On Friday we visited Serpents Tail, which is a lovely independent publisher with a commitment to publish non-mainstream books and have won numerous awards. I felt lucky to have been able to speak with Niamh Murray, the Marketing Director, and she told us a lot about how they work with illustrators and other artists on their book covers.
She told us about what happens when they decide to commission an artist, and gave us an example of the cover design brief. It was interesting to see how the cover is briefed to artists and then pitched to a team, much like a group tutorial!

We were also told about how now, when artists are commissioned to design a book cover, they need to take into consideration how the thumbnail of the book cover will look on Amazon, for example the text would need to be quite prominent so it’s legible on such a small thumbnail. It’s amazing how much things change through technology – I never would have thought of that but obviously because Amazon will be one of their biggest distributors that will be a really important factor.

Niamh discussed how in the pitch the artist needs to be thick skinned and they need to be able to yield to suggestions of changes. Obviously if you’ve worked really hard on creating a beautiful cover you’ll be a bit reluctant to change it, but these people know what sells and that’s the important part. Then Niamh was able to get the art director of the company, Peter Dyer, to have a quick scan of our portfolios.

He spoke with us all individually, which was really kind of him considering he was probably very busy. When my turn came he looked quickly through the pages of my portfolio, and said that his favourite part of my work was the hand-stitched type featuring in the cookbook and on my Craig Oldham poster, which I don’t think is one of my best pieces but I’m now glad that I left it in my portfolio! He was telling me about how they’re doing a book at the moment about a family that’s falling apart, and he’s considering doing an ironic ‘home sweet home’ sampler with the stitches coming loose, which I really related to and thought it would be a really great response to the story.

Peter also said that some more quirky advertising agencies might like my characters – mostly the ice cream man - and that I should try those and also fashion magazines. It made me think that I really enjoyed making the ice cream costume and that I’d love to make more costumes and definitely a bit less lo-fi. I also realised that lettering is really important for my portfolio and it’s definitely something that I think about last in my work. It was a really useful portfolio visit and I’m grateful that he could take the time to speak to me.

On Thursday we were lucky enough to go to the Nobrow shop in Shoreditch and have a little look around their studio and talk to Dan about how they started up and how they mean to go on. As most of you already know, Nobrow started off with the magazine, which usually had a theme and was a collaboration with other illustrators and artists to showcase their work. They intended to publish this annually, and things just took off from there.

Now they print Nobrow Press books in runs of anywhere between 1,500 to 6,000 copies and they’re distributed around the globe. They still print small runs of handmade books, which fall under the category of Nobrow Small Press. Everything in the shop is absolutely beautiful and unique, it’s hard to look around without buying anything! We were given a quick tour of the studio where they print and the stockroom which was piled high to the ceiling with boxes of books ready to be distributed.

They’re promoting Hilda and the Midnight Giant currently, and for the occasion they commissioned Felt Mistress to create a gorgeous giant Hilda plush doll! It was great to see it in the flesh as I love Felt Mistress’ work so much, and I also really like the way they work with artists like this.

Nobrow have just launched Nobrow France, where they publish French editions of their most popular books, and they also stock lots of beautiful French children’s books in the shop. The French children’s books are so gorgeous and sophisticated, it’s really interesting to think how children there are so much more visually stimulated than children here, who seem to be more literarily stimulated.

It was a great visit as I’ve never seen the shop before, and it was interesting to see how they work in the studio – it was really funny how they had loud jazz music playing as people were working away on their macs!

When we arrived to London on Wednesday, it was a bit of a mad rush to get to the hostel, drop off our suitcases and then go to DDB advertising agency. We eventually got there (a little bit late) but nobody really noticed so it was fine! We met with Daniel Moorey, the art buyer and he had quite a lot of interesting bits of information which will be helpful I think after we graduate in knowing the sorts of things that people of those companies are interested in and looking for.

Firstly he told us a little bit about the company and some of their top clients, and spoke a little bit about how they work with artists – they work with artists around the globe, so contact is largely via email and on the phone. I think it’s really interesting how much technology has changed the way these things happen, for example he was saying how when they work with older illustrators, sometimes they can be a bit frustrated when they’re asked to tweak their design, as a few years ago the case would be that they would send the original artwork by post so if anything had to be changed it had to be a fairly large part or there wouldn’t be much point.

Then he spoke about how they find the artists to commission – he had a list of bookmarks for illustrators, photographers, graphic designers and typographers, either their individual website or their agents’. He said he remembers roughly artists’ styles and so when they have to commission someone he has an idea in his head straight away of who he wants, and then it’s just a matter of contacting them to see if they’re available.

Daniel was absolutely lovely and helpful, and he said that nowadays it’s much less likely for a client to refuse an illustration on their advertisement; it used to be that adverts were largely photographical but now people are a lot more flexible when it comes to illustration. He also told us about what he likes to see when people send him links to their portfolios, not to make an email that looks very busy, just a simple, large font that addresses who the person is, if they have an agent who their agent is, a link to their website and possibly a few low-res images that will give a quick indication of their style.