More T-shirt designs, different company

There is a local company, SS Designs, that handles both the art duties and the production of apparel for the central Florida theme parks as well as other retail outlets. As an artistic audition, they have commissioned me to create some work for the summer/spring women's junior market. I'm to use Roxy and Billabong as inspiration. The penguin proves that I have a really confused concept of summer. If they like this enough, I could have a staff job. More crossed fingers.

Didn't get the Carter's internship

Well, there is a reason I subtitled my blog "all part of the learning process." Sometimes trying too hard to be clever and original works against you. Case in point, Carter's. They have spent many years doing the same thing...because it works for them. Safari animals, woodland critters, popular ocean denizens, puppies, and dinos. You get the idea. They stay with these themes because new grandmas always buy them and Carter's does them really well. I overstepped with characters like the griffin, which may show that I can use Illustrator and that I know how to draw, but didn't give them any evidence that I could embrace the specific Carter's look. Sadly, I veered into the wrong direction with my follow up submission, thinking that holiday icons would work. Um, no. They hated it. So, I'm still unemployed, getting a little worried about bills, and hoping I get some good financial news about grad school.

Even More Children's Designs

It's official; not having high speed internet access is no fun. It takes so long to upload images, I haven't been overly inspired to do so for a while. However, knowing that this is an important tool to show my work to the online audience, I have to persevere. Towards that end, here's another page from my Carter's portfolio.

I had a very good interview with the VP of Art Direction at Carter's, but the two criticisms she had about my work is that, 1) I target an older audience than the newborns, and 2) there wasn't enough work to overwhelm her. That's an interesting concern for other artists to think about. Although it could change for each art director with whom you speak, Ms. Bartling wants a LOT of work shown to her, not just your ten favorite pieces. Put multiple images on each page and fill them like the samples she provides to interested applicants. The day after my interview, I designed twelve icons, one for a major holiday in each month. The next morning, I added four of the creatures shown here. Later, another frog and the elephants showed up. I want to impress upon Carter's that I'm interested in the position and able to apply the advice given. I'm supposed to find out later today if I was successful or not.