If you take the brown line ever, somewhere in between the Chicago and Sedgwick stops you will see a large mural ad for ALDO's life's a beach campaign for their Summer 2011 collection. I'm sure you can see it other places around the city but this is where I see it pretty much every time I head to school and back home. As most of you know I love to illustrate and I had expressed in another class that I was worried about my illustrative qualities not being to appealing to big companies or my style not being commercial enough. This campaign gave me hope. After seeing this ad I decided to research who was the mastermind behind the beautiful illustrations in these playful colors. I found that the illustrator under the name of So Me, was the whiz behind the design. He came up with the beach icons as well as the overall pattern design for this summers ALDO ad. He is also an art director for Ed Banger Records and is responsible for the creation of music videos for MGMT, Kid Cudi, Justice, and Kanye West. He is also head designer for a clothing company called CoolCats. So after reading that my hope was short lived and slowly disintegrated. How did So Me get to where he is at? He seems to have a hand in huge projects pertaining to fashion and music and it is pretty impressive.
This years visits to studios and such has me in quite worried about the job market and considering the amount of posts up about jobs I'm pretty sure everyone else is. It's nice to see though that illustrators with this funky playful style are getting exposure commercially. Hopefully it will continue to be once I am in the field. I would love to be able to create illustrations for huge fashion companies and other big businesses as well. If I had it my way I would just do illustrations my whole life but I would like to do so on a commercial level. Some don't care if their work gets into the commercial world but the idea of making something that is able to be appealing to the masses on a commercial level has always been something I have wanted. I think it is my marketing major that has made me want this.
I know some of us are interested in illustrating and designing on a commercial level, how do you feel about the job hunt and what it will take to get to a point where your style is desirable by the masses? Sometimes being commercial means changing your style, changing it in ways that may be desirable to the majority but maybe not fitting with your true style. Yet in my perfect world graphic designers and the artists would dictate what was visually appealing because when it all comes down to it, visuals are our passions and for others it is not, so why not have the artists take care of it? In the commercial world you run the risk of your work being passed through so many hands, even hands of those who aren't designers and your idea, concept, and design gets so diluted with ideas not of your own and its just completely unsatisfying. So how do you get a to a point where you are just that good, that it doesn't have to be that way. But we all know some people like and sometimes absolutely love Comic Sans, if you catch my drift. I just don't get it. It all comes down to hard work I guess. It seems to be the response from many designers I have talked to in the past couple of years of whom I have asked these questions.
I love this ad! I have been so curious about the designer too so I am really glad you posted this. I too am struggling with this concept of trying to find a job but not selling out. I feel that like everyone says, it's just hard work. Anything in the Fine Arts area is either a hit or miss in the sense of "making it big". I also think that at the end of the day if you are happy (as we all have passion for it) your love will shine through as we make work that is simply us and people will recognize our passion and skill.
ReplyDeleteHard work and talent are key. I found this comment on a blog, which I thought was pretty funny. "Some of the worst designers have masters degrees. Go figure. Some of the best don’t have a HS diploma."
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you on being worried about the job market because I am I feel the same way, but I do feel like there is a job for everyone, it might not happen right away but it will eventually happen. We just need to be patient in our search for jobs which is something that I sometimes have a hard time doing.
ReplyDeleteIt's always a struggle between your style and the commercial world. I have been thinking about this topic for a while now. You don't want to compromise your style for the mass market, but then you don't want to isolate your job market. You want jobs to want to hire you so you want to change, but then are those the type of jobs that you want to be at. It's a give and take, but I agree with Jene in that there is a job for everyone you just need to find it.
ReplyDeleteI have recently been in an Aldo solely (pun intended :) because of their uncanny advertisements!
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't worry too much about finding a job. You obviously have a strong design sensibility and work ethic. And you're in luck because the hand-drawn aesthetics are very much in right now, and I see in slowly making its way to fashion (i.e. Aldo). I recently bought a jacket from The Original Penguin Store, and attached was a tag with little illustrations of the jacket itself.
The type treatment of the Life's a Beach kind of reminds me of Barbara Kruger's work. Is anyone else seeing that, or am I just weird?
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel better, Julie, I personally think you have way more of a marketable illustrative style than I do. My work is more-or-less straight-up anime cliche style, which pretty much has very little demand in the US market unless I can somehow launch a profitable line of products based on my own illustrations/designs, which is a crapshoot. It's things like this that kind of make me feel like I won't fit in with most studios or companies as a visual artist, and need to just do my own thing.
I love that illustration is making any type of appearance in commercial art. I love illustration and would love to see more of it. I second James' comment that you are a hard worker with a strong sense of design. You'll be fine.
ReplyDeleteI think it's great that you know what you want to do in the future. Even if your first job isn't doing exactly what you want, make sure that you keep working on personal projects that satisfy you. Not only will it develop your skills, they will help build your portfolio!
ReplyDeleteYou'll find a job simply because you're aware of the contradiction that comes with illustrating. You'll know what you need to do and maybe you'll even gain additional styles that become apart of you.
ReplyDeleteI like this ad so much more than most clothes advertisements that just feature a model (who sometimes is barely wearing clothes!) smiling at the camera. Hopefully design goes this direction and I agree with everybody else, you'll be fine you work very hard!
ReplyDeletei think that aldo has a lot of great ads. i see them all over, and they all are eye catchers.
ReplyDeleteJulie--it kind of worries me that you're worried because, as many of our classmates have said, you're a talented, driven designer! I know you're not fishing for compliments here so I'll stop there.
ReplyDeleteI love the Aldo ad, and yes, Stephanie, I see Barbara Kruger. I'm really into limited color pallets like this because while they seem simple and easy, it's really hard to find those perfect colors and decide which ones work the best. The ad would have a completely different feel if even just one color changed.
Cool ad! I like the humorous play on words.
ReplyDeleteI love that ad! It really pretties up the place, unlike a lot of billboards.
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