Introduction to Commercial Illustration and Competitions

Today we were introduced to the final project for this year entitled 'Commercial Illustration Practice'. This project works with live briefs, allowing you to work within your specialism and create work for a greater, commercial purpose. Last year I worked with the Penguin Student Design Awards brief to produce a book cover for the children's book, 'Goodnight Mister Tom'. Although this competition's deadline had finished before I had time to submit it, it was a really good experience to work with a real brief and it pushed me to enter other exhibitions last year like the 'Cheltenham Illustration Awards' which I ended up being selected for! I enjoy the freedom of this project as I can utilise the time to work on personal work which will benefit my future career. This year, we have been given 4 competitions to look into and I'm using this post to give an overview of each one to see which one I want to progress with. 

Illustration Competitions 2021

Penguin Student Design Award

Deadline- 23rd March 2021

• 'Aims to discover and nurture the next generation of design and illustration talent'.
• Real cover design briefs in three categories, Adult Fiction, Adult Non-Fiction and Children's Cover Award.
• Open to anyone studying on a Further or Higher Education course, looking for imaginative concepts taking into consideration the book's context and target audience.
• Children's Cover Award- 'Talking Turkeys' by Benjamin Zephaniah. This is an unconventional collection of poems addressing issues like racism, love and animal rights aimed to inform his audience in an engaging and creative way. 
• Target Audience- Children aged 8-12
• Format- 198mm high x 129mm wide, spine width 7mm. It must incorporate the Puffin branding and any additional elements such as the barcode and blurb. 

Although this brief would be good practice relating to the area of children's publishing I want to work with, I would have liked to actually take part in the brief before the deadline had ended as I feel I'd be more motivated to work towards submitting the artwork to Penguin. Also, I don't feel like the chosen children's book has as much scope as previous books therefore it would be hard to fill an 8-week project with. 

Creative Conscience

Deadline- 14th May 2021

• A different type of competition aiming to create a community that influences real and positive change, 'Empowering creatives to become the changemakers the work needs'.
• Open to students and graduates in any specialism.
• 5 briefs: Open Brief, Mental Health, Equality, Conscious Consumption and Climate Crisis. Each target a different area and focus on social/environment change. 
• Some of the challenges include making films, motion graphics and posters to raise awareness for global movements such as the Youth Climate Strike. 
• Target Audience- the general public, not necessarily targeted at a specific age.
• Format- Any format depending on how you want to present it.

I like how there are so many ways to interpret the brief and explore any avenue that interests you. Although it sounds interesting, it's not as relevant as other competitions to the specialism I want to work in. Good children's books and illustrators should inspire the next generation to be aware of climate change and how important our role is in helping the environment/global warming. These are elements I want to take into my project.

Cheltenham Illustration Awards

Deadline- Not yet announced

• A really fun and limitless brief, this year's theme hasn't been released yet but since I got selected for a place in last years annual with the theme 'I Am Many Stories', I know it will link to that. 
• Releasing the new brief soon, by the end of March.
• Each year Cheltenham release an annual with around 50 entries in all in response to a chosen theme. The artwork has to incorporate narrative elements but can be produced in any medium.
• Open to both students and established artists and distributed to educators and publishers internationally!
• Winning 50 entries are published, great for exploring your specialism and seeing how others have interpreted the brief. An exhibition is held at Museum in the Park, Shroud every year.
• I could work with lat yeas brief again but I'm planning to the final competition, Macmillan Prize, with the new Cheltenham brief in the summer.
• Format- 40x50cm for best fit on the page, other sizes are accepted too.

I love this competition but I think it would be more beneficial to do a bigger brief to fill the 8-week time frame and push myself to make something bigger. I'm planning to do this in my own time over the summer and maybe at the end of my other chosen brief so I can include research and mood boards in time for hand-in. 

The Macmillan Prize

Deadline- 12th to 28th April open for submissions

• Was cancelled last year due to COVID 19 but back this year
• Open to illustrators studying full or part-time in art schools and colleges aiming to stimulate creative work that helps students step into their professional career.
• Run by Macmillan Children's Books, a prize for Children's Picture Book Illustration and judged by art directors and illustrators at the publishing company.
• The brief requires pencil roughs of each page/spread including text or indication of the storyline. In addition, finished artwork for at least three spreads and a front cover.
• Format- Picture book between 24-40 pages, including front and back endpages, title and copyright page. Can be fiction or non-fiction with your own story, collaborative text or traditional story.
• Can include novelty elements like flaps or fold-out pages but should be appropriate for children
• Target Audience- Young children
• Artwork- Prepared to the same size or 30% larger than the page size with corner marks to show trim. Can be in any medium. Lettering should be black in a transparent overlay, not directly onto the artwork. 'It is important to avoid monotonous layouts with little contrast in composition or colour.'
• Digital Submissions open on 12th April 2021

I think this competition sounds incredible with winners and highly commended entrants work on display in an exhibition. The first prize is £1,000, the second is £500 and the third is £250. The incredibly comprehensive brief (more like a contract) also mentions the possibility of a Macmillan publishing agreement being offered to any entry! 

This is pretty nerve-racking for me because its an amazing opportunity I wish I'd known about earlier. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish and submit it in time for the deadline while managing other projects simultaneously. I've chosen to work on a book I made during college but completely remake all the illustrations and add more narrative elements which Ill talk more about in future blog posts. By using a book I made previously, it gives me a good foundation to work with as I plan to keep the original text and characters, only changing the illustrations. I'm really excited to get started on this one!