PRINT STUFF!

• A couple of days ago was Print Stuff in York where me and my friends and course mates had a table to sell our work as our collective, OK Sure
• Overall the day went really well and I think we were all really pleased at how much we had sold! I said to myself before that I'd be more than happy if I just sold one print but I ended up selling a few which was really nice. I did notice the things that seemed to sell better were the smaller bits like the pin badges, ceramic bits and greetings cards as they weren't as expensive; I think it is more difficult to sell screen prints especially at print fairs as they have to be priced slightly higher and we were also only accepting cash
• I also swapped one of my prints for another illustrators print & greeting card, Hattie Clark. I noticed her table was a few down from ours and she had also followed me on instagram a couple of days before so I went to speak to her and she said she'd love to do a swap and I was happy to
• It was nice to be in a room full of such amazing practitioners and also get the opportunity to speak to some of them about life as an illustrator 
• I also really enjoyed manning our table so we were able to speak to customers about our work and being able to answer questions about it
• I'm super glad we decided to do this as it's great experience for future potential print fairs. I'd feel a lot more confident in getting a table myself in the future and setting everything up
• I still have quite a few packaged prints left over so I might think about setting up a little online shop to try and sell them!

a happy customer!

As well as selling some of my bits, I bought some things from other illustrators for myself as well; these include prints, pin badges, stickers, a tote bag and a greetings card from Hattie Clark, Look Up Prints, Adam Higton, Annie Merrick & Dom Kesterton 

ANYTHING GOES Exhibition

recently I had a couple of bits of my work exhibitions in Anything Goes which was a small exhibition  in The Old Red Bus Station run by a couple of visual communication students. The initial call for submissions was for artwork in the vegan cafe upstairs, but they emailed me back and said that all work submitted would be showcased in the exhibition. I decided to submit a couple of my existing screen prints which I was quite proud of, as I felt happy for these to be seen by people. The exhibition was open to anyone from any course so there was a huge diversity of work which was nice. I'm happy I got to take part in this, and I did say at the beginning of the year this is the type of thing I wanted to do more of! I also got a lovely email from someone who saw my work at The Old Red Bus station and wanted to buy one of my prints which was a nice little confidence boost!

Holly St Clair: 36 Days of Type

• I have been following Holly St Clair on instagram for a while now and recently she has been posting her responses to 36 days of type
• It's totally different to her usually work which is really interesting to see. It's nice to see her work in a more graphic design sense and I think she suits it perfectly 
• It shows how diverse she can be within her practise which I really admire
• I have recently been exploring typography in my own practise as well so it's been good to see such a different take on it
• her characters are always so charming and playful

Researching Screen Print Studios

I've been thinking about contacting some print studios in London, as this is where I'll hopefully be based after I finish uni, and I feel like would be really useful for me to try and gain some work experience or just experience in general within this kind of environment. I know I will definitely want to carry on screen printing after uni so I'll need to find a suitable studio so I can carry it on in my practise. Luckily I do have access to a screen printing studio in Guildford where I live at home which isn't too far from London, so if I'm unable to afford it in the beginning i'll be able to carry on there. I thought it would be good to gather a bit of research on some studios I found so I'm a bit more clued up on what they do when i'm contracting them.

PRINT CLUB LONDON

• established in 2007 and is run by Fred Higginson and Kate Higginson, who work closely to illustrator and creative director Rose Stallard
• As well as running the studio they also curate an annual exhibition called 'Blisters' which is one of the UK's largest poster shows
• They also have desk spaces available next door to them in a creative studio called Millers Junction in Dalston. There is a desk space for over 40 designers and illustrators, and costs £220pm which also includes a free screen printing workshop and 10 hours of screen printing per month
• the screen print studio is open 24 hours a day and you can book up to three 3 hour sessions per week. membership is £100pm

PEOPLE OF PRINT

• established in 2013 by Marcroy Smith but originally started in 2008 as a website directory for illustrators, designers and printers
• each designer is given the opportunity to become a vendor on their online department store marketplace, where they also sell their own items
• they self publish a magazine called 'Print Isn't Dead' alongside 'Posterzine' which is a poster that folds out into a magazine
• you have to apply for a membership so they can first see whether you're suitable to become a member

SONSOLES PRINT STUDIO

• a fully equipped open access screen print studio based in Peckham Rye and it's run by artists based in London Royal College of Art MA Printmaking graduates
• 1 years membership costs £60, but you also have to pay for a compulsory induction which is £25, and you have to pay individually for each session

JEALOUS

• contemporary gallery, print publisher and printing studio based in shoreditch
• although you can't join as a member they do run educational workshops and live printing events
• they run an on-going project called 'Jealous Needs You' which is an open submission for an image which can be turned into a 3-5 colour screen print. they welcome all artists from any point in their career, and choose 30 winners whose work will be made into an edition of 36 screen prints
• another project the run is the 'Jealous Rooftop Mural Project' where you can submit a proposal for a mural which they also welcome well established artists as well as younger up and coming artists

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

• after researching and looking into these studios I am definitely a lot more intrigued. I am thinking about contacting a couple of them but I need to think about the best way to do it. Maybe sending them a screen print?
• I want to ask about any up and coming projects I could potentially help out with to gain some experience
• It's making me think about my options for screen printing after I leave Leeds and move to London. I think it'll be difficult to access financially but hopefully if I can get some work experience or an internship I'll be able to use the facilities 
• I'd love to have a go at entering both the submissions for the two projects that Jealous run

MY WEBSITE

• this is my live website! I decided to go for marnie cox.co.uk 
• I used adobe portfolio and it did take a bit of getting used to but I got the hang of it after a while and it got a bit easier to navigate my way round 
• Although it only had a few different themes to choose from I kind of liked the simplicity of it
• I wanted to have my homepage as a small showcase of my work with links to other parts of my practise. I also made sure to have the sidebar evident within each page so it was easy for people to make their way round

MAKING A WEBSITE

• planning on sitting down and making a website over the next couple of days which is something I definitely should have already done but, better late than never
• I've looked around at a few different website builders like squarespace & wix, but recently found out theres a website builder you can get with creative cloud which you don't have to pay any extra for, so i'm going to look into this a bit more
• I think i'm going to go for marniecox.co.uk for my domain. I thought about matching it to my instagram @ which is illustrationmarn but I thought it would be better if I just went with my name as it seems more professional, and I've been thinking about changing my instagram name anyway
• I want to think about a strong colour scheme to go with but don't want it to be too complicated. i'm thinking about using red as the dominant colour as it's a colour that can be seen frequently within my work
• As i haven't really had any experience in making websites before I want to give myself a full day to sit and try and work it all out. I'm also going to message a friend who I know has used adobe portolfio for her website to see if she can give me any tips

WHAT I WANT TO ACHIEVE IN MY WEBSITE

• simplicity. simple colour scheme but make sure it's still eye-catching, simple font
• I want it to be easy to navigate with clear links to different parts of the website
• I think I want to split it up in categories; for example have a different page for screen prints & different projects etc
• to make sure it includes all my personal information like my email address & instagram amount and links to these things so it's easy for people to contact me if they want to
• make sure to only put work up I feel is good enough. I don't want to put things up I'm not proud of just for the sake of filling it up. It's an ongoing process

The Fossgate Social

As part of the print fair we have coming up, Print Stuff, they have put on a small exhibition/showcase of some of our prints we'll be selling at the fair at a small cafe in York; here's my print alongside Annie and Char's from our collective OK Sure. It was optional whether we wanted to do it or not, but I thought it would be a really good opportunity for people to see my work before the print fair, and it also might encourage some York locals to come along. Our names were included as well as our contact details, and I actually got an email from someone who had seen my print and was asking about a commission which is really exciting!

PACKAGING MY PRINTS FOR PRINT STUFF

I decided I wanted to keep my branding pretty simple for the info cards to go on the back of my prints. I did make some for when I went to Hanbury but I didn't think these were very successful design wise, and thought they were a bit boring. For these ones I wanted to keep the branding similar to my website, so I actually used the same font (Proxima Nova Extrabold) and the same colour red as I did on my website. I wanted to include my name, instagram, website and email so people could easily contact me or have a look at my work if they wanted to. To make the cards a little more interesting I added in a smiley face in place of the O in my surname as I thought this made them a bit more personal & playful. I also printed the cards out on to a couple of different colours of paper and used some coloured and patterned washi tape to stick them onto the back of my prints. 

To package the prints, I took them home with me over Easter and took them to the picture framers I used to work at to mount and acetate them professionally. Last year I ordered some clear bags to package my prints in but they ended up being the wrong size which made them look quite messy, so i'm quite happy about how neat these turned out.