Society of Illustrators Lecture Overviews

 Aubry Adams 

Society of Illustrators Lecture Overviews 

The First Four Years Lecture 

● Sam Wolfe Connelly said that no matter what school you go to you can do well in Illustration as long as you’re drivin. Sam also said that it is important to have professors/teachers in the industry. He views it as a really big bonus and believes it can help you out a lot. 

● I didn’t know it was possible to get jobs off of social media. Kali Ciesemier said that she got her two biggest jobs off of twitter from an art director that followed her on twitter. I didn’t even think to make connections for possible job opportunities on social media. 

● Victo Ngai said that the time difference between New York and Hongkong was 12 hours. Due to that Victo had to turn away two New York Times jobs because all of their deadlines are within the same day. If she would’ve taken the jobs she would’ve had to pull an all nighter, which was unrealistic for her. She would rather turn the job down than take the job and stay up all night creating something that she knows probably won’t be her best work. 

● Dadu Shin said that, while it’s easy to stay locked up in your home and create many different pieces, it’s super important to get out of the house and do some fun stuff outside of illustrating. He says that at the end of the week he feels almost braindead and forces himself to take a break and go out. 

● Daniel Fishel said illustration may be a career path, but it’s also a lifestyle. He said that he’s always thinking about ideas and always thinking how he can turn things around him into an illustration. Ideas can pretty much come from anywhere. They’re all around you. 

● One of the audience members asked what kind of pieces should you put in a portfolio for possible jobs. John Malta believes that you shouldn’t put pieces that you think they would like. Instead of that he says that you should put pieces that you’re really excited about. If you show that you’re excited about your pieces that it makes other people more excited about it as well. 

Comics: Pushing the Boundaries 

● Jennifer Camper says that she is her first reader and that she has to be interested in seeing what she’s creating. She likes creating unique stuff for her eyes because her type of work is not typically out there. She then says that if people like that work that’s fine, but she’s aware that a lot of people might not like it. She believes that it’s important to like what you’re making and that not everyone has to like what you create. 

● Kate Lacour is actually afraid of some of the work she puts out. She believes that it’s more interesting that way and gives her an opportunity to explore things she wouldn’t normally explore. She mentioned that someone asked Jenny Gonzalez Blitz (I think that’s what she said) why do you draw the topics you draw and Jenny replied that the kind of comics she wanted to read didn’t exist so she drew them. Kate said that the sort of stuff she likes to look at is stuff that makes you go “Ew that’s kind of creepy, but I want to keep looking at it” , so that's what she sets out to do. She says sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t so trial and error is super important as well. 

● Heather Benjamin said that she wished she shared the progress of her work less. She says that she finds herself posting a closeup of a page of something she's working on to get a little boost from positive feedback. She loves hearing the positive feedback and it definitely helps her become more excited about the work she’s trying to put out, but she would rather rely on herself to provide herself with inspiration and motivation to make something. 

● Darryl Ayo Brathwaite believes that people talk about comics less than any other art form. He says that when there is an art form that isn’t very popular it’s easy to spot the most popular pieces from that art category, so if the famous piece doesn’t have very good reviews or reactions then people automatically believe the entire art form is bad. It’s important to view multiple pieces of artworks from each art form before you really judge if you like it or not because in the end you might like something you thought you'd never like.