Hooray for Morgue Files!

Doesn’t that title sound pretty morbid, readers? Well, call it what you want but we’re visual people and we tend to amass a lot of junk and images that inspire us. From postcards of fellow illustrators to random scraps of paper, it’s not uncommon for us to take little things and hold them off to the side to inspire us. There are many different ways to showcase all this stuff; some people put together inspiration boards and hang them on their wall. Many illustrators in the past would keep full filing cabinets of the stuff and just refer to them. Me, I’ve had a very disorganized take on the whole thing– papers scattered here and there, magazines held off to the side in bins, and a few folders filled with printouts and clippings. Let me just say that I rarely ever looked at this stuff, which defeats the purpose of holding onto it in the first place! If there was a fire, there would have been a lot of kindling.

So yesterday I decided to do something about it– relatively cheaply and easily. I went off to Staples and bought two 1″ binders, along with a pack of 200 sheet protectors. Originally I hadn’t considered making them look nice, which is why they are different colors. But I had some sample wallpaper pieces I had obtained a year or two ago that fit perfectly for the covers, and after cutting some scrap cardstock down, edging it all pretty and lettering the titles on them, they look better than they did at first!

Side view of the binders; slipped in some fabric samples I got from a kid’s bedding company recently to make them look a little nicer.

Interior of the color file: with one of my favorite quotes about color, from interior designer David Hicks:

“The first thing to be said about color is that clashing colors do not exist. The whole idea of certain colors conflicting violently with others was nonsense dreamed up by a lot of genteel women in the 1930s. Colors do not clash–they vibrate…So do not be afraid to use color freely. Have courage. As with drawing, painting, acting or any creative activity, you must attack with strength.”

I think that having a color file can be a godsend for illustrators– especially if you’re like the majority of my peers from college who were more nervous about color than black and white. Me, I am the total opposite, but I love to be inspired by different color combos and keep them in mind for future screen prints and illustrations. The color file is predominantly filled with pages from Domino magazine, whom I’ve subscribed to for a while now purely for the way they mix colors and styles together. However, I had about 20+ back issues just sitting in my bookcases that I never read because they took up space and I didn’t want to flip through all the pages I wasn’t interested in to find something inspiring. Now, that’s not possible! I also have a few pages from old issues of Lucky, Print,  the now defunct Blueprint– taking stock of great color combinations and patterns I might like to incorporate later. There’s also some fun photos of people that I might refer to later.

The inspiration file is a little more hodgepodge– but no less important! Inside I have images I’ve printed off from illustrators I admire to learn how they make their marks, photos from fashion magazines for various poses/outfits, older reference photos I printed out for old assignments, illustrations I found in magazines I’ve received,  and a lot of pages torn from National Geographic.  (I grew up in a household that always received it in the mail, and currently has most of a huge bookcase filled with them from the last 20-30 years!) Previously these things were sitting in a small hanging file on my floor– but I never looked at them until I remembered I might want something, and then fumbled around to figure out where I might’ve put it. Now, I have a concrete place to put images and refer to them later!

So for the cost of about $30, I put together two great inspirational sources that I plan to refer to often from now on, whenever I’m stuck and think “I can’t think of anything.”

Check out an extended look at my files here: this just scrapes the surface though, as each book has about 150 images in them already!

Grad School and you? (pt. two of many)

[As previously mentioned in the last post, this week I’ll be posting the answers from illustrators who came out of SVA’s Illustration as Visual Essay MFA, to learn just what they thought of their alma mater’s program.]

Next up is Paul Hoppe, a talented illustrator who’s done work for both editorial and children’s markets alike, as well as a healthy dose of comics/sequential work. He graduated in 2005 and has done a lot of work since. Please check out his site at http://www.paulhoppe.com.

***********

1. How many people were in your program?

PH:  18 in my year, 18 in the second year. So there’s always about 40 people in the studios.

2. Did you live in a dorm or off-campus?

PH: I lived off-campus, with roommates.

3. Did you apply to other programs? If so, which ones, and what made you pick SVA?

PH: No, only SVA. I wanted to do an MFA in illustration, and I wanted to get to know New York and work here.

Grad School and you? (pt. one of many)

Well, I’m still effectively one of the slowest bloggers ever. To be quite honest, I don’t foresee Trade Secrets continuing with me at the helm for a long while– honestly, as someone who is still slowly learning about how to be a good illustrator I think I have a lot to figure out myself! (I still have a few more posts in me yet, have no fear though.) But due to that, the idea of attaining a MFA is often something my mind works back to. We’ve touched upon that a few times here, but recently I decided to be a little more proactive and learn beyond what the college websites and guidebooks have shared. So I wrote a couple dozen MFA recipients from the School of Visual Arts and asked more than a dozen questions trying to learn just what they thought of their alma mater’s program. I’ve received several responses, and will be posting them throughout the next week or two. Hopefully they’ll be as useful to you as they have been to me!

First up is from Elisabeth Alba, an illustrator focusing on the children’s market who just graduated this spring. You can check out her portfolio at http://www.elisa-alba.com!

***********

1. How many people were in your program?

EA: There are around 20 people per class, give or take a few. Since there are two years in the program, that totals around 40 students all around.

2. Did you live in a dorm or off-campus?

EA: I lived off campus. A few people in my class lived in dorms for a bit, but eventually moved out. I don’t hear great things about the dorms. They’re mostly for undergrads too so you’ll feel a little out of place.