she wanted to make something similar; a monumental sculpture park created by a woman. In 1979, she acquired some land in Garavicchio, Tuscany, about 100 km north-west of Rome along the coast. The garden, called Giardino dei Tarocchi in Italian, contains sculptures of the symbols found on Tarot cards. The garden took many years, and a considerable sum of money, to complete. It opened in 1998, after more than 20 years of work.

I think her work is absolutely amazing and I will be planning a visit there soon to see this spectacular garden.

Here are some pictures below of what is contained in her Tarot Garden in Tuscany: