Back on 28 October 2015, Jessica Gledhill from The Creative Workshop came and spoke to members of the Central Coast Art Society about her vision for the creative and making arts on the Central Coast.

Back in 2008-2011 she could see a lot of talented graduates emerge from the Newcastle Art School with great hopes to pursue print making, fashion, leather and jewellery design, and then never go any further because they lost access to the equipment and machinery that TAFE, Universities and Art Schools provide. Very few people have the resources to purchase that kind of equipment themselves, let alone have enough storage space at home to house it.

She could see that some kind of 'maker space' was needed on the Central Coast, a place where artists and artisans could gain access to the equipment needed to take their talents from the concept stage to the prototype stage, to small scale manufacturing - essential steps along the road of getting to middle scale manufacturing and earning-a-living success.

Such a maker space would provide mutual encouragement for artisans, an opportunity to engage with the community, to exhibit and sell their work, a place to create their work, and opportunities to collaborate on business ideas.
   

The first step was gauging the interest in such a project. For this she secured funding for a weekend workshop in 2014 at the Gosford Regional Gallery. That was a resounding success, but a place to set up the equipment for much longer than a weekend was needed.

With the help of Westfield Tuggerah a one month lease of space was secured, and a series of 20 workshops began on such topics as millinery, t-shirts, felt making and others. Several thousand dollars were taken in sales and the network of interested people expanded.

The next phase is happening now, with a 6 month lease of space on the ground floor of the Imperial Shopping Centre at Gosford. It has been a very patient wait for the Centre renovations to be completed so that the maker space can begin.

A more permanent home for the maker space is still being sought, so if you think you can help, contact Jessica via her personal Facebook page, or the Creative Workshop Facebook page. 

The maker space will be funded in part through three levels of membership, full, concession and associate. For more information about that, visit the membership page. 

And of course, should you be visiting Gosford in the first half of 2016, pop into the Imperial Centre and get inspired.

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Everyone still seems to be in holiday mode, or have prior commitments with family, so our lunch is postponed until May 2016.

Over the past few weeks I have been looking at Graphic Design portfolios. They have a lot in common with portfolios that Illustrators put together. Even though I looked at some portfolios from Degree students and some from Diploma students, the majority of them had the same easily fixed mistakes. Every mistake is a flag that tells a potential employer that you are not yet job ready.

Presentation: Spend some money on your portfolio packaging so that the person looking at your portfolio gets excited about what they might find inside. Corban & Blair are the 'go to' people for quality. While vertical flip-over portfolios were the rage with the Diploma students, it takes a lot more physical effort for a person to look through them than with a flat book-style portfolio. 

Put your name on it: I am still flabbergasted at the number of portfolios I saw that did not contain the name of the person who put it together. Sometimes it was there, but illegible. If you are going to have typographical fun with your name, make sure that the Average Joe can read it. Don't make people puzzle about whether your 'k' is an 'r' or an 'ry' or a 'k'. One person had a trade name, and an unrelated email address and never provided an actual first name and surname.

Put your contact information in it: I saw plenty of wonderful portfolios with a name emblazoned on the first page and absolutely no contact information anywhere else in the portfolio. This was distressingly not a rare problem; at least 80% of the portfolios lacked any basic contact information at all. Contact information was the first thing I looked for, if it wasn't there, then I didn't do much more than glance through the portfolio. I wanted to know that if I got excited about this person's work, I could get in touch with them.  Having your business cards available separately is not enough. What happens if you misplace your portfolio? Don't make it hard for someone to track you down in order to return it to you. The easier you make it for people to contact you, the more contact options you give them, the more likely it is that they will. So provide more than just your website address.

Provide a professional email address:  It might have been cool at school to have a nickname based email address, (eg wicked1, gloomyB, terminator3) but it is a turn off for a potential employer. So set up a new email address for your working life, that at minimum contains your surname and start using it.

Put your location in it: Be general eg The Hills District, the Northern Beaches or be specific eg Hornsby Heights, Artarmon - but give the viewer of your portfolio this crucial piece of information. If I want to hire someone to do a brochure or branding work for me, I know that the further away geographically from me they are the more complications the project is going to have. The more exceptional your work is, the more geographical distance I am willing to work with. Everyone seems to love gmail addresses these days, but they don't even give a clue about which country you live in!

Put your photo in it: Often these portfolio exhibitions are accompanied by social interaction. If you put a photo of yourself in your portfolio you increase the likelihood of someone at the event coming up and talking to you about your work. You do want to make personal connections that may lead to jobs and projects in the future, don't you? Having a photograph says that you are proud of your work and builds brand recognition for you. This photo will also help your viewer find the right you on social networking platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc).

Say Hello: Your front page gives context to your work, so tell your portfolio viewer who you are, tell them what you can uniquely do, give them some 'back story'.  It is your primary sales page, and it is supposed to get your viewer excited about turning the next page. Sure, a blank page with your name in bold black lettering makes a statement. However, a page with a name, photo, a two paragraph bio and a paragraph about what aspects of graphic design you love most (Are you a typography nerd, a branding queen, a packaging protégé ? tell them!) is far more likely to land you a paid project or an actual job.

Be tech savvy: Just about everyone likely to look at your portfolio is going to have a mobile device with them. Once you've seen more than 2 portfolios it is going to be hard to remember what you really liked in Portfolio number 4 when the event ends, and even less likely 2 weeks later. So you're going to whip out your phone or iPad and take a photo. Then you get home and find out that there is absolutely nothing on the page you photographed to remind you whose portfolio it was. 'Arrghh' for your viewer and a major missed opportunity for you. So make sure you have your name and a piece of contact information on each and every page of your portfolio.

Give your reader some context: Time and time again I saw eye catching portfolio pages that lacked any text whatever. What was this piece for? What part of it should I get excited about? It doesn't have to be much. 2 or 3 sentences that are easy to read from a distance of a metre away (average length between viewer's eyeballs and your portfolio page) and that tell your viewer what the brief was – are all that you need. You do want to wow your viewer with your skill in fulfilling the briefs you have been given, don’t you? A potential employer definitely wants to know you can do that. But go easy on the jargon and explain your work in terms a non-graphic designer can understand.

Show some process:  Make sure that you have at least one page or a two page spread that shows a few steps between getting the brief and the final art. They could include an initial thumbnail sketch, a mind map, an early concept, a half completed project, and then the finished work. No one will ever appreciate how much work went into a project unless you actually show them. You can be sure that those who do show some design process are going to get paid more than those who don't. A potential employer also needs to know that the messy thumbnail sketches you show him at the beginning of a project will result in something wow-inducing at the end of the project.

Choose your content: It stands to reason that you put only your very best work into your portfolio. But if one of your projects was designing your own business forms and stationery, do not under any circumstances include it in your portfolio. By all means, show off and business forms and stationery you have done for a client. It is very bad taste to show your own. Why? Firstly it sends the message that you didn't have enough client initiated work to put in your portfolio. Secondly it sends the message that you are too focussed on yourself and not on your clients. Too many of the portfolios I saw made this mistake. Don't do it.

Get a proof reader: You are too close to your own work. Someone with fresh eyes will spot the spelling mistake, the grammatical error, and anything that doesn't visually 'work' much quicker than you can. Should English not be your native language, get two proof readers. I saw a very fine portfolio that was graphically very good, but grammatically very poor – it was enough to make you weep. It had hyphenated text, inconsistent capitalisation, grammar errors and more. Sadly it wasn't the only portfolio with errors like that. Potential employers want to know that you are on top of details like that.

Say Goodbye: A good portfolio has a beginning, a middle and an end. Far too many of the portfolios I saw did not have an end page. No one likes to read a story that doesn't have a conclusion. A good ending leaves you wanting more; a bad ending or a non-ending spoils the impression of the whole portfolio. Obviously you need to re-state, in an interesting way, who you are, how to contact you, and perhaps what your dreams for the future are. This is where you could get creative in showing off your online real estate – with screen shots from YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc; and your ABN number (or equivalent) if you have one.
 
Yes, I have more tips on Portfolio preparation. But that's enough to chew on for now.
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If you ever need an independent proof reader, get in touch with me via the contact page, and then send me via email a compressed PDF of your work-in-progress. I'll send feedback back.

Tomorrow's lunch at Gosford is postponed until January at Doyalson. Lots of people sent apologies due to travel, family, study and work commitments. 

Both of these links provide clear examples of the right way and the wrong way to go about these two important tasks.

This article from Tim Grahl contains the best reasoning I've seen for why you should begin your author platform and developing your networks as soon as you begin to write seriously and not after the manuscript is finished and the decision to publish is made. It explains why I have seen so many writers succeed with the former (eg Georgie Donaghey and Katrina McKelvey) and many more fail with the latter (do you remember our Kickstarter friend?). http://timgrahl.com/when-should-you-start-marketing-your-book/?utm_content=buffer36c1d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Now for some more good stuff from Chris Wilson, this time about writing introductory letters and emails in order get a response from decision makers (producers, art directors etc). The comparison between the two letters, one bad, one good, is instructive and easily transferable not only to seeking paid creative projects but also to the business of writing query letters (although for query letters a 'call to action' is a no no). http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=e697248f247d94623b1b5bb8a&id=ecdb59b2f8

If you have been looking for some encouragement to dust off your blog and keep it going, then this article will help because it explains why regular blogging makes a writer more attractive to publishers. Because 1) Bloggers have a platform/readership tribe, 2) Bloggers test their ideas and get feedback on what works through analytics, 3) A long term blogger creates subject matter credibility, 4) Blogging gets you thinking not just like a writer but also like a salesperson, and 5) If you are blogging then you are writing, and the more writing you do the better writer you will become.
http://michaelhyatt.com/5-reasons-publishers-love-bloggers.html?utm_content=bufferb9071&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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A perennial question is, 'What does an art director look for in an illustrator?' In this article Giuseppe Castellano answers that question from his perspective. He starts with what the text needs. Once he has a list of those needs (eg eerie, bold, black & white) he goes looking for illustrators who can deliver quality in those areas (strong character design, an understanding of colour theory, compositional intelligence, consistency and an ability to command the medium). He then searches widely online and offline, and appreciates professionally done postcards. An up-to-date website that showcases only your best work is essential. If your work meets the needs and quality requirements AND fits with the tone of the story, then you will make his short list.
http://www.gcastellano.com/arttips/2014/12/16/what-does-a-childrens-book-art-director-look-for

So any illustrator who wants steady work should be doing four things: 1) getting independent feedback on what kind of atmospheric qualities and story tone your style melds with, 2) research into the atmosphere and tone of recently published illustrated books as possible, 3) working out what sub-genre of children's books you have the best synergy with, and making contact with agents, publishers and art directors who do a significant amount of work in that sub-genre, and 4) working hard on improving the technical quality of your artwork.​

This CYA Conference 2015 Masterclass was given by Morris Gleitzman, a well-known author of fiction for children. Born in England, he has spent most of his life in Australia. You can learn more about him from his website http://www.morrisgleitzman.com/ , Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Morris-Gleitzman-151048428269244/timeline/ and Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Gleitzman .

These rough notes are an edited summary of his Masterclass.

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The good news is that the story has lasted millennia. Our human need for stories will continue.

We live in tension between curiosity and incorrect assumptions, and these two human traits fuel our need for stories.

Many years ago, an elderly screenwriter was my mentor and he taught that the most important thing was to 'Don't Tell. Show'.

If someone says, 'On my desk is a copy of the worst book ever written', our curiosity is engaged and the hint of a human problem is tantalizing.

Most surface assumptions we make about situations are incorrect.

A story satisfies these two strands of tension. To start a story journey we need that spark of curiosity to invite readers beneath the surface. But that is only the beginning of a storyteller's job.

We also want to empathize with the protagonist/s, to share in their emotions. Emotions are universal, and there is a fixed palette of them from which many mixed varieties may be used.

If a writer has done his/her job well, then emotions will be evoked in the reader, and an emotional connection made.

A story must have at least one character with at least one problem. Leave no stone unturned in finding solutions and obstacles.

Humans find problems endlessly fascinating, and yet strangely our top three missions in life are to be 'problem free'.

I like to write stories about characters facing big problems, but who don't get crushed by them. Some will just survive the problem, some will resist the problem, some will solve the problem or learn a way to live with the problem. The rule is: no matter how huge the problem, display the best behaviour of character.

Some stories don't have a complete solution, so they solve it by learning to live with the unsolvable or just survive the problem.

Think about a character with 2 problems that are mutually exclusive, so that they can only choose one to solve. For example: a character with the desire for his sibling to be cured of a terminal illness and a desire to be an only child again. A character like that is more interesting than one which has only one problem to solve.

Optimism is an important part of character, as is learning from mistakes.

Sometimes to solve a problem you need friends ('Misery Guts') or a bit of research ('Doubting Thomas').

Whenever there is an unsolvable problem a choice must be made, will it crush the character or let the character develop better?

When you write about the setting of your story, the trick is to find the balance between too much and too little exposition.

Make your author voice close to, but not the same as, your main character.

Do not delay any clue that a problem exists.

A story without a problem has no movement, no change, no options and no array of possible endings.

As soon as a problem exists, the exposition becomes easier to give – as long as the exposition is relevant.

Humour: I don't believe you can learn humour, it is something inbuilt. You can learn the techniques of humour, but that's about as far as it goes. Humour is worth experimenting with, to find out whether you have it or not. That's because people enjoy it, and it can also aid you in describing things quicker.

Character development: Up to a point a character will do what I think I would do. – unless I want them to have a particular experience or capacity for empathy. Sometimes I let them have a mistake or a moment of weakness.

Sometimes you have to let characters fail for their own good. All problems are opportunities for growth and development.

For me, character development is an intuitive thing. I do have a powerful sense of becoming friends with a main character, which often starts through their problems and their emotions.

My characters all have good hearts. It is very hard for me to write any other kind of character.

What doesn't work for me is creating a dossier for a character. Become comfortable with your own process.

I do outline my books, usually in 4 pages of text. But I let that outline be a map and not a done deal. Feel free to go off map anytime it feels right.

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If you would like a copy of the more detailed Conference Notes that are being sent out to CBHunCC members via email, send through your name and email address via the Contact page.

Our member, Julie Duell, launched her latest book 'Fabulous Aussie Fables' in the library of Central Coast Grammar on 3 Sep 2015. That library is a truly amazing place.

Once everyone had arrived and had a pleasant drink, nibble and chat, Julie showed us a slideshow of her book and then spoke about how it came to be. 

The timeless educational value of Aesop's Fables appealed to her, but her children and grandchildren struggled to grasp the concepts clothed as they were in northern hemisphere animals and objects that modern people never come across in daily life. So she began making lists of Australian animals and their characteristics, and matching them up to the various values the timeless stories inspired, eg courage, perseverance. Then after re-writing the stories in easy to understand language and adding some new ones, she began the work of illustrating them. That involved choosing the most engaging scene from the story and doing lots of research into what Australian animals look like (how many toes does a kangaroo have?).

The result is Fabulous Aussie Fables, and if interest is strong there may be a sequel.

To learn more about Julie's book, visit https://primaryethicssupportmaterial.wordpress.com/ or watch the book trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ZQOaY68PI 

The lunch time meeting that was to be at Doyalson RSL on Wednesday 9 September has been postponed till the next meeting date of 11 November at Central Coast Leagues. Those who would have attended had already recently spent some quality time together at Julie Duell's book launch of her 'Fabulous Aussie Fables' last week, or have other significant matters to attend to.

Here are some highlights from Jacqui Honeywood's CYA Conference session on Social Media and Blogging:

Her blogs are http://b-brand.blogspot.com.au/ and http://crapmamma.com/ and she can be found on Twitter at @BBRANDjac and @CRAPMamma .

Jacqui compared for us the conversion-to-sales power of the 'I've put so much work into this book, it's fantastic, buy it!' approach to the 'this is the situation in my life that I was struggling with that caused me to write this book to help my son' approach. The back story to the book sells far more copies, and the beauty of social media is that it gives us the ability to share the background to our stories and why you wrote them.

Your first aim is to grow your online readers. Your second aim is to sell your product.

Successful social media use includes blogging, and requires work on both strategy (technical) and community (speaking to people online).

Technical things are like defining your audience, setting objectives and doing search engine optimization (SEO).

Community things are like engaging, responding, commenting, sharing and connecting.

Why blog?
To connect with your audience
To maintain an ongoing connection
To keep relevant
To have an online presence
To promote a brand
To give credibility to your work
To personalise your stuff, your product
To engage a sense of loyalty
   It is very important to respond to comments and to comment on other blogs.

What will you blog about?
The community that you want to tap into probably already exists. Instead, think about how you can help that community do what it wants to do. Remember, blogging is not about you, it is about them.

Your content has to be of value to your audience.
Does it motivate?
Does it educate?
Does it inspire?
Is it authentic?
Is it helpful?
Does it provide solutions?
Does it elicit emotion? (If it does, it will provoke more likes and shares)

As long as you are doing that with most of your content, you can filter in some of your promotional stuff.

At the end of your blog post you need a call to action.

Before you hit 'publish', take a moment to consider whether this blog post will work towards your strategy and community objectives. If the answer is 'Yes' hit that button, if 'No' then some re-writing and re-thinking is required first.



If you would like a copy of the more detailed Conference Notes that are being sent out to CBHunCC members via email, send through your name and email address through the Contact page.