Originally we came up with the idea of doing a joint card brief this year. I wanted to work on cute animal designs, whereas she wanted to work on her brush lettering. We thought that we could combine these an make them into cards.
Based on a crit, we learned that the designs were a bit forced together and didn't really work as well as we hoped. It was advised that we both make our own designs and perhaps stick to a similar colour scheme and use of stock.
Even this was a bit troublesome, as we both wanted to try different things and experiment, we found that one process worked for one of us but didn't for another.
A success of this was that I found I work better when I have a bit of pressure and responsibility, as opposed to doing something off my own back. Working on a project with Sophie motivated me to get stuff done, and I think the project brought us closer together as friends. We talk about our projects to each other more and constantly give advice to each other, sharing artists we find inspiring etc. I think we realised that even though we don't work in the same way, there is a success of being interested in the same areas of illustration, and aiming our work at similar audiences, having a similar tone of voice.
From this, we decided that we'd make our own cards, but sell them together under the name; Pink Cat Club (we got this name from listing all the stuff we both like, seeing what adjectives went with which nouns) and naturally Pink Cat Club was born. It would be aimed at the same audiences (16-25) and would have the same tone of voice (girly, cute, trendy, humorous).
We've made cards based on this, and are looking for market opportunities to sell them as well as our own work such as prints. We sorted out public liability insurance for this yesterday, so we should be getting the certificates soon, and sending it with our applications. We want to get as many sorted as we can, so we can get out there and start promoting ourselves.
We'll also be looking into potentially setting up a card publishing business together. When we leave, we will both be staying in Leeds, so this will help us with communication etc. Sophie's just signed for an apartment for July and she showed me another, which is part of the same building - that would be even more convenient!
Sophie's also done us a really cool logo, since she's good at that sort of thing. She even made some stickers out of it for us!
No comments:
Post a Comment